Published on Mar 28, 2016

Rating:

Genre: NCPA

Dates: June 18-19, 2016

Venue: Opera House of NCPA

Prices: 100, 220, 280, 380, 550, 600, 680, 880

Features: One of the world’s oldest corps de ballet - The Royal Danish Ballet will presents two classical ballet proformances La Sylphide, Theme and Variations at Opera house of NCPA in Beijing From June 18th-19th, 2016.

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

La Sylphide
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 Lvenskiold. 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. After a few decades, La Sylphide disappeared from the stage of the Paris Opera, but remained on the repertoire in Denmark. Here, the story of the wistful James, the unattainable Sylph and the demonic sorcerer Madge has been performed since then, handed down from generation to generation.

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.

Theme and Variations
George Balanchine's ballet Theme and Variations from 1947 offers an extravaganza of sublime dance. It is among the finest and most challenging of classical ballets. Russian star dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov once said that it was the most demanding work he had ever performed.

Theme and Variations performed to Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s third orchestral suite is Balanchine's homage to Marius Petipa and the magnificent ballet style of the master, which Balanchine loved and knew so well. “To evoke that great period in classical dancing when Russian ballet flourished with the aid of Tchaikovsky’s music,” Balanchine once said.

The work traces its roots to the Imperial Russian ballet and features a cast of principal dancers, soloists and corps dancers. But the ballet also demonstrates with great distinction Balanchine’s unique ability to toy with movement and music so that you sense, above all, the purity and modernity of the 20th century.

Tickets for The Royal Danish Ballet La Sylphide & Theme and Variations are Available now!