Watching: Paris Opera Ballet: Sylvia

Overview

Fauns, dryads and shepherds: such is the bucolic world inhabited by Sylvia, the nymph of Diana, goddess of the hunt. Compelled to remain chaste, will she have to renounce her love for Aminta, just as Diana had to sacrifice her passion for Endymion? Originally conceived by Louis Mérante, Sylvia was the first ballet to be performed at the newly-opened Palais Garnier in 1876, but it is the version by Manuel Legris that is making its repertoire debut.