French Ballet Research Articles

Опера, в которой танцуют, или балет, в котором поют: из истории музыкальной комедии на сцене королевской академии музыки в Париже

The article is devoted to the receptivity of the premiere performances of André Grétry’s musical comedies on the stage of the Paris Royal Academy of Music in the 1780s. Our attention becomes focused on materials of critical reviews in the French press, which became public responses to the premiere productions and testimonies that the ballets in such performances not merely played a significant role, but frequently became the main causes of enthusiastic ovations by audiences. In the 1780s, Grétry sought to revive the “genuine comedy” in the vein of Molière on the stage of the Royal Academy of Music in Paris. Obviously, in such performances the ballet was given an important role, since, according to the composer, the French had a natural inclination towards this art. Notably, the first comedy “La Double épreuve ou Colinette à la Cour”, notwithstanding its chilly reception, received its ultimate recognition particularly for its pantomimic and dance numbers. They accounted for about a third of the entire composition and, according to the critics, they were “well grouped and beautifully written, creating visual effects full of motion and variety”. “L’Embarras des richesses”, “La Caravane du Caїre”, “Panurge dans l’isle des Lanternes” not only became successful performances highly appreciated for their musical merit, but also significantly enriched the French ballet, including both the pantomime and dance comprising it. The quantity of divertissements and the number of characters involved in them captured the imaginations of the audiences. These were ceremonial productions of comedies with through dramatic development, as well as luxuriant scenic decorations and costumes. they brought together the efforts of the best singers, dancers, artists, costumers and creators of theatrical machinery. The subtle, sparkling humor, the pleasant music striking by its variety, the finesse of details and small touches also found their refraction in ballet scenes. Their colorfulness and innovativeness pleased the exacting Parisian public to such a great degree that they were applauded enthusiastically not only at the premieres, but also during the repeated performances. Eloquent testimonies of this were imprinted in the French press of the time.

MOLIÈRE’S COMÉDIE-BALLET “LES FÂCHEUX” AS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW MUSICAL AND THEATRICAL GENRE

Against the background of contemporary artists’ interest in the cultural heritage of past ages, today we can observe an experimental combination of works by Lully, Rameau, baroque music of Henry Purcell, who was Molière’s contemporary, with elements of modern choreography (P. Bausch, T. Brown, M. Morris, L. Scozzi, D. Hervieu, B. Massin and others). Such productions by leading choreographers of the XX–XXI centuries actualize a certain reassessment of the artistic consequences of the “Sun King” era. Present scientific research purpose is to refute the theory of “temporality” of the existence of the comédie-ballet genre as well as the lack of prospects for using the principles of this genre outside the cultural boundaries of the Louis XIV age. After all, even such a well-known modern expert of this historical epoch as Philippe Beaussant is skeptical about the possibility of further successful development of this genre. Probably because apart from Moliere, none of the modern authors at the court of Louis XIV had either a certain flair or relevant experience (Beaussant, 2002: 148). Present scientific paper relevance lies in the fact that in Ukrainianlanguage scientific literature the issue of the significance of comédiesballets in the evolution of the world dramatic and choreographic arts is considered from the modern point of view for the first time. Along with the methods of analysis, comparison, generalization and systematization of information presented in the world scientific literature on Moliere’s work, historical and biographical approaches were used in the research process. The results of the research confirm the thesis of the leading theater critics of the Soviet era, O. Gvozdev (2008: 180), that the opera and dance elements of ‘ballet de cour’ are noticeably transformed in Molière’s comédies-ballets, and, what’s most important, they are dramatized under the influence of comedy story-line. It is summarized that “Les Fâcheux” continues the line of development of French ‘ballet de cour’, but the combination of its components in the artistic integrity on the basis of comedic plot has become a new original phenomenon. The desire to add logic to the ballet action led to the fact that in the circumstances of comedic action, the dance developed in the plot direction, often turning into a pantomime, involving an element of acting. In turn, under the influence of buffoonery and dance element, the tempo of the play becomes more revived, there is a rhythm and a certain “musicalization” of theatrical action, paving the way for the reform of French ballet, which was later carried out by Noverr under the direct influence of Beaumarchais and Gluck.

