Three months after assuming the leadership of the National Dance CompanyMuriel Romero takes over from her predecessor, Joaquín de Luz, in the Zarzuela Theater (December 12 to 22). And he does it with ‘The sylphide‘, in a production that was released on this same stage a year ago. She does it, says the company director, “out of devotion and not out of obligation.”
‘La sylphide’ is, without a doubt, the greatest emblem of a choreographer, the Danish August Bournonville (1805-1879), who developed a very personal style, whose legacy has been maintained over the years by the Royal Danish Ballet. It is characterized by its elegance, and is an ethereal style of dance, which shows greater rigidity in the trunk than other schools, and in which the movements are generally smaller and less expansive.
Although Filippo Taglioni premiered a ballet with the same theme and title at the Paris Opera in 1832, it was the version that Bournonville did four years later, with music by Herman Severin Lovenskiold and booklet of Adolphe Nourritthe one that has survived; It is, in fact, the oldest ballet in existence.
The production presented by the National Dance Company has put it on its feet Petrusjka Broholmlinked to the Royal Danish Ballet since she was a child and who knows Bournonville’s repertoire perfectly. To put together this version – in which he has had the collaboration of Arantxa Argüelleswho was also in the Danish company and danced the main role of this title – carried out a research of more than six months in which he saw versions of the ballet, says Broholm, “and thus get a version as close as possible to the original without seeming ancient.
‘La silphyde’, prototype of the romantic ballet, takes place in Scotland. A young man, James, is engaged to Effie. One night, while he is sleeping, a sylph – an ethereal, invisible and extremely beautiful being – enters through the window of his house. The two fall in love, but since the sylph is an immortal being, James decides to visit the witch Madge, who is also in love with James. The witch gives him a potion and makes James believe that with it the sylph’s wings will fall off and he will lose his immortal status; However, the drink actually kills the sylph.
The Italian Giada Rossi and the Cuban Yanier Gómez Noda They will play the main couple on the first night (December 12). They both highlight the technical demands of their roles, “although we have to make it seem like it doesn’t cost us anything,” they both agree. “It is the weight of the body that makes the movement,” says Rossi, who highlights that the Bournonville style requires technical strength without losing the romantic style, and requires great footwork and a lot of cleanliness in the jump. “He also has a different way of using the tips than Petipa, for example,” adds Broholm.
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