What is Les Sylphides?
{{italictitle}} {{Infobox ballet | name = Les Sylphides | image = Les-Sylphides by L.Bakst 01.jpg | image_size = 250px | caption = Set design by Léon Bakst | choreographer = [[Michel Fokine]] | composer = [[Frederic Chopin]] | librettist = | based_on = | premiere = 2 June 1909 | place = [[Théâtre du Châtelet]]<br/>[[Paris]] | ballet_company = [[Diaghilev]]'s [[Ballets Russes]] | characters = Poet<br/>Sylphs | designer = [[Alexandre Benois]] | setting = Forest glade | created_for = [[Nijinsky]] | genre = [[Romantic ballet]] | type = Classical }} {{Fokine stage works}} '''''Les Sylphides''''' ({{lang-en|The Sylphs}}) is a [[ballet]] [[wikt:choreograph|choreograph]]ed by [[Michel Fokine]] to the music of [[Frederic Chopin]]. The music was [[wikt:orchestrate|orchestrate]]d by [[Stravinsky]] among others. The scenery and costumes were designed by [[Alexandre Benois]]. The ballet was first performed by the [[Ballets Russes]] in [[Paris]] at the [[Théâtre du Châtelet]] on 2 June [[1909]]. It starred [[Nijinsky]], [[Tamara Karsavina]], [[Anna Pavlova]], and [[Maria Baldina]]. The ballet is non-narrative. It does not tell a story. It is a series of dances meant to evoke the atmosphere and ambiance of a [[romantic ballet]]. ''Les Sylphides'' was developed from a Fokine ballet called ''Chopiniana''. This ballet was performed in [[St Petersburg]] on 21 March [[1908]]. It was a series of imagined scenes from Chopin's life that included a [[Poland|Polish]] wedding and a ballroom [[polonaise]]. It was revised. All characters and any suggestion of a plot were dropped to create instead an [[wikt:evocation|evocation]] of the [[romantic ballet]]. The revised ballet (still called ''Chopiniana'') was performed in St Petersburg on 6 April 1908. This second version was costumed in the long white ballet [[tut]]u made famous by [[Marie Taglioni]] in ''[[La Sylphide]]''. ''Chopiniana'' was renamed ''Les Sylphides'' when it was prese