Ethan Stiefel has staged a robust and appealing La Sylphide for American Repertory Ballet and christened it Spirit of the Highlands, nudging it closer to the Scottish origins of its libretto – not just in name but also in substance, with some incandescent highland dancing in place of the usual pastiche. He has also beefed up the tenuous narrative of a cocky, self-absorbed Scottish lad who discovers a woodland sylph repeatedly breaking into his house and instead of calling the police like a normal person, he abandons his enchanting fiancée on their wedding morning to hunt down the sylph and declare his undying love for her.
Back in the day, this story expressed the Romantic notion of man torn between reality and an ideal existence felt to be rooted in the wilds of nature. Today Stiefel’s new prologue will likely satisfy audiences who appreciate a touch of Prime Suspect in a tragic plotline. It incriminates Gurn, a supposedly decent guy who it turns out will stop at nothing to break up the engagement of his treasured Effie and his rival, the cocky, self-absorbed James. No one in this gripping production emerges smelling like roses – except perhaps the pragmatic Effie (a winsome performance by Annie Johnson.) She is hoodwinked into thinking James has abandoned her, and settles for Gurn with astonishing alacrity.
This staging suggests that Gurn conspired with Madge – a mysteriously alluring Celtic high priestess rather than the clichéd wicked witch of the West in most productions – to lure James into a trap and ruin him. A conspiracy that explains how Gurn could claim to have seen James run off with a fairy when the Sylph was supposed to be visible only to James.
Stiefel wisely gives us five strong leading characters in this revamp with ample opportunity for their interpreters to show off their dancing and acting chops. Tomoya Suzuki as Gurn and Seth Koffler as James faced off a few more times than in the standard Bournonville production; with boyish impetuousness, they knocked our socks off with their breathtaking bursts of crisply beaten petit allegro, soaring leaps and impeccable air turns, kilts flying.
Johnson as Effie convincingly ripped through a swath of emotions from exultation in love to panic at her fiancé’s disappearance, then grief and anger at his apparent duplicity.
Clara Pevel made a tantalizing Sylph, less fragile than some interpreters, more of a mischief-maker. “Can you fly?” mimed James, spellbound by her springy, effortless jumps and her ability to hover delicately on pointe. Her captivating tilts of the head and delicate disposition of hands and shoulders in the Bournonville style telegraphed innocence and chaste longing – all part of the plot to lure James away from Effie and into the sylphides’ woodland haunt.
Madison Elizabeth Egyud as Madge stomped and swept impressively around the stage in a glamour-and-grunge look with a tiara of antlers, her entourage of druids in complementary punk mode. Costumes throughout by Janessa Cornell Urwin were an imaginative upgrade from the usual while still bowing to 19th-century traditions. The scene in which she conjures up a poisoned scarf, destined for James to present to the Sylph, was engrossing, not just your standard ghoulish pantomime. Once the murder-by-scarf was accomplished, the Sylph was history and James was distraught, it was time for Madge to take her final revenge, which she did in chilling fashion.
The highland dancing, intricate and involved, with lightning-fast footwork that pounds or skims the floor, is dialed way up in intensity without sacrificing clarity and precision. It’s not surprising that a nation that dances this way regularly agitates for independence.
The misty Act 2 woodlands setting is defined by a stunning and serene painted backdrop (set design by Howard C. Jones) that situates the sylphs in a mountain glen. The radiant sylph corps gave a stylish account of the Bournonville second act choreography led by the statuesque Savannah Quiner with lieutenants Jasmine Jasper, Lily Krisko and Nanako Yamamoto providing accomplished backup. Pevel’s Sylph was a revelation in a cloud of petit allegro, the high point of which were those backward-traveling, turning hitch-kicks. She would not let Koffler’s James touch her, which drove him to ever more impassioned strings of jumps and displays of ankles and thighs beating strongly. When he finally swept her up in the only lift of the entire ballet, she looked startled. Her dying scene was most affecting.
Stiefel’s revamp has not changed the essence of La Sylphide but illuminated its lightly comic moments, its nationalist spirit, and the dark, uncompromising tragedy at its core. A stirring achievement for a company of 22 dancers with resources that do not extend to live music and longer runs. In these unsettling times for the arts in America, who steps up to ensure the longevity of these thoughtful productions?
