English National Ballet

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The choreography of Peter Schaufuss is a return to Auguste Bournonville's mythical 1836 version of La Sylphide, one of the gems of the repertory of the Royal Danish Ballet and of the many other companies which, following the première, incorporated both the work and what it signified - the brilliant start of the golden age of Romantic ballet. La Sylphide marked a turning point in the history of ballet. The original choreography was written by Philippe Taglioni (1832) in honour of the legendary Marie Taglioni, who lent definitive legitimacy to the use of blocked pumps and renewed the ballerinas' costumes with their muslin juponnages in her obsession for lightness, volatile bodies, ethereal gestures and ephemeral presence. La Sylphide is a hinge work between the old ballet, that was to disappear with the new century, and the unremitting advance of the Romantic movement. Bournonville contributed a different type of Romanticism, devoid of affectation or painful mediation, imbued with humanism and candour. This is not, however, the work of a great reformer of ballet. Bournonville was not a theoretician of the importance of Noverre, or a revolutionary like Fokine, but a great artist who knew he was the heir to a tradition and was capable of making the essence of the classical school carry over into the Romantic period. His dance, however, is multidirectional, in constant motion, with steps projecting in all directions, as though the audience were arranged in a circle and the continuity of the impulse sought to create the impression of a great legato.

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