Sylvia suite from the ballet

Infos :

Léo Delibes’s career happily coincided with the “classical” ballet’s zenith. Coppélia (1870) rightly remains immensely popular. By comparison, the seemingly looser-limbed Sylvia (1876) is little known, except through this suite. However, that is almost entirely because it languishes in Coppélia’s shadow. Bring Sylvia out into the light, and it shines: the music is vibrant and colourful, evocative and atmospheric. 

1. The opening bars of the Prelude, a majestic march subsiding onto expectant horn calls and pastoral stirrings, blend beautifully into the ballet’s third number, Les Chasseresses, the volatile and vigorous first entry of Sylvia and her cohorts. 
2. In the succeeding Intermezzo, the huntresses take their ease. Sylvia, to the delicate and appropriately suspenseful strains of the Valse Lente, swings on the overhanging lianas. 
3. The Pizzicati comes second only to the Dance of the Cygnets as the “Most Abused Bit of Ballet”. In Sylvia’s third and final act Eros, disguised as a pirate, bids one of his veiled slave-girls dance for the revived Aminta. Vacillating nervously between hesitancy and impulsiveness, the music elegantly suggests the girl’s identity. 
4. Marche and Cortège de Bacchus. The third act “prelude” is a divertissement, a cavalcade of pomp and merriment in celebration of the vintage festival.

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