Orchestrated by Glazounov, Liadov, Taneiev, Sokolov and Stravinsky.
Scenery and Costumes Designed by Alexandre Benois.
IN some respects the most beautiful, “Les Sylphides” is certainly the most difficult of the ballets to describe. It defies description, in fact. To quote the simple words of the Russians themselves: “Amidst a scene of ruins, a series of classical dances takes place with no purpose but their musical and choreographic interest.” The statement is bald, but accurate. The writer might have expressed himself a little less drily, however; and it may be added here that the choreographic interest of these beautiful dances is of a quality which more than compensates the absence of the dramatic. For once the trite definition of dancing as the poetry of motion acquires a real significance. The music to which these episodes have been set is Chopin’s, and the result is worthy of the inspiration.
The stage setting in which “Les Sylphides” is most familiar is simple enough—a sylvan grove, moonlit, revealing dimly a few fragments of pillars, walls, as it might be, of some ruined temple. The dancers wear the formal garb of the ballet, which may seem not quite in place in so romantic an environment. But the whole affair is frankly artificial; the conventions of the moment accepted, the scene has a charm and fascination of its own which perhaps only a Degas could render. The later scenery which the Russians have employed, though similar in general character, lacks the element of mystery which enhanced the value of the earlier setting as a background to the dances.
In all the troupe of dancers Nijinsky is the only man, and he is seen at first, an appropriate if somewhat effeminate figure with flowing locks and “æsthetic” attire, the centre of a bevy of female figures. The nocturne with which the sequence of musical passages begins is made the excuse for poses, and for the arrangement in harmonious groupings of the whole corps de ballet. It is the preface, as it were, a trifle stilted and formal, to an anthology of lyric verses.
The poetry begins with the valse executed by Karsavina, a glorious expression of abandonment to joy; no intricacy of mincing steps feebly pattering in the music’s wake, but a generous enlargement to the rhythmic influence abroad. More delicate and dainty, a thing of dactyls and trochees, one might say, is the following mazurka by Nijinska, flitting with the lightness of gossamer in and out the scattered groups of white-clad maidens.
A mazurka also is the pas seul upon which Nijinsky in his turn launches himself. Launch is an appropriate word, for there is something suggestive of abandonment to a tumult of waters in the movements of the dancer’s limbs. He seems to cast himself loose upon the music’s tide, which bears him buoyantly, tossed now here, now there, until its ebb. He is the sport and plaything of the flood of melody; dancing not to it, but with it or by it—almost, indeed, on it.