La Sylphide is a romantic ballet in two acts. There were two versions of the ballet; the original choreographed by Filippo Taglioni in 1832, and a second version choreographed by August Bournonville in 1836. Bournonville's is the only version known to have survived and is one of the world's oldest surviving ballets.

Taglioni version

On 12 March 1832 the first version of La Sylphide premiered at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra with choreography by the groundbreaking Italian choreographer Filippo Taglioni and music by Jean-Madeleine Schneitzhoeffer

Taglioni designed the work as a showcase for his daughter Marie. La Sylphide was the first ballet where dancing en pointe had an aesthetic rationale and was not merely an acrobatic stunt, often involving ungraceful arm movements and exertions, as had been the approach of dancers in the late 1820s. Marie was known for shortening her skirts in the performance of La Sylphide (to show off her excellent pointe work), which was considered highly scandalous at the time.

The ballet's libretto was written by tenor Adolphe Nourrit, the first "Robert" in Meyerbeer's Robert Le Diable, an opera which featured Marie Taglioni in its dances section, Ballet of the Nuns. Nourrit's scenario was loosely based on a story by Charles Nodier, "Trilby, ou Le lutin d'Argail," but swapped the genders of the protagonists — a goblin and a fisherman's wife of Nodier; a sylph and a farmer in the ballet.

The scene of Old Madge's witchcraft which opens Act II of the ballet was inspired by Niccolò Paganini's Le Streghe, which in its turn was inspired by a scene of witches from Il Noce di Benevento (The Walnut Tree of Benevento), an 1812 ballet by choreographer Salvatore Viganò and composer Franz Xaver Süssmayr.

Revivals

Emma Livry, one of the last ballerinas of the Romantic ballet era, made her debut with the Paris Opera Ballet as the sylph in an 1858 production of La Sylphide. When Marie Taglioni (who had retired in 1847) saw Livry in the role, she stayed on in Paris to teach the girl, who reminded her of herself as a young woman.

In 1892, Marius Petipa mounted a revival of Taglioni's original La Sylphide for the Imperial Ballet, with additional music by Riccardo Drigo. A variation Drigo composed for the ballerina Varvara Nikitina in Petipa's version is today the traditional solo danced by the lead ballerina of the famous Paquita Grand Pas Classique.

In 1972, a new version of La Sylphide, based on the Taglioni version, was choreographed and staged by Pierre Lacotte for the Paris Opera Ballet. Since Taglioni's choreography has been irretrievably lost, Lacotte's choreography is based on prints, notes, drawings, and archival materials from the era of the ballet's premiere. Lacotte's choreography is in the style of the period, but entirely new and has been criticised by some as inauthentic. Interpreters of the role of Lacotte's version at the Opera National de Paris include Ghislaine Thesmar (Lacotte's wife) and Aurelie Dupont. Both artists have recorded their work on DVD and video.