Madame Mariquita, Greek Dance, and French Ballet Modernism

AbstractThis article seeks to correct prevailing narratives of French ballet modernism, which exclude one of its earliest and most significant choreographers, Madame Mariquita. Although long overshadowed by the Diaghilev enterprise and by dancers such as Isadora Duncan, Mariquita's experiments with creating dances that drew on ancient Greek imagery while ballet mistress at the Paris Opéra-Comique in the early 1900s were central to ballet culture in France at a pivotal moment in dance history. This article discusses Mariquita's nascent ballet modernism through her choreography of Greek dances as well as her engagement with early twentieth-century French dance and broader cultural trends.

Mark Franko, The Fascist Turn in the Dance of Serge Lifar: Interwar French Ballet and the German Occupation

Mark Franko, The Fascist Turn in the Dance of Serge Lifar: Interwar French Ballet and the German Occupation

The Court Culture in France, Italy and England in 16-17th Centuries: Interaction and Mutual Influence

<p>The article examines the traditions of French court ballet, which are rooted in early medieval Italian musical and theatrical performances, as well as the traditions of the medieval carnival. The functional features of the French court ballet are revealed. French ballet is viewed through the prism of a synthesized art form: dance, music, poetry and complex scenography. It is specified that French ballet as an independent genre was formed in the era of Queen Catherine de Medici.</p><p>It was revealed that thanks to the skill and professionalism of choreographers of both French and Italian descent, the French court ballet reached its peak in the first half of the seventeenth century.</p><p>It was determined that the court ballet was becoming a cultural and political instrument that raised the status of France in Europe, served to strengthen the authority of the French monarch, and was a means of uniting the French monarchy and the people. Despite significant financial costs, the political and cultural feasibility of staging court ballets exceeded the economic feasibility.</p><p>An analogy is drawn with the English court Мasque. It is substantiated that the English court Masque was based on the traditions of Italian intermedio and French court ballet. Thus, English stage designers adopted the experience of Italian stage designers. Dances of Italian origin were an integral part of Masque in England. Choreography in Masque was created by French and Italian choreographers.</p><p>It has been proven that English culture was influenced by continental culture, which contributed to the formation of a common cultural space.</p><p>It is substantiated that the genre of French ballet, Italian intermedio and English Masque were not a high art, but over time, having undergone a transformation, they evolved into new forms and genres.</p>

Mad fools and the Praise of Folly: matassins and the ballets of Lully, Destouches and Campra (1660–1718)

Mad fools and buffoons called matassins performed comic dances in pantomime and were sometimes portrayed in French ballet. There is confusion concerning their identity and the choreography they performed, in particular whether they were humorous figures or warlike sword dancers. The entertainers known as matassins may have come to France in association with the commedia dell’arte, and the first printed music bearing the title ‘matassin’ appeared in France (Guillaume Morlaye, 1552). Matassins appear along with commedia dell’arte characters or in commedia-derived scenes in ballets. Among these are ballet intermèdes composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully for performance between the acts of the first Paris performance of Francesco Cavalli’s opera Xerxes (1660), intermèdes tightly integrated with the action in Molière and Lully’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669), and Lully’s tragédie- and comédie-ballet Psyché (1670). They also performed in André Campra’s ballet pastiche Les fragments de Monsieur de Lully (1702), as well as Campra’s opéra-ballet Les Âges (1718), and André Cardinal Destouches and Houdar de la Motte’s comédie-ballet Le Carnaval et la Folie (1703), which were both based directly or indirectly on Desiderius Erasmus’s Praise of Folly.

Fictions of the Courtly Self: French Ballet in the Age of Louis XIV

Court ballet after the Fronde has been understood as a technique for subjugating nobles, literally and metaphorically keeping them dancing in the monarch's orbit. This essay reconsiders ballet's role in fabricating aristocratic identities under Louis XIV through a reading of the performances of two celebrated English dancers (the Dukes of York and Buckingham) in the Ballet royal de la nuit (1653). These performers' status as outsiders and as court celebrities with well-known personalities highlights the dancers’ influence over the roles they incarnated on the ballet stage. The body types and especially the self-fashioned social personas of performers were the raw material to which court artists added costume, choreography, and poetic text to create ballet characters. Dancers therefore acted as implicit collaborators in creating their onstage personas. Drawing upon Performance Studies' re-interrogation of the dynamics of subjection and agency in embodied practices, the analysis of the English dancers' unique case allows us to speculate about the degree of autonomy afforded to all noble performers and, more broadly, to consider how ballet expresses the mutual interdependence of sovereigns and nobles in court society.

