Beside singing and teaching, Nourrit composed and wrote scenarios for ballets at the Opéra de Paris, including the libretto for La Sylphide (1832), which was based on Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable.
The triumphant première of La Sylphide on March 12, 1832, made her the most acclaimed prima ballerina of the Romantic period and him the most renowned choreographer of the day.
John Barnett's 1834 opera The Mountain Sylph is based on the storyline of La Sylphide; this opera's plot was in turn satirized by W. S. Gilbert in the 1882 Savoy Opera, Iolanthe.
The 2009–2010 season saw him heading the premiere of La Sylphide with the Aalto Ballet Company.
Baron Herman Severin Løvenskiold (30 July 1815 – 5 December 1870) was a Norwegian composer, most noted for his score for August Bournonville's 1836 version of the ballet La Sylphide for the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen.
The era is typically considered to have begun with the 1827 début in Paris of the ballerina Marie Taglioni in the ballet La Sylphide, and to have reached its zenith with the premiere of the divertissement Pas de Quatre staged by the Ballet Master Jules Perrot in London in 1845.