WHO IS SYLVIA, WHAT IS SHE?

Who Is Sylvia?

I went to see the ballet "Sylvia" at Covent Garden this week. Helen and I went to see it when they first revived it ten years or so ago, but I had no recollection of it. I should remember it, as the score, by Delibes, has several terrific tunes, some of them quite famous, and I realised as soon as the overture began that I ought to remember this. The ballet was choreographed by Frederick Ashton in 1952, though there are earlier French Romantic and Imperial Russian versions, and it's not generally regarded as one of Ashton's best works; he intended it as a vehicle for Margot Fonteyn, then at her height of stardom. The designs are also gorgeous, by Christopher and Robin Ironside.

"Sylvia" is a beautiful spectacle, but what people regard as unsatisfactory is the mixture of rather far-fetched classical mythology treated in a rather straight-faced fashion, with what is frankly pantomime (dancing goats, anyone?). I was struck by the seriousness with which Ashton treats the mythology, but started to wonder whether a new version ought to be attempted, making reference to contemporary sexual politics, because those questions certainly emerge. Sylvia is a hunting nymph, devoted to the goddess Diana, and is therefore pledged to chastity (Natalia Osipova was magnificent as the virginal huntress in the first act) but she is desired by two men, the shepherd Aminta, and the hunter Orion. Now Aminta's love for her is genuine, inspired by Eros, but Orion only wants to possess her. I have to say that when Aminta first declared his love and laid hands on her, it was clear that he was not understanding her lack of consent, because she was definitely saying "No". So she shoots him. Well, actually she's trying to shoot the statue of Eros, but he gets in the way (told you it was far-fetched). Eros then shoots her, and so she comes to reciprocate Aminta's love.

The really challenging thing, though, is Orion's characterization, because he's a piece of absolutely shameless orientalism, and the second act, set in his island cave (to which he has carried off Sylvia) becomes quite uncomfortable. Orion is depicted as an oriental potentate, complete with luxurious tent and scantily-clad concubines. It's all very mixed-up, as Orion's set-up involves Arabian, Chinese and vaguely Indian elements, compounding a sort of generalized English orientalism that was characteristic of the 1820s (see the Brighton Pavilion) rather than the 1950s. Now it's perfectly true that both Greeks and Romans regarded people from the East as their cultural "other", so it's not unreasonable to depict Orion in this way, putting him in voluminous trousers rather than the shifts and tunics the Greeks wear, and giving him villainous facial hair. His two concubines, in what are pretty much belly-dancer outfits, are a bit harder to take, but the real discomfort came for me in his two slaves, gorgeously dressed in red and yellow chinoiserie who then did a silly "Chinese" dance with tambourines, to a bit of plinky-plonk music. Now I presume Delibes wrote the music to deliberately sound "Chinese" so it's fair enough to make the dance Chinese, and to be fair it's not as grotesque as the Chinese dance in the Nutcracker, which has begun to embarrass the Royal Ballet, who changed the choreography last year, but the reason it feels uncomfortable is because it's racist! No-one would continue to use an "African" dance that depicted cannibals and blacking-up, but we appear to be less sensitive to grotesque caricatures of East Asians. It's meant to be funny (though I don't think I found this sort of thing funny even when seeing the Nutcracker as a child) but the amusement value comes from the humiliating depiction of a racial group according to a comic stereotype, so how is that okay? 

I don't want to seem po-faced about this, but this is beginning to feel like something that needs to change. One of the distinctive things about ballet is its ability to adapt, and there is enormous variety in the productions of even the most famous pieces, with whole dances being added and subtracted, so there's not really a "canonical" version of the great works in the repertoire. All of which should make it not too difficult. I really like some of the "authentic" versions of Imperial Russian ballets which try to re-create the spectacle of the 1890s (and no-one loved orientalism more than them) but that's a piece of cultural history, not a work of art for today. Sometimes "oriental" sounds appear in music just to suggest something exotic, and personally I think that's fine, because the "exotic" is a positive category, though I know some people would disagree, but what's really not on is the use of a national stereotype for comic or demeaning effect. Sorry, pretend Chinamen dancing sideways with hands at ninety degrees to their wrists are embarrassing at best, and frankly no longer entertaining in polite company.