Everything Is Romantic

An enchanted forest, a love gone wrong, and a swarm of women in long white tutus—when a formula works, it really works. Such is the case of “La Sylphide,” the nearly 200-year-old Romantic ballet which first premiered in 1832.

Performance

Bavarian State Ballet: “La Sylphide” by Pierre Lacotte

Place

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, Germany, November 26, 2025

Words

Rebecca Deczynski

Bavarian State Ballet in “La Sylphide” by Pierre Lacotte after Filippo Taglioni. Photograph by Katja Lotter

Despite its long history, “La Sylphide” is relatively new to the repertoire of the Bavarian State Ballet which premiered it last fall, following the late Pierre Lacotte’s reconstruction of Filippo Taglioni’s original choreography and Jean-Madeleine Schneitzhoeffer’s original score. This season, the company brought the work again to Munich’s grand opera house presenting a production which wavers in a particularly dense first act before finding its wings in an ethereal finale.

Bavarian State Ballet principal Maria Baranova is the clear standout, playing the titular sylphide not just with the requisite grace, but with armfuls of charm. Her leg in arabesque lifts as naturally as the hands of a clock might drift upward, and her petit allegro is equally airy and grounded. The latter is a particular feat, as Lacotte’s choreography demands, in addition to lush, sweeping port de bras, a bevy of rapid footwork. It is easy to take for granted the difficulty of these steps when watching Baranova move with ease and sweetness, tilting one cheekbone up in a coy expression.

It’s a joy that she begins the ballet, establishing the premise: She, the sylph, has fallen in love with a human man, who she awakens with a forehead kiss. Unfortunately, he is betrothed to someone else. And his best friend happens to be in love with his fiancée. It’s plain to see: there won’t be enough happy endings to go around.

Bavarian State Ballet in “La Sylphide” by Pierre Lacotte after Filippo Taglioni. Photograph by Katja Lotter

We stay in the domain of the humans for the first act, as all these characters weave through one another. They have plenty of company—almost too much.

There are 32 members of the corps, men and women, in the first act, all of them dressed in Scottish-inspired plaids. These are, ostensibly, the friends and neighbors of James (our lead man, played by Yonah Acosta) and his fiancée Effie (Zhanna Gubanova). In common Romantic ballet fare, they dance in large group—one in red and one in blue—and all together. After a beat, demi-soloist Lizi Avsajanishvili and corps member Tommaso Beneventi arrive to perform a lively pas de deux; her leaps are especially lovely.

Still, throughout these grand group numbers, musicality is a weak point; dancers are overly anticipatory of the music and as a result, often have to linger in transitory moments, like pirouette preparation. A lack of complete unison, especially with so many dancers on the stage, tends to look unpolished.

Soloist Gubanova, however, stands out easily, even in her matching plaids. Where Baranova is mystical and elusive, Gubanova isn’t quite the ingenue: she’s the girl next door. She moves lithely, stretching her legs out to reveal her particularly notable arches. A clean technician, she holds her own in a pas de trois with Acosta and Baranova—though it’s hard not to root for the sylph to win in this love triangle.

After all, we do know that Effie and James are not fated to be. That’s thanks to Madge, a witch—played theatrically by Sergio Navarro—who enters the party to read all the girls’ palms (after giving them the requisite fright). And so, act one ends with Effie effectively stood up at the altar and James running after the mysterious winged maiden in white.

Bavarian State Ballet in “La Sylphide” by Pierre Lacotte after Filippo Taglioni. Photograph by Katja Lotter

It’s in the second act, in the forest, that this production of La Sylphide becomes fully realized. The premise: Madge, with six other witches, enchants a scarf, which she presents to James, telling him that it will bind the Sylph to him for good. What follows is the first ballet blanc.

Twenty sylphs, plus three strong soloists (Maria Chiara Bono, Elvina Ibraimova, and Phoebe Schembri) transform the forest into a mystical world as they weave through one another and rotate through slow, statuesque poses. The musicality in the second act is far stronger than in the first, and the cohesion of the group is integral to the enchanting effect of Lacotte’s choreography. Though there is one quirk which lends a more campy feeling to the act: the inclusion of “flying” sylphs who glide across the stage via wires and pulled platforms.

Baranova, deep in character, is spellbinding throughout the ballet. And while Acosta is an adept partner and actor, the carriage of his upper body errs on the side of stiff, especially when juxtaposed with a more fluid ballerina. His movement, as a result, can look more strained than impassioned.

We know how this has to end—and it does, following Acosta’s embrace of Baranova, weaving the scarf around her in the perceived act of love which kills her. In her final moments of movement, Baranova is even more delicate and heartbreaking in her lugubrious port de bras. When she stills, she is quickly carried away by her sister-sylphs.

Can a bad dream be beautiful, too? This, after all, is the final image presented: Effie’s wedding procession in the distance, swaths of sylphs bowing in mourning, and James facing the consequences of his actions, as a group of sylphs, carrying his beloved’s body wrapped in the scarf, fly up and away. It’s an image so striking I wished that it was the only moment of “flight” in the ballet. Even still, its impact lingered.

Rebecca Deczynski

Rebecca Deczynski is a New York City-based writer and editor publishes the newsletter Mezzanine Society. Her work has appeared in publications including Inc., Domino, NYLON, and InStyle. She graduated from Barnard College cum laude with a degree in English and a minor in dance.

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