Sylvia

• Delibes’ ballet Sylvia, ou La nymphe de Diane (“Sylvia, or the Nymph of Diana”) premiered at the Opéra Garnierin Paris in 1876.¹
• Synopsis from the Australian Ballet
• This ballet languished in relative obscurity until it was revived with new choreography in 1952 by Sir Frederick Ashton, as a vehicle for Margot Fonteyn. ²
  • Ashton claimed that after his production of Sylvia, Delibes appeared to him in a dream and said “Vous avez sauvé mon ballet” (“You have saved my ballet”).³

“Never before has there been a ballet with such grace, such melodic and rhythmic richness, such superlative scoring.”

Tchaikovsky, on first hearing Sylvia in 1876.⁴

1. Hugh Macdonald, “Delibes, (Clément Philibert) Léo,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 29, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000007469.
2. Alastair Macaulay, “After Twists, Turns and Horn Calls, a Huntress Gets Her Shepherd,” The New York Times (June 25, 2013) https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/arts/dance/ashtons-sylvia-is-revived-at-american-ballet-theater.html.
3. Ibid.
4. Quoted in Macaulay, “After Twists, Turns and Horn Calls, a Huntress Gets Her Shepherd,” The New York Times.