\u201cHe\u2019s just a human among all these gods. He\u2019s just a regular guy longing for more. Longing for love. Longing for maybe adventure and a little excitement in his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how Houston Ballet Principal dancer Connor Walsh describes his role as the\u00a0Shepherd in Stanton Welch\u2019s Sylvia, opening tonight at the Wortham Theater Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cLittle does he know he\u2019ll get wrapped up in this complicated story,\u201d Walsh continues.<\/p>\n
The full-length ballet comes with music by L\u00e9o Delibes and a plot that gallops along. Acquaintance with Greek mythology while not a requirement, is helpful. Although if you lose the thread, just watch the accomplished dancing and listen to the music. And don\u2019t miss the fauns in the background. <\/p>\n
Walsh who premiered the role in 2019 when Artistic Director Stanton Welch first choreographed this production will once again be partnered with fellow Principal Karina Gonzalez.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really a playful and challenging role for me,\u201d Walsh says. \u201cIt\u2019s a great love story filled with charm and surprises and challenge. \u00a0It\u2019s a fun role because there\u2019s a lot of range. It has lots of comedy and lots of romance and also some disappointment.\u201d<\/p>\n
He compared it in some ways to a Shakespearean play. \u201cYou have these multiple love stories all winding together that kind of come together in resolution in a clever way.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the music by \u00a0L\u00e9o Delibes which Walsh describes as beautiful and \u00a0fantastic\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are three couples stories central to the ballet. In the case of Sylvia and the Shepherd, Syvia has had a spell cast on her by Eros that makes her fall in love with the shepherd. Even after it\u2019s eventually lifted, she realizes she still loves him and asks to be excused from her duties as part of the goddess Artemis\u2019s army.<\/p>\n
A case of sibling rivalry is where the Artemis story begins. Their father Zeus prefers her brother Apollo. Artemis consoles herself by going off with her friend Orion, which Apollo doesn\u2019t like. Apollo seduces the nymph Callisto who in turn cries falsely that she has been attacked. She gestures toward her supposed attacker in the distance, Artemis lets an arrow fly and ends up killing OrionShe doesn\u2019t blame her brother for this but \u00a0turns Callisto into a bear.<\/p>\n
The third story involves Psyche, who falls in love with and is married to Eros but can\u2019t control her curiosity in a way that first threatens her marriage and then her life. Enormous efforts are made to save her from her own worst tendencies.<\/p>\n
By the end, however, demigod status is handed out like party favors and so the couples can continue forever. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Overall, Sylvia \u00a0proves the point that the gods are a quarrelsome, jealous bunch and they like to meddle in others\u2019 affairs whether fellow gods or mere mortals. Which frequently causes a whole lot of trouble.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0But sometimes they do try to fix their mistakes.<\/p>\n
Performances are scheduled for February 26 through March 8 at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays and 1:30 p.m. Saturday March 7 at Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas. For more information, call 713-227-2787 or visit houstonballet.org. $56-$170.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe\u2019s just a human among all these gods. He\u2019s just a regular guy longing for more. Longing for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[72628,226,56,25741,72629,58,57,44129,72630,25589],"class_list":{"0":"post-181078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-connor-walsh","9":"tag-homepage","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-ballet","12":"tag-houston-dance","13":"tag-houston-headlines","14":"tag-houston-news","15":"tag-stanton-welch","16":"tag-sylvia","17":"tag-ticket-prices"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}