Queering ”La Sylphide”

Nicolai Hübbe has created a new version af August Bournonville’s best loved ballet, ”La Sylphide”, premiered in Copenhagen in 1836. The novelty of Hübbe’s staging lies in his turning the traditional fatal love story of James and the mysterious, magical sylvan nymph into a tale of the fatal love born towards the young Scot by the witch, Madge.

Hübbe’s sinister demon lover, dressed in fashionable, elegant clothes looks more the director of a bank (or like an imposter such as Felix Krull) than like the old hag we are used to see, and the climax (as we may ambiguously call it) comes at the very last moment before the curtain falls, as Madge gives James the Kiss of Death.

But Nicolai Hübbe was never a man of straight reasoning, and he has bewilderingly presented three different casts in ”La Sylphide”, each giving af different twist to the tale of the Revenge of the Witch”. In 1836, Madge was a woman, representing evil af a force opposed to youth, beauty, happiness and love. The darkness which comes into peoples’ lives, quite at random and undeservedly, the avenger which may be feared as it threatens what is best in life. Recently, the revenge of Madge has been individualised, as devils ...