Escapism at its best

More than a year since its re-emergence from oblivion, Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia keeps eliciting thunderous ovations. Not surprisingly, one might add. The restored three-acter is not just a shimmering tribute to Ashton’s genius; it is sheer fun, too. Indeed, ‘fun’ more than ‘artistic pleasure’ is what should be expected, for Sylvia is not one of those monoliths of ballet culture we normally attend in religious awe and contemplation.

Originally created in 1876 in Paris, the work mirrored the crisis that underscored French choreography at that time. Little had survived of the golden epoch of the French Romantic ballet, and French theatre dance of the post Franco–Prussian war period suffered greatly from a sterile regurgitation of trite formulae. Although Delibes, whose 1870 Coppélia could be seen as the last of the great French ballets, had created another delightful score, Sylvia lacked the sparkle of its lively predecessor and suffered from a hopelessly shallow narrative.

Loosely based on a risible happy-ending reinterpretation of Tasso’s Aminta, the ballet relied on a typically French 19th-century mythological hotchpotch, but did not have, alas, the spice and the irony found in Offenbach’s mythology-inspired operettas of a few years earlier.

It is fortunate, therefore, that Ashton decided to tackle the old ballet. His unmistakably British rereading of the old choreographic extravaganza and, most of all, his perfectly judged mix of subtle humour and passion for a much idealised golden era of ballet turned Sylvia into something one is still amused and intrigued by.

But the ballet cannot be compared to classics such as Sleeping Beauty, from which Ashton cheeringly quoted (as is evident in the final act’s divertissement). In Beauty, the political and artistic subtexts that informed the style, the choreography and the narrative can still be appreciated; in Sylvia all that is left to appreciate is the French fin de siècle prettiness of the pizzicati variation, originally conceived to make the ballerina show her shining jewels.