La Sylphide
In March 1832, the ballet "La Sylphide" debuted in Paris. This ballet is about a beautiful sylph who loves James, a young Scotsman. Tragedy occurs. After dallying in the woods, the sylph dies when her earthly lover uses a bewitched scarf to trap her. This ballet brought Marie Taglioni before the French public. She was the first to dance "en pointe" for artistic reasons rather than spectacle and was also the first to wear the white, bell-shaped, calf-length ballet skirt now considered an essential feature of the romantic ballet. Poet and critic Théophile Gautier attended the first performance of "La Sylphide". His ideas for "Giselle" would show touches of "La Sylphide" ten years later. It would be set in a real place and in the past, for example, and would be about everyday people and supernatural women.