In the moonlight, white sylphs flutter around a poet searching for perfection. In its final version, Les Sylphides (a one-act ballet by Michel Fokine) was performed by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes on 2nd June 1909 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris with music by Frédéric Chopin. By going back to the origins of La Sylphide (1832) by Filippo Taglioni, the epitome of romantic ballet, “my ballet is romantic reverie...”, the choreographer says.
In fact, he presented this dance suite under the same title In Saint Petersburg, Russia on 23rd February 1907, which we’ll take on by plunging into Romanticism’s recurrent themes. Because escape, rapture in a dream, self-reflection, the human soul’s passions and vulnerability, the disenchantment of the world – all the things that constitute the Sickness of the Century are not fatal, far from it.
Thierry Malandain
Premiere
Victoria Eugenia Antzokia, Donostia / San Sebastián
6th-7th April 2018
music Frédéric Chopin
choreography Thierry Malandain
dressmaker Véronique Murat, Nelly Geyres, Charlotte Margnoux
lighting design Thierry Malandain et Christian Grossard
Coproduction Cadences Festival – Théâtre Olympia, Arcachon, France; Les Beaux jours de la musique Festival – Biarritz, Donostia Kultura - Victoria Eugenia Antzokia de Donostia / San Sebastian – Ballet T, CCN – Malandain Ballet Biarritz
Length 30’
Ballet for 22 dancers