SILFIDA
Herman Levenshell
Ballet in two acts

Libretto: Adolf Nurri and Filippo Tallioni
Choreography: August Burnonvill edited by Elza Marianne von Rosen
Director: Oleg Vinogradov
Designers: Irina Press, Vyacheslav Okunev
Consultant: Allan Fridericia
Conductor: Pavel Sorokin


”Silfida” is the oldest classical ballet going on the contemporary stage. This ballet is often called a mystical one, firstly because of its unusual plot: main character in “Silfida”, James, can easily travel from the real world to the fantastic one and back and at the same time he is in love with the usual girl Effie (who becomes his bride) and unreal one, Silfida, who is the spirit of air. In the end reality wins over the dreamland and Silfida is ruined by the deceitful witch Mage.
The second reason is that “Silfida” is the one and only time in the history of the XIX century ballet when the same plot has been used for two completely different ballets. First “Silfida” has been created in 1832 by Philip Tallioni, music was written by Schneizhoffer. Tallioni created ballet for his daughter - legendary dancer Maria Tallioni. The second ballet has been staged in 1836 on the Dutch stage by Avgust Burnonvill, music written by H.Levenshell.

The third reason is that “Silfida” on the opposite from many other ballets doesn’t want to turn into forgotten legend, no matter what. It was not performed in Russia for almost 150 years. But even after such a big gap Oleg Vinogradov (principal ballet-master in Mariinsky Theatre in the 90-s) revived Burnonvill’s version in 1994 first in Saint-Petersburg, then in Moscow on Bolshoy Theatre’s stage.
“Silfida’s” choreography will surprise the admirers of Russian classical ballet. Productions of Dutch choreography school are always easy to tell from Russian productions because of numerous small pas’, elaborate, accurate poses and unusual jumps. When the dancers perform them it looks as if they are hovering in the air for several seconds. Part of Silfida is especially interesting. Numerous small jumps make the ballerina look like a fantastic airy creature. And some of the elements from the male romantic dance, performed by James, have disappeared from Russian versions at all. Burnonvill’s “Silfida” is the result of the dialog between Dutch and French ballet styles. Burnonvill knew for sure that French romanticism wouldn’t be welcome in puritan Denmark and made sure to make the right stresses beforehand. James in his version (Burnonvill danced this part himself) – is an enthusiastic, fairly nice boy, easily carried away. As most Scandinavians, he believes that the fairy tale characters are realm, as Andersen believed in mermaids, Norwegians believed in trolls, Swedish people in gnomes, Scottish people – in elves. But his friendship with surreal creatures brings him nothing good – peasants see his fantasies as a frail condition, close to madness.
Historians say that libretto is generally based on one of the tales, which gave the ballet its Scottish atmosphere, the idea of love between human and spirit. But actually it reflects the whole romantic literature, art and music.

Большой театр. Новая сцена
м. Охотный ряд, Театральная площадь, д. 1, 125009 Москва
Russian Federation

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