La Sylphide(2014 version)

Choreography: Nikolaj Hübbe, adaptation of August Bournonville’s ballet

Music: Herman Severin Lovenskiold

Set and Costume Design: Bente Lykke Moller

Lighting Design: Ulrik Gad

Staging: Nikolaj Hübbe assisted by Sorella Englund and Anne Marie Vessel Schlüter assisted by Christina Michanek and Ann Kolvig (children)

Conductor: Henrik Vagn Christensen

Orchestra: Orchestra of the National Ballet of China

'The Royal Danish Theatre’s new version of the romantic ballet La Sylfide is the most radical, interesting and absolutely brilliant to date. Never before has a Bournonville ballet been so current, dangerous and shown such unexpected aspects of itself...' —— Boersen

La Sylphide was originally choreographed by Filippo Taglioni to music by Jean Schneitzhoeffer and premiered at the Paris Opera on 12 March 1832 under the title La Sylphide. Bournonville saw the ballet in Paris and decided to make his own version based on the same story. Since the original score was very costly, he chose to commission new music from the then only 20-year-old composer Herman Severin Lovenskiold. On 28 November 1836, La Sylphide premiered at the Royal Danish Theatre with Lucile Grahn in the role of the Sylph and with Bournonville himself as James.

La Sylphide is one of the most beloved ballets of Bournonville's wide repertoire, although with its melancholic tone and tragic end it is equally uncharacteristic of the choreographer’s otherwise optimistic ethos. The ballet is typical of the romantic period and its penchant for exotic nature and an ethereal female ideal, yet it is also timeless in its embrace of the dilemmas of bourgeois life, torn between the comforts of existence and the irresistible fascination of the unknown.

Source: chncpa.org