A debut by Igor Kolb

The early romantic ballet La Sylphide was first staged by the ballet-master Filippo Taglioni, father of the legendary Marie Taglioni. The choreographer contrasted the alluring and beautiful dream world embodied by the classical dances of the sylphs with the gloomy grotesque of the scene of the Sabbath of dark forces where witches, vampires, goat-legged dwarves, gnomes and genies danced around a seething cauldron. From this cauldron the witch Madge, a stark contrast to the perfect world of the Sylph, drew out the deadly scarf with which the dark forces argued their right to influence the world.
Following the success of Taglioni’s production, the Danish choreographer August Bournonville created his own version of the ballet. It was this version on which the Mariinsky Theatre’s production is based. In Bournonville’s ballet the scale of the anti-heroine is changed. The elderly Madge only uses her magic powers to take revenge on James for being cruel to her and driving her out of his house. In Bournonville’s version Madge ceases to be the embodiment of all that is evil in the world. Nevertheless, here the witch is a weapon of providence, shattering the dream of the romantic hero chasing his beautiful vision to hold her for a moment and catch what is actually elusive... It is as this Madge that Igor Kolb will be appearing in the ballet.