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Sylvia (Ashton)

Name: Sylvia (Ashton)
Description: Sylvia Ashton’s choreography for *The Winter's Tale* utilizes a predominantly male corps de ballet to depict the shepherdesses, exploring themes of youthful exuberance and pastoral beauty through intricate formations and fluid movement across the stage.

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description Sylvia (Ashton) Overview

Sylvia Ashton’s choreography for *The Winter's Tale* utilizes a predominantly male corps de ballet to depict the shepherdesses, exploring themes of youthful exuberance and pastoral beauty through intricate formations and fluid movement across the stage.

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What myth does Frederick Ashton's Sylvia tell?

The ballet follows Sylvia, a nymph devoted to Diana, after the shepherd Aminta falls in love with her and the hunter Orion abducts her. Eros intervenes repeatedly, eventually helping Sylvia and Aminta reunite.

Who composed the music for Ashton's Sylvia?

Frederick Ashton choreographed the ballet to Léo Delibes's 1876 score, which includes the famous pizzicato from Act III. Delibes also composed Coppélia, another major nineteenth-century ballet.

When was Frederick Ashton's Sylvia created?

Ashton's full-length production premiered for The Royal Ballet in 1952, with Margot Fonteyn as Sylvia and Michael Somes as Aminta. Christopher Newton later reconstructed the choreography for the company's 2004 Ashton centenary season.

Is Ashton's Sylvia a story ballet or an abstract work?

It is a three-act narrative ballet built around gods, nymphs, hunters, abduction, and romantic reunion. The mythological plot and elaborate classical variations make it closer to The Sleeping Beauty than to Ashton's plotless Symphonic Variations.

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