The Stage

Sylvia

Published Thursday 26 February 2009 at 13:15 by Richard Edmonds

David Bintley has always scored highly in this reviewer’s estimation, since he is one of the few choreographers working today who makes ballets in response to the internal requirements of his highly talented company.

In this context Sylvia, with its zany plot and enchanting score by Delibes, is exactly right for BRB, the more mature dancers work within their limits (Robert Parker, for example, as the over-sexed Orion enjoying himself in a Sandow leotard and wrestler’s boots), while the younger crowd are given lively set pieces which display their talents to advantage.

Nothing here is overstated, pageants never are. Sylvia is not the ballet for that.

The central love affair between Sylvia (Nao Sakuma) and Amynta (Chi Cao), is exquisitely delicate in the manner of the Renaissance pastoral plays, a dramatic site from which this ballet can trace its origins.

Amyntas loses his sight in a deadly run in with the goddess Diana, who seems have made a career out of maiming young men who catch sight of her taking a quick shower (remember Acteon, who was unfortunately turned into a stag?).

But here, Amynta lives to dance another day, recovers his sight, and gives us a ravishingly beautiful sequence with his beloved Sylvia which underlines the wonderful quality these two top dancers bring to Bintley’s company whenever they step out onto the stage.

With a pair of camp zanies as comedy burlesques and the god Eros (the excellent Alexander Campbell) coming and going through the action disguised as everything from a gardener in a straw hat, to peg leg the droll pirate king, Sylvia, in Bintley’s revival, cheers up the spirits at a time when so many of us need a tonic.