Fictions of the Courtly Self: French Ballet in the Age of Louis XIV

Fictions of the Courtly Self: French Ballet in the Age of Louis XIV

Katherine Philips’s French Translations: Between Mediation and Appropriation

ABSTRACTWhile Katherine Philips's translations from Corneille, especially her Pompey, have attracted substantial scholarly attention in recent years, her other translations from the French have been relatively neglected. Yet these shorter translations are key to understanding the kind of niche as a social, fashionable author Philips was attempting to create for herself in the latter part of her career. The French poems she chose to translate or imitate are indicative of the forms of poetry she was trying to promote in the early 1660s, as she looked towards France for inspiration and sought to make an impact in British literary and musical life by emulating French models. Her interest in the French court air and ballet also sheds light on her aims in composing her songs between the acts in Pompey. Philips's French poems testify to her interest in contemporary French musical and literary culture, as well as in a more highbrow pastoral literature that she was trying to adapt for an English audience. Her translation of Saint-Amant's “Solitude” in particular represents an ambitious attempt to make an intervention in the contemporary debate about neo-Epicureanism, while also reflecting her literary flair for identifying popular poems.

The Ballets Russes and Beyond: Music and Dance in Belle-Époque Paris by Davinia Caddy (review)

The Ballets and Beyond: Music and Dance in Belle-Epoque Paris. By Davinia Caddy. (New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism, 22). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. [xvi, 237 p. ISBN 9781107014404. $99.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Davinia Caddy's The Ballets Busses and is timely. The book was published o just year before centennial celebrations of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Claude Debussy's feta and on the heels of recent spate of Ballets literature, exhibitions and revivals: for example, the 2010-11 Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Beyond Ballets Russes season at the London Coliseum in March 2012. Yet, although The Ballets Muses and shares its name with the latter, Caddy's monograph does not partake in the Coliseum's lionization of the Russian troupe. Rethinking much-told history, this book turns traditional, romanticized assumptions about the Ballets on their heads. Caddy has no qualms about the revisionist bent of her research; she describes her book as 'alternative' study (p. 115), a recovery effort (p. 16) and awakening (p. 28). While she is careful acknowledge the element of truth underlying the myth of the Russian Ballet's Midas touch (p. 13), an important objective of her book is to pull on the reins of the Ballets bandwagon (p. 14). But Caddy does not lack for enthusiasm. Far from it: her fresh perspective and musical focus throw new light on company too often obscured by reverence. Focusing in particular on the period 1909-14 and centered on Paris, The Ballets and may at first seem restricted in scope. Yet Caddy's interpretative vision is remarkably broad: she deals not only with the Ballets Russes, but also with variety of other dancers and companies within its orbit, and her interpretative context extends as far as the fields of psychophysiology and germ theory (the latter in relation the Ballets Russes's metaphorical invasion of the French body politic, on which see below). Unifying themes of gesture and the body ensure that the book's chronologically ordered yet methodologically diverse chapters hold together coherently. Having carefully positioned her investigation in the introduction, Caddy immediately sidesteps the Ballets in her second chapter, choosing instead concentrate on the overlooked prewar ballets at the Paris Opera. In particular, she focuses on the complex relationship between the French and Russian companies as perceived in the press following the arrival of the Ballets in Paris in 1909. During the nineteenth century, ballet in France had gained reputation for decadence, excessive virtuosity, and incomprehensibility. The Ballets Russes, on the other hand, was lauded for its simple and expressive style. In response the call for revived national ballet in France at the turn of the century, critics suggested that the French could learn lesson or two from the Russians; soon, the Slavic influence began infiltrate the productions of the Paris Opera. Yet La Fete chez Therese, choreographed by Mlle Stichel (Louise Manzini) with music by Reynaldo Hahn, was conspicuous anomaly: not only was the ballet out of line with the Opera's other works, but it also seemed immune the powerful influence of the Ballets Russes. Although the work received its premiere in 1910, plans for the production dated back 1907, two years prior the arrival of the Russian troupe in Paris. Caddy's thick description (p. 25) of Therese is insightful, despite the lack of choreographic documentation. (She assures us that the Opera's collection of press clippings about Therese originates mostly from the moment of the ballet's premiere, although all but one of her sources are undated.) By demonstrating the work's innovative aesthetic, engagement with national traditions, and resonance with contemporary trends, Caddy reveals that these characteristics usually associated with the Ballets were in fact already ingrained features of French ballet. …

