"Sylvia"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, New York
June 24, 2013
by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2013 by Mary Cargill
Michael Mayer, the director of the new "Rigoletto" at the Met, explained his decision to set the opera in 1950's Las Vegas by saying "It gives the audience a chance to recognize these people in a way that doesn't require a giant imaginative leap. I'm not totaly sure where Manuta is in Italy, it's not one of those beautiful places I've visited." Fortunately, Ashton's "Sylvia" shows far more respect for the music, the story, and the audience, as he set his ballet firmly in Arcadia, a place I am sure he nor the audience ever visited. And so far no one at ABT seems to be worried that Endymion, Ceres, and Persephone might be Greek to Today's Audience. "Sylvia" is multi-layered; a 21st century revival of a 20th century ballet, set to a 19th century score for a ballet based on a 1573 poem by Torquato Tasso, "Aminta", set in an idealized classical Greece. But, as in "The Sleeping Beauty", the 18th century, with its belief in harmony and reason and the essential beneficence of nature, also illuminates the work; both heroes have only to trust in a diety to be rewarded. To modern eyes, this can make both heros look rather passive (so many versions of "The Sleeping Beauty" try, all unsuccessfully, to beef up the Prince's role and give him something to do, rather than just trusting in his essence). But there is a rare and unusual beauty in the idea that goodness must prevail in the natural order of things, and the audience has only to reach out to be taken into this world, a world where the effortless and innocent nobility of both Désiré and Aminta can be transcendent. Though the stories are very different, the same suns shines on both works.