Philadelphia Ballet presents August Bournonville’s La Sylphide

This is not the first of the Romantic fairytale ballets. It isn’t even the first La Sylphide; that honor goes to Filippo Taglioni, whose creation for his daughter, the famed ballerina Marie Taglioni, caught Bournonville’s eye. But that version has not survived, making the Bournonville the oldest of the Romantic ballets still in the repertoire. Ballerinas were in the ascendant then, but Bournonville created his ballet with his own quick footwork in mind, so it highlights the danseur’s role as well as the Sylph.

A Highland fling

Set in the bucolic Scottish Highlands, La Sylphide tells a tale of magic and tragedy. Prosperous farmer James, danced by Jack Thomas on opening night, is engaged to be married. But as he naps on a chair by the huge inglenook fireplace, a magical Sylph (Oksana Maslova) enters his dream in a white Romantic tutu with delicate wings on her back. She circles him on pointe, with little skips and kicks in her jumps. Bournonville’s choreography pairs that quick, light footwork with low, elegant shoulders and a downward tilt of the head, and Herman Severin Løvenskiold’s score lyrically captures the yearning and hesitance in Maslova’s downcast eyes as well as her excitement and curiosity.

James, in a blue kilt and snug jacket with lace at the cuffs (Peter Cazelet designed the sets and costumes) is entranced, but his cousin Gurn (Isaac Hollis) pantomimes that it must be a dream. Soon the plot thickens: Gurn himself is pining for James’s fiancée. Before romantic obsession leads James to his doom, however, the company was glorious in the country dances. The women in dirndl skirts and snug jackets celebrated the bride in a folk dance with quick little hops. As the witch at the hearth, Jessica Kilpatrick read their palms with broad, expressive gestures that promised love for one and disappointment for another, and revealed a secret scandal for yet another. When her reading for the bride led to a different groom, she was hustled away, never a good idea when one is embroiled in the uncanny.

The men in their kilts stole the show with some fabulous jetés. Thomas’s highland fling was sharp and quick; he barely seemed to touch the ground in a 19th-century dance battle with his rival, who may have come in second, but not by much. The reel, with the whole company, including a handful of children finding their way between the couples, brought a joy that felt completely authentic amid the fantasy.

Witches never forget

Witches never forget a slight, and Act 2 begins in a forest, with a cauldron and a coven of five witches, all but Kilpatrick played by men of the company. They tossed in eye of newt and circled the cauldron creating the spell-bound scarf that would soon lead to tragedy, but first the women of the corps appeared as sylphs for their traditional “white ballet”. So Jung Shin was a marvel as the lead sylph, leaping across the stage as if her wings were real in the Mazurka.

But James has thrown away his honor. He ran out on his fiancée on their wedding day and tries to bind his Sylph with a cursed scarf that kills her instead. At the end, he dies, and Gurn gets his girl.

La Sylphide is not my favorite of the Romantic fairy tale ballets. It relies a bit more on pantomime to drive the story than ballets even a few years later, which slows it down in spots. But the company delivered a vibrant performance in the difficult Bournonville technique.

Something completely different

With intermission, La Sylphide ran just under 90 minutes, so I’d have been content to end the evening there. But the company had another Danish Ballet treat in store: Harald Lander’s modernist Etudes, set to piano etudes by Carl Czerny and transformed by the orchestration of Knudåge Riisager.

The curtain opened to darkness, with white light shining on just the legs of three dancers in black tutus at the unseen barre. As the piece progressed, the light shifted to three more dancers, then three more, going through the barre exercises. Another curtain rose, and against a bright blue background the dancers appeared in silhouette before the lighting shifted again and dancers in white took the barre for elegant stretches. Lander’s lighting, realized by Brad Fields, seemed like part of the choreography. At the center of the dance, Sydney Dolen and partners Sterling Baca and Ashton Roxander were gorgeous in white for a brief romantic interlude. Their technique was lovely, but I most appreciated their connection, and the pure fun they seemed to be having together.