Talk:Sylvia (ballet)

This article sure wasnt made a Featured Article for its history
There is an entire evolution of this ballet's history left out - its 1901 production in St. Petersburg for the Imperial Ballet. It is this version that served as the inspiration for Ashton's production, and it is not even brought up once on this web page. - The Royal Ballet's production of 1952 is NOT the production responsible for this the title changing from "Sylvia ou La Nymphe de Diane" to "Sylvia" - it was the Imperial Ballet's production of 1901 that started this tradition.

It seems that everyone on Wikipedia that says "yay or nay" as to whether or not an article should be featured is OBSESSED with citations, and it seems that the worth of an article is based on this. Likewise if an article exploits all of the really unessecary Wikipedia features such as wiki quotes, etc. then of course that will make an article even more worthy of being featured - Im sure had there not been any citations included in article it never would have become featured. Reagarding citations, many of the the ones included in this article take one to a link that then takes one to a review of a performance, many of which talk very little about this ballet's history. So, if citiations are what is supposed to "authenticate" the information provided in the article - or simply give referance to a source - then why are all of the citations links to reviews of performances? How does one know that the information provided by the reviewer is accurate?

In the 'Style' section of this article the entire paragraph pretty much violates the whole neutrality policy.

There is not one shread of information included in this article that one cant find by simply putting "Sylvia Delibes Ballet" into a google search.

Mrlopez2681 15:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


 * As the main contributor to this article, and proponent of its accuracy and comprehensiveness, I shall try to address your criticisms.


 * 1) First of all "the entire evolution of this ballet's history" has not been left out. Much of it had to be omitted; not every single production of Sylvia can get its own paragraph. Concerning the 1901 production: I did not know that Ashton was inspired by the 1901 production, nor that the name was shortened that early (I seem to have made the very bad assumption that it was changed in 1952). If you have sources for these claims, we can add that, and even give the 1901 production a paragraph if you like.
 * 2) Your criticism of the FAC process should be placed on the FAC talk page. This is not the place for that.
 * 3) Now to deal with the citations. I tried to cite all of the facts as best I could, though sometimes I had to use online reviews. I also used the ABT PLAYBILL, The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The Ballet Annual, and the San Francisco Ballet Magazine. If you think some more facts are spurious, say which. If any source is deemed unreliable, it shall be removed.
 * 4) I also disagree with your assessment of the "Style" section. I don't think it violates NPOV policy, though you should feel free to quote any particular statment which pushes a non-neutral point of view. -- Rmrfstar 03:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Apologies
I apologize Rmrfstar if I came acorss as evil......very sorry. After reading my above statements I realized how negative it reads, the majority of which was NOT directed at you at all. Maybe you didnt take it that way but I felt my statement did in fact sound as though directed at the main contributor to the article, which is you.

Fortunately "Sylvia" is a ballet that has not had a zillion different revisions like "Le Corsaire". Of course there have been quite a few stagings, but not revissions - to the best of my knowledge, only 3 major versions - the original production, the Petersburg Production of 1901 (who mounted this staging and all the other details escapes me right now, but I have sent emails to collegues in search of Answer), and finally Sir Frederick Ashton's production for the Royal Ballet. Mrlopez2681 04:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

1901: The Imperial Ballet; Ivanov and Gerdt


Among the first important versions of Sylvia, ou la Nymphe de Diane following the original production of 1876 was a production presented by the Imperial Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia on 15 December 1901. The ballet had been performed in Russia before: in 1886 the ballerina Antoinetta Dell'Era (noted for creating the role of the Sugarplum Fairy in The Nutcracker in 1892) performed excerpts from the ballet at the Arcadia Theatre of St. Petersburg, and in 1892 the ballerina Carlotta Brianza (noted creator of the role of Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty in 1890) performed the full-length work at the Fantasia Theatre in Moscow.

The Mariinsky Theatre's production was originally planned for the 1900-1901 season in a staging supervised by Sergei Diaghilev, with décors and costumes designed by Alexander Benois and choreography by the brothers Sergei and Nikolai Legat. But differences between Diaghilev and the director of the Imperial Theatres, Prince Volkonsky, led to the project's cancellation as well as the end of Diaghilev's association with the Imperial Theatres, an event which lead Diaghilev to eventually form the original Ballets Russes in 1909. Nevertheless the ballet was re-scheduled for the 1901-1902 season in a version mounted by the Imperial Theatre's Second Maître de Ballet Lev Ivanov, who's death in December of 1901 caused the direction to hand the project over to the noted Premier danseur Pavel Gerdt. Perhaps Ivanov's most lasting contribution to the ballet's history was the change of title from Sylvia, ou la Nymphe de Diane to simply Sylvia.

