La Sylphide is a story of love, enchantment and heartbreak, about a man who is swept away – a classic and beloved work, it’s one of the last surviving ballets of the romantic period. The Australian Ballet are preparing to mount a new production of La Sylphide, featuring dancer Matt Donnelly in a most unusual role … but we’ll get to that in a moment. “This is a ballet with an incredible amount of history,” Donnelly says of La Sylphide’s rich heritage. “It’s visually stunning, and really quite moving. It’s also famous as the first work that put female dancers en pointe – it’s all about fairies, so dancing up on their toes makes the women look weightless and ethereal. It’s a ground-breaking show in that sense.”
The story of La Sylphide is all about treachery. “It’s set in Scotland,” Donnelly explains, “and it’s about a man named James. He is engaged to a local girl named Effie, but in the middle of the night, he’s visited by a magical sylph, and he falls in love with her, so he leaves his fiancé and runs off to the forest with her.” This is where things become complicated. “There’s also an evil witch named Magda,” he says. “She shows up at James’ house on the eve of his wedding – it’s a cold night, so she comes to warm herself by the fire, but he throws her out of the house. She gets her revenge by giving him a magical scarf, telling him it will capture the sylph when, in reality, it will actually kill her. It’s a very sad ending, but that’s typical of romantic works.”
The twist in this performance is that Donnelly himself is playing the witch, and he relishes the chance to cross gender lines for such a wicked role. “Magda is so much fun,” he says. “She’s very old, probably about 80, but she hobbles across the stage with great purpose. There’s quite a lot of make-up to put on, so I start about an hour and a half before the curtain goes up. I find that while I’m sitting there, turning into this haggard old woman and putting her scraggy costume on, I become her. In preparation, I mean, this is purely a character role, there’s no dancing at all, so the rest of the company are doing their warm-ups and I’m sitting in front of a mirror pulling faces at myself!”
Donnelly may not be required to dance as Magda, but the role itself is still a challenging one. “Embodying her is surprisingly tiring,” he says. “It’s a whole different way of moving and holding your body. Magda’s quite active in the way she runs around the stage. It’s not as tiring as playing James, the principal role, but performing the role can still be draining.” He does, however, have some history with the character. “The Australian Ballet’s version of La Sylphide is based on the Royal Danish Ballet’s version,” he says, “which is funny for me, because I started my career with them when I was a youngster. I didn’t play the witch then, but I get to do it now, so it’s fun to have a whole different experience of the ballet.”
I ask Donnelly if he has any final word on the show. “The program is a double bill, with another ballet called Paquita,” he says. “It’s known as the last romantic ballet, and it opens the night. That combined with the beauty and the romance of La Sylphide makes for a great and magical evening.”
BY ALASDAIR DUNCAN
The Australian Ballet‘s La Sylphide presents at the Sydney Opera House from November 7-25.
