Christopher Newton

This is Ashton's Sylvia as a Second-Empire entertainement, magnificently danced and sumptuously staged. Darcey Bussell and Roberto Bolle are flawless in roles that are quite difficult yet ironically not showy. They make excellent partners. Soloists and Corps dance in exhuberant good form. The Covent Garden Orchestra sounds primed for Delibes marvelous score, one of the very, very few musical masterpieces to be found among ballet scores. Ashton's choreography is very pretty even if never quite reaching heights of beauty or originality he showed elsewhere, e.g., Symphonic Variations or The Dream, not to mention his re-castings of Petipa.

Darcey Bussell and Roberto Bolle star in Frederick Ashton's Sylvia, restored to the splendour of its elegant and opulent three-act form for the 75th anniversary celebrations of The Royal Ballet. With origins in Greek mythology, Sylvia was loved by Aminta, abducted by Orion and eventually rescued by Eros.

Back in 1837 in the Northwoods of Canada and beyond, a movement was started among the colonialists to demand the right to own property in the New World. This interesting docudrama follows the tragic outcome of that movement for one of its leaders, the pacifist and nearly beatific Samuel Lount (also the great-great-great uncle of producer Elvira Lount). The orator and journalist William Lyon Mackenzie stoked up the fire among the property-deprived, and a march on Toronto was begun. Lount was convinced to join the rebellion much against his better judgment -- he belonged to the Children of Peace religious sect. Lount's own pacifism meant nothing to the authorities; they executed Lount for treason after crushing the rebellion. R.H. Thomson plays the title role in this low-budget but high-energy effort.

Performance of ballet by The Royal Ballet, recorded at Covent Garden, July 1984.