“He’s just a human among all these gods. He’s just a regular guy longing for more. Longing for love. Longing for maybe adventure and a little excitement in his life.”
That’s how Houston Ballet Principal dancer Connor Walsh describes his role as the Shepherd in Stanton Welch’s Sylvia, opening tonight at the Wortham Theater Center.
“Little does he know he’ll get wrapped up in this complicated story,” Walsh continues.
The full-length ballet comes with music by Léo 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’t miss the fauns in the background.
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.
“It’s really a playful and challenging role for me,” Walsh says. “It’s a great love story filled with charm and surprises and challenge. It’s a fun role because there’s a lot of range. It has lots of comedy and lots of romance and also some disappointment.”
He compared it in some ways to a Shakespearean play. “You have these multiple love stories all winding together that kind of come together in resolution in a clever way.”
And then there’s the music by Léo Delibes which Walsh describes as beautiful and fantastic’.”
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’s eventually lifted, she realizes she still loves him and asks to be excused from her duties as part of the goddess Artemis’s army.
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’t 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’t blame her brother for this but turns Callisto into a bear.
The third story involves Psyche, who falls in love with and is married to Eros but can’t 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.
By the end, however, demigod status is handed out like party favors and so the couples can continue forever.
Overall, Sylvia proves the point that the gods are a quarrelsome, jealous bunch and they like to meddle in others’ affairs whether fellow gods or mere mortals. Which frequently causes a whole lot of trouble.
But sometimes they do try to fix their mistakes.
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.