Sylphide

I'm in love with Aurelie Dupont's Sylphide.
I'm in love with Aurelie Dupont's Sylphide. She is so exquisitely lovely and so elusive. She enchants, she's now coy, now a vamp, when you reach out to grasp her, she disappears. She is that ideal of love never obtained, of art never fulfilled. Ms. Dupont captures all of this in every gesture of her body, every expression on her face, every nod of her head, every finger. She is the sublime practitioner of superb dancer and supreme mime.
Sylphide, the ballet has had a curious history. It was pieced together by the great dance-master Filippo Taglioni out of tales of that exotic (then) land, Scotland and a bucolic wedding of a local farmer who has romantic dreams of other worldly sprites. The combination was put together with a wistful musical score by Jean-Madelene Schneitzhoeffer, a contract composer. But the secret ingredient was the ballet-masters daughter, Maria Taglioni. She transfored the world of ballet in many ways. She danced en pointe to effect a sylph-like flight. (She...

DuPont is special
While. DuPont stars in many lead roles, La Sylphede seems to have been especially written for her. She has the right mix of the ethereal and the coquette. While ably supported by an excellent group of dancers, she stands above them in this truly memorable performance.

Excellent ballet very well danced
Pickings are slim for good classical full-length ballets on DVD. Rarely will you find excellent quality. This is about as good as it gets for anything more than just a couple years old. Matthieu Ganio is not my favorite James, but he is very good. The costumes and set are lovely, adding to the ballet without distracting. Aurelie Dupont is a stunningly beautiful Sylphide whose lingering arabesques will make you hold your breath, and whose leaps are so graceful they appear to be playing in slow motion. Her death is heart-wrenchingly sad and beautiful as she practically melts into the ground before her sisters bear her away. If you appreciate graceful French arms, you'll love these sylphides. They are quite lovely! And the witch is a treat! From hair and makeup and costume that will delight, to excellent acting and wonderful pantomime skills that dance along that narrow path that is neither so subtle as to be difficult to follow, nor so over-done as to border on melodrama.

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Cosi Fan Tutte

'Giuoco delle coppie'
I reviewed this DVD of Così fan tutte when it was first released on TDK five years ago. I append my review from that time. I see and hear no obvious differences between the two DVDs:

I borrowed the heading from one of the movements of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra; it translates roughly as 'The Play of Pairs.' And that certainly is the thrust of this wonderful production of 'Così fan tutte' from the 1983 Salzburg Festival, directed by Michael Hampe with sets and costumes by Mauro Pagano. The mise en scène makes much subtle play of the mirroring of the various pairs in the opera -- Fiordiligi and Dorabella, Ferrando and Guglielmo, Despina and Don Alfonso. Costumes, settings, stage action all tend to come in pairs, with just enough differentiation to make it more subtle than blatant. It certainly adds to the delicious comedy of the opera.

Some months ago I raved about a La Scala DVD of 'Così' conducted by Riccardo Muti but this...





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Siddharta [Blu-ray]

Interesting, but hard to follow...
I am familiar with the story of Siddharta, so I thought that even if this ballet only touched on his life while being more avant garde in the interpretation of the story, I would still love this. However, throughout the ballet I kept thinking that if I saw this on stage without the title of each scene so I know what is going on I would have no clue what this story is all about.

I think abstract ballet is fine in abstract ballet, but this attempts to be a story ballet, but it is impossible to understand what is happening without the list of titles of each scene.

With this said I did enjoy much of the dancing, and I think the dancers gave their all in this production. I just think a person should be able to come off the street with no prior info and watch a story ballet and know what is going on. All the famous story ballets (La Bayadere, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, etc) are easy to follow even with very little miming and mostly just dancing.

Preljocaj's...

Interesting, but troubled.
The Paris Opera Ballet is nothing if not experimental. Siddhartha is a great example of their propensity for evolution in ballet and risk taking on stage. Having said that, one needs to be aware of the fact that experimental ballets are seldom perfect, and Siddhartha is an example of this. Dupont and Le Riche are absolutely gorgeous and fit their roles perfectly. Dupont stole the show with her ethereal, water-like movement qualities, and Le Riche is never less than magnificent (no wonder Nureyev liked him). However, the staging has some issues. The opening act stutters a few times, and even with the libretto in hand, often leaves you wondering just what is going on. When it does pick itself up and display a stronger narrative, Siddhartha becomes a very fascinating, emotional ballet. The dancers portray the scene wonderfully, and it is in ballets like this that you can really appreciate seeing a company who has all come from the same training background. Overall, this is a good...

Mon dieu! Quel Ballet! Magnifique! Plus que cinq Etoile!
Je commence avec mille fois merci a Mlle. Brigitte Lefevre (I'm sorry my computer does not allow me to insert French punctuation). Elle avait la courage de faire cet Ballet comme un travail fait sur commande. Her courage was justified! I'm writing this Review immediately after my first viewing of this marvelous Ballet. As I've noted in other of my reviews, I'm no fan of ballet, or of dance, performed on naked, or near naked stages, with subdued lighting, and where most, if not all of the dancing is barefooted. Well, all of these personal "negatives" are in Siddharta. But so what! Nicolas Le Riche as the coming Buddah, and Aurelia Dupont as The Awakening, sensitively perform their difficult roles: Armed only with their dancing skills, and the art of mime, each makes apparent to the attentive viewer the spiritual truths being expounded. No easy task. But they are assisted by a large supporting cast of gifted performers. The Ballet is told in a series of 16 Tableaux. One should...

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