BALLET REVIEW : Bournonville by the Bay

When is a new production not a new production? The current version of “La Sylphide” by the San Francisco Ballet, billed as a premiere, raises the question.

The work itself is, of course, just about as old as romantic story-ballets can be. It dates back to 1836, and documents the emergence of the ballerina as an other-worldly spirit who wears a long tutu and dances blithely on her tippy-toes. “La Sylphide” represents the touchstone of the grand yet dainty Bournonville tradition.

Helgi Tomasson, who directed the latest local incarnation of the ballet, understands that tradition. He is, in fact, a product of it.

The same could be said, however, for Peter Martins, Tomasson’s fellow-danseur in the good old days at the New York City Ballet, who staged the previous production in San Francisco. Unless memory disserves, that “Sylphide” wasn’t much different from this one.

The Martins edition utilized flimsy but conventional sets and costumes borrowed from Pennsylvania. The Tomasson edition relies on dull decors by Jose Varona originally shared with the Dallas Ballet (now defunct) and unveiled during a San Francisco Ballet season in Honolulu three years ago.

For some reason, Varona’s old-fashioned, cheap-looking, eminently functional canvases had not adorned the stage of the War Memorial Opera House until this season. That at least makes them unfamiliar.

Actually, the shaky fireplace, wrinkled stone-wall flats and quaint leafy drops don’t even look unfamiliar. They just look dowdy. Nevertheless, a pair of magnetic dancers in the central roles could make that irrelevant.

The pair mustered on Sunday afternoon exerted more promise than magnetism.

Muriel Maffre, who joined the company this season, is a French would-be ballerina who comes to San Francisco with experience at the Hamburg Ballet, the Zaragoza Ballet and the Ballets de Monte Carlo. There doesn’t seem to be any Bournonville in her past.

At this juncture, she offers a lovely sketch of the ethereal, playful, terminally fragile sylph. The outlines are clear, the steps carefully modulated, the charms dutifully and obviously delineated.

She gives a delicate, informed, somewhat cautious performance. With time and proper guidance, it could evolve into something both airy and poignant.

Ashley Wheater--her unusually husky, genuinely Scottish James--used to be a fixture with the Joffrey Ballet. He is strong and reasonably ardent. Apart from some placement problems, he cuts a dashing figure as the confused, easily duped hero. Having danced the Schaufuss edition of this ballet, he has mastered the quick bravura style with authority, if without maximum lightness and ease.

Right now, he tends to be correct in the role. Someday, given a chance to develop with the right stimulation, he might actually be interesting.

Val Caniparoli mimes Madge, the evil witch, deftly, though he relies more than is necessary on eye-rolling, lip-smacking, hip-swiveling cliches. Antonio Castilla, on the other hand, is allowed to ignore lazy tradition and play Gurn as a sweet, impetuous, misunderstood kid. That almost lends credence to the instant amorous conversion of Linda Montaner, the cuddly Effie.

Tomasson’s good historical instincts bring unexpected focus to the mock-folk dances in Act I. His sense of style is even more valuable in the strikingly ethereal yet ever-precise maneuvers of the secondary sylphides in Act II. He really makes those ancient lithograph images come to life.

The San Francisco Ballet orchestra, normally one of the best in a notoriously bad business, played the pretty Lovenskjold score rather untidily for Jean Louis LeRoux. Pit standards had been considerably higher during the curtain-raiser, however, when Denis de Coteau conducted a brilliant performance of Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, the musical inspiration for Jiri Kylian’s “Forgotten Land” (1981).

The seams of Kylian’s musically sensitive, mechanically overwrought choreography show more and more with repetition. Still, this equally ragged and rugged ballet retains much its fierce dramatic appeal over the years.

The San Franciscans--led by Evelyn Cisneros and Lawrence Pech, Jo Ellen Arntz and Andre Reyes, Wendy Van Dyck and Anthony Randazzo--danced on this occasion with feverish emotion muted by stylized motion. The tension was terrific.