The phrase "a faune" is not correct in written English.
It seems to be a mix of English and French, and the correct term in English would be "a faun."
Example: "In the story, a faun guided the lost travelers through the enchanted forest."
Alternatives: "a forest spirit" or "a woodland creature."
1912 would see Nijinsky's emergence as a choreographer, with one of the strangest, most haunting ballets of all time: L'après-midi d'un faune (Afternoon of a Faun).
As early as L'Après-midi d'un faune (1876; "The Afternoon of a Faun"; Eng. trans. L'Après-midi d'un faune; later interpreted musically by Claude Debussy), he concentrated on multiplicity of meaning: the poem is simultaneously the dream evocation of the faun's erotic desires and a meditation upon the creative impulse at an abstract level.
During a period of inactivity when he was separated from the Ballets Russes, Nijinsky worked on his notation ideas and recorded every movement of his first ballet, L'Après-midi d'un faune (1912; Afternoon of a Faun).
Works that exemplify his techniques are Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun; 1894), Nocturnes (1899), and La Mer (The Sea; 1905).
Chopin wrote études that differ little structurally from some of his preludes, while Debussy's two books of preludes bear descriptive titles reflecting their evocative, sometimes rhapsodic moods, a quality captured perhaps more perfectly in Debussy's brilliant orchestral Prélude à l'aprés-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun).
His major works include Clair de lune ("Moonlight," in Suite bergamasque, 1890 1905), Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894; Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), and La Mer (1905; "The Sea").
On Christmas Eve at 2 30 and 8 p.m., Christmas Day at 3 p.m. and Dec. 27 at 7 30 p.m., the Palais Garnier, Place de l'Opéra, stages Stravinsky's "Petrouchka" with choreography by Fokine; Debussy's "L'Après-midi d'un Faune," with choreography by Nijinsky; "Afternoon of a Faun," with choreography by Jerome Robbins; and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade," choreography by Blanca Li.
Jerome Robbins paved the way in 1953 in his "Afternoon of a Faun" by transposing Nijinsky's "L'Après-Midi d'un Faune" to a dance studio.
Mark Baldwin has created a new piece, What Wild Ecstasy, as a contemporary take on the primal eroticism of Faune; a tribal rave that I thought I was going to hate.
This is not some woozily erotic dream of a faun in the manner of Debussy who, 30 years later, would give us Prélude a l'après-midi d'un faune, with its light, sweet flutings.
