15-31 Dec 2005. In La Sylphide, choreography by Pierre Lacotte. In the first title of the theatres new season, the Balletto della Scala presents for the first time the version of La Sylphide by Pierre Lacotte. First performed in 1972 for French television and then staged at the Opra de Paris, a restoration of the version by Filippo Taglioni, according to original documents discovered by Lacotte when he was working on a book about romantic ballet. The wonderful two-act ballet set in Scotland tells the story of the young farmer James who is visited by the Sylphide on the eve of his marriage to Effie. He leaves his bride and his friends and follows her to the woods. To bind her to him forever he accepts a magic shawl from the witch Madge, but when he puts it around her shoulders her wings fall off and she dies. The finale is a scene of the wedding party is on its way to church: Effie is now marrying Gurn, whom she had previously rejected. The Milanese theatre offers this version as a tribute to Filippo Taglioni, to the Italian school and to Maria Taglioni, the first Sylphide, and a symbolic image of the ballerina on points. With guest artist Aurlie Dupont, toile of the Opra de Paris.