Les Sylphides
ballet
Les Sylphides (French: [le silfid]) is a short, non-narrative ballet blanc to piano music by Frédéric Chopin, selected and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov.
The ballet, described as a "romantic reverie", is frequently cited as the first ballet to be simply about mood and dance. Les Sylphides has no plot but instead consists of several white-clad sylphs dancing in the moonlight with the "poet" or "young man" dressed in white tights and a black tunic.
Its original choreography was by Michel Fokine, with Chopin's music orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov had already set some of the music in 1892 as a purely orchestral suite, under the title Chopiniana, Op. 46. In that form, it was introduced to the public in December 1893, conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Subsequently, the choices of Chopin pieces and the orchestrations have been revised several times by a variety of composers.
Performance history
The exact origins of the ballet are complex. It evolved from a 1907 performance at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg titled Rêverie Romantique: Ballet sur la musique de Chopin.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Les Sylphides” is ballet. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sylphides and ballet, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “ballet” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1630831. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1892, 1893 and 1907.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Les Sylphides”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Les Sylphides primary sources, Les Sylphides archive and Sylphides research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Les Sylphides”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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This entry incorporates text from “Les Sylphides” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.