Australia
La Sylphide
April 2005, Sydney
Image: Sydney Opera House
James
Sylphide
Hello! We thought we would send you a postcard of the very place we are performing in – The Sydney Opera House! We are currently performing in La Sylphide. It is the story of a young man from Scotland called James who falls in love with the Sylphide on the eve of his wedding day. It is a very sad tale but 2005 is the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of the great Danish choreographer August Bournonville. Bournonville created this ballet so I feel very privileged to be in it!
We visited the Great Barrier Reef, which is on the north-east coast of Australia and contains the world’s largest collection of coral reefs and masses of amazing fish including the dugong ('sea cow') and the large green turtle. These turtles are threatened with extinction. Did you know that the Great Barrier Reef is as large as Great Britain and Ireland put together? We have also had time to visit the Outback. The Outback is a long stretch of land between the southern tip of the mainland and Darwin at the Top End. It has some of the oldest terrain on the planet and some awesome landforms. We visited one of Australia’s most famous outback landforms, Uluru (Ayers Rock) which is a chunk of eroded sandstone. It was formed 600 million years ago when this area lay at the bottom of the sea – isn’t that amazing? Anyway we hope you are well, we will be in France next month so shall write then.
Take care
