Music: Hit & Myth

Despite the S.R.O. signs, it looked as if the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company had got off on the wrong toe. For more than two weeks, the company, on its third visit to Manhattan (TIME, Sept. 21), staged some familiar oldtimers, but its new numbers were largely disappointing—and at times, plainly dull. Then, last week, Sadler's brought on another new one, a bucolic, mythological tale entitled Sylvia. "Magnificent," cried Critic Walter Terry in the Herald Tribune. "The ducal birthright of the ballet is made manifest." "A sumptuous extravaganza," announced John Martin in the Times. "An exemplary performance."

Sylvia was indeed a hit. For...

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