The cast included the great Prima ballerina Olga Preobrajenskaya in the title role and the danseur Sergei Legat as the shepherd Aminta. Also included among the ballet's secondary characters was a young Agrippina Vaganova as a nymph of the Goddess Diana, and Pavel Gerdt in the role of Orion. For the production the Imperial Ballet's kapellmeister Riccardo Drigo composed new pieces for Delibes' score, which included a classical Pas d'action for Preobrajenskaya and Legat as well as an additional variation for the character of Eros.

Although the dances of the ballerina Preobrajenskaya were a great success, the first performance was not. Many critics complained that the Ivanov/Gerdt choreography was of poor quality, and that the libretto was extremely slight. Another element that contributed to the ballet's failure was the fact that the direction did not allow any new décors to be created, and instead sets were utilized from works that were no longer being performed. After only five performances Sylvia was taken out of the company's repertory. In spite of this excerpts from the ballet were included in gala events.

The great ballerina Anna Pavlova included many of these extracts from the 1902 production on her legendary world tours in a revised staging by the Ballet Master Ivan Clustine. In attendance for one of her London appearances was a young Frederick Ashton, who's memories of Pavlova's performance would inspire him to create his own renowned version for the ballerina Margot Fonteyn in 1952.

Purpose and function of Talk page
The purpose and function of the Talk page is to discuss the article and how the article is to be edited. One user has deleted the contents of this Talk page (which I just now restored at the very top of the page) and is apparently using this Talk page to edit a portion of the article. Two things are against Wikipedia policy about this: (1) The contents of Talk pages are not to be deleted, although they may be archived (WP:ARCHIVE). If you wish to retract statements or parts of statements you made, please put a score through them using and  (2) The Talk page is not a catchall for editing sections of the article. If you wish to proceed with that on a page other than the article itself, please create a User subpage on your own userpage by using a slash. Take a look at Subpages. You can add the subpages to your user page or user Talk page merely by starting any article within a namespace with a slash, like this: /Sandbox. Clicking on that link would create a new article named "Sandbox" from this page. [Subpage creation (like the wiki page explains) applies to article talk pages too (useful for temporary or archival subpages) but not articles themselves.] Please, if you would, remove your article-editing contents from this page that are not discussions about the article. Thank you very much! Softlavender (talk) 10:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I requested of Mrlopez that he use this talk page as a staging ground for his additions. I am pretty sure that's standard practice. Also, talk pages are better places to post short excerpts because of their high visibility. Especially because this is a featured article, it makes sense to get as many eyeballs looking at potential additions as is possible. In any case, his placement of such a small amount of material does not disrupt the workings of this page (though his deletions did). -- rmrfstar (talk) 09:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not standard practice to leave an eidt on a Talk page for over two months. Mrlopez needs to move his practice editing to his own user pages; they've been cluttering up this Talk page for over two months. If they aren't practice edits but real edits, they can be made to the article itself. Softlavender (talk) 12:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh whoops - sorry - did I delete the entire talk page?! Anyway, why not just delete the above passage that is now in the article? Mrlopez2681 (talk) 01:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

First 7 productions
In fact, the first seven productions of Sylvia were not successful.
 * What does this mean? Not artistically successful?  Not economically successful?  Not attended by as many people as expected?  --  JackofOz (talk) 20:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It means "popular", as I think is made clear by the sentence which follows. -- Rmrfstar (talk) 12:27, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

FA concerns
This article could use some referencing improvements. There are places that would be helped by having additions of cites, to satisfy verifiability for the reader. If not objected to by significant contributors to the article, I would be willing to identify some of these deficient locations in the article with fact tags. However, it might be best to address in the form of WP:FAR, and give the article a more thorough overall review. -- Cirt (talk) 21:11, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * May I suggest that Cirt first apply the fact tags and that when as many of those as possible have been resolved that the article then be submitted for WP:FAR review (though I have seen Sylvia this article lies outside my bailiwick.) — Robert Greer (talk) 15:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I want to reboot this notice before I file a FAR on this article. Overall it is in good condition. The largest problem is the lack of citations to some paragraphs. If those can be fixed then I believe that this article could skip the FAR process. Brad (talk) 06:43, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Please do add the fact tags. I'll then do what I can to find citations — after Thanksgiving. — Robert Greer (talk) 17:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

This article has a lot of hidden skeletons. There were several cites marked as dead links which were then placed in hidden comments which of course were not discovered until now. The article prose is not good; there are too many praiseworthy comments throughout; only some of those have been marked. Sources need page numbers cited and the areas where citations are needed have been marked. Brad (talk) 05:57, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I just updated some dead links, but even so, I agree that the article is no longer close to FA quality. FAR was, I think, the right call.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Libretto
I surmise that the libretto given is Ashton's, though I have no reason to think so, and the article doesn't help. -Wetman (talk) 17:12, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

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in popular culture
Is it worth mentioning that the Procession of Bacchus segment was used as the basis for the theme tune of the 80's TV series 'Knight Rider'?122.107.170.39 (talk) 15:56, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

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