1992
Ballet in 2 Acts
Composer: Jean Schneitzhoeffer
Libretto: Adolphe Nourrit, Filippo Taglioni
Production: Pierre Lacotte
Troupe: Tokyo Ballet
Performers: Yukari Saito, Takagishi
Running time: 01:50:30
Ballet "La Sylphide" is the oldest of extant romantic performances. La Sylphide - air nymph falls in love with a young Scottish man James. Torn between his fiancée and Sylphide, James chooses the latter, follows her and unwittingly kills his chosen one. The gentle story of love and unattainable ideals - a subtle meditation about the fragility of happiness, the idea of the incompatibility of poetry and prose of life, an insurmountable contradiction between the spiritual ideal and sensuous earth existence. "La Sylphide" fascinates not only with the novelty and depth of the plot, but also with the irrepressible dance elements, new kind of choreography, emotional colours, the ability to demonstrate technique and skill.[Premiere - 1971]
Tokyo Ballet Company
Tokyo Ballet Company was created in 1964 on the basis of Tchaikovsky Ballet School. In its third year the company embarked on its first overseas tour to Moscow, Leningrad and Kazan by invitation of the Soviet government. Due to the success of this tour, Tokyo Ballet was given the title "Tchaikovsky Memorial" from the Soviet Department of Culture. Being so recognised in the Soviet Union, The Tokyo Ballet Company also learnt and excelled itself by inviting Russian guest teachers and dancers.
The Tokyo Ballet have given a record number of overseas performances and tours in the history of Japanese performing arts and enjoys an enviable reputation as a world-class Japanese performing company both at home and abroad. The company has frequently appeared in most of Europe's distinguished theatres, such as the Opera de Paris, Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Wiener Staatsoper, and Deutsche Oper Berlin with high praise on each occasion. In the three great opera houses in the former Soviet Union, namely, the Bolshoi, Mariinsky and Shevchenko, the company received the highest praise wherein the hosts wrote that they should humbly learn from the Tokyo Ballet.