The impact of the ballet La Sylphide, with Marie Taglioni, which premiered in 1832, changed classical dance forever. Of course, it was the production that marked the use of pointe shoes for the first time, but, even more than that, it transformed the spiritual magic of the sylphs into a “tradition”. From the protagonist’s ethereal costume, “white” acts emerged, repeated in Swan Lake, La Bayadère, Giselle, and several others. Furthermore, La Sylphide was such a success that it inspired a 40-minute piece called Les Sylphides, a piece that is still in the repertoire of several companies today.

On the ride to success, a piece commissioned to shake

In the pre-George Balanchine years, it was not at all common to have concert ballets, or rather, “plotless” ballets, which were dance for dance’s sake. There was always an argument for having pantomime and then dancing, but Les Sylphides broke the mold, proving a huge success.

Described as a “romantic reverie”, where a poet dances with spirits in search of his muse, Les Sylphides is composed of a set of loose dances, with a “simple” setting of a moonlit forest. In eight pieces, we see combinations in groups, solos, pairs, and finally all together. It’s visually perfect.

The work became known in its current format in 1909, as a commission by Sergei Diaghilev for Balles Russes, openly wanting to create a “new” impactful ballet like La Sylphide, a work that at the time was already 77 years old. That’s why he commissioned Michel Fokine to present something as part of the “Saison Russe” that became so successful in Paris.

Fokine then remembered a piece he had created a year earlier in Saint Petersburg, which he had named Chopiniana, in honor of Frederic Chopin’s music, which was used by the choreographer. As there was no dance without a plot, as we said, this small ballet was created imagining several scenes from Chopin’s own life, including the typical dance also common at the time, in this case including a Polish wedding, the country’s typical dance in ballroom dance. It was what Fokine could use to work with the short time he had on his hands.

The essentially romantic ballet

The modernity of the Ballets Russes allowed Michel Fokine‘s boldness to discard not only the original characters but also any suggestion of a plot. When reviewing the work, the focus was to evoke the essence of romantic ballet, especially with Chopin’s music.

As the musical pieces had been written for piano, Fokine used the score orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov, a work that the maestro had worked on as early as 1892, when he defined the order of some pieces and assembled them as a purely orchestral suite. It was Glazunov who titled it Chopiniana, Op. 46. The concert anticipated the ballet and the Russian public heard the orchestration in December 1893, conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1909, Igor Stravinsky retouched the scores, leaving only the waltz exactly as Glazunov orchestrated it.

The revision of the ballet made it possible to include a new, stronger title, chosen as Les Sylphides, piggybacking without any shame or disguise on the 1832 ballet. The main soloists on the opening night were Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina, Anna Pavlova, and Maria Baldina. The success was resounding. Pavlova was all in white, as highlighted in the season’s poster, with a long tutu, designed by Léon Bakst and inspired by a lithograph by Marie Taglioni. After the debut, all the dancers started to use the same model.

The ballet opens with the poet surrounded by sylphs who dance in the following order: All together in the prelude and nocturne. Then the first waltz is danced by a soloist, followed by the mazurka by one of the first dancers. The second mazurka is the poet’s solo and it is followed by another prelude, which is the solo of a different soloist. Then comes the waltz for the pas de deux, with the prima ballerina and the poet, closing with everyone together in the grand final waltz.

A popular piece used to train dancers

The simplicity of Les Sylphides‘ proposal, with Fokine’s steps and creativity and an undemanding setting, unsurprisingly gained immediate popularity and is used in many graduation productions and dance schools, as well as professional companies.

In general, the piece remains exactly as performed in 1909, but in 1972, Alexandra Danilova made a change for the New York City Ballet, including reverting the ballet’s name back to Chopiniana. In Danilova’s vision, the dance is more simplified, but, unlike the original ballet, the costumes discard the long romantic tutus that were exchanged for white leotards and simple white skirts, more faithful to the minimalist aesthetic that George Balanchine established as the standard for his parts. Only NYCB dances like this, all other companies maintain the romanticism of the forest spirits. A tradition that – despite being 115 years old in 2024 – remains timeless and romantic.

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