The Mereotopological Space/Time of Dance

This article will test the functioning of topology in the analysis of a particular choreography by Anglo-Indian kathak dancer Akram Khan and French ballet dancer Sylvie Guillem, titled Sacred Monsters, a dance performed between classical traditions and contemporary styles. In particular, we will draw on Alfred N. Whitehead’s “mereotopology,” a topology of “regions” (rather than “points”) where the ontological relation between A and B as perceivable and thinkable “regions” allows us to bypass the infamous dualism of body and mind (or the topological aporia between process and point). The final aim will be to isolate from the choreography of Sacred Monsters some gestures as mereotopological invariants or perceivable movement sections, simultaneously abstracting them from their physical and cultural dimensions and revealing them as “virtual movement-objects” to be differently actualized: rather than an ethnographic analysis of the performed dance in its physico/cultural peculiarities, a mereotopological, abstractly empirical study of its space and time.

Archival Sources for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Theatrical Dance in Italy

The main archival sources related to the Italian ballet of the nineteenth century give insight into a period both rich in documentation and important to the history of Western theatrical dance.* A well-established historiographical tradition retains its focus on the French Romantic ballet, about which many valuable reference texts have been published in English, for example those representing Ivor Guest's lifelong achievements.1 The paradigms elaborated on the basis of the French ballet, however, cannot be applied to the whole of nineteenth-century Europe. Much has yet to be discovered, as shown by research published in the last thirty years. It cannot be denied that the Italian ballet had distinct features of its own, or that it deserves a definite place in the historical study of nineteenth-century theatrical dance. Although a full bibliographical list of research on this subject cannot be provided here, some important publications based on primary sources will be given in the course of this report.† More than forty years ago, Peter Brinson, in Background to European Ballet: A Notebook from Its Archives (Leyden: Sijthoff, 1966), was clearly conscious of the richness of Italian archives and recognized that contemporary evaluations of nineteenth-century ballet had been based almost exclusively on French sources (see, in particular, chapter 2, “Southern Europe—Italy,” 23–48). I am grateful to José Sasportes for this reference. Two journals, La Danza Italiana (initiated in 1984 by founding editor José Sasportes), and Chorégraphie (begun in 1993 by founding editor Flavia Pappacena), have greatly spurred research into Italian dance history.

Sophie Simon Solves Them All (review)

Reviewed by: Sophie Simon Solves Them All Deborah Stevenson Graff, Lisa. Sophie Simon Solves Them All; illus. by Jason Beene. Farrar, 2010. [128p.] ISBN 978-0-374-37125-8 $14.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 3-4. Genius third-grader Sophie can't convince her loving parents, who think their daughter should be average and "well-adjusted," that what she really wants is a graphing calculator to do calculus. Her classmates have similar parental dilemmas: Owen can't make his mother understand that all he wants for his birthday is a bunny and not some striking exotic pet; klutzy Daisy yearns for her parents to let her drop out of ballet; Julia resists her father's desire to make her into a mathlete and aspires toward journalism instead. Can Sophie's brilliance link all these problems together and solve them in one fell swoop? Graff, author of solid, accessible realism in The Thing about Georgie (BCCB 4/07) and Umbrella Summer (BCCB 7/09), here takes a somewhat farcical approach, evident in elements such as the teacher's ever-growing list of absurd rules ("No dropping three things at once"; "No reading books fatter than your head") and the ballerina sit-in at Daisy's recital. Sophisticated touches in the vocabulary (the draconian French ballet teacher is Madame Robespierre, for instance) make the book particularly suited to young Sophie-type overachievers looking for a quick read, but kids of all stripes will recognize the frustration of dealing with parents who think you're someone you're not and admire the quick shuffle that gets all the beleaguered youngsters what they want. Beene's black-and-white illustrations offer polished exaggeration in their character caricature and a nicely against-type portrait of young Sophie. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Legacies of twentieth-century dance

Lynn Garafola has written some of the most influential historical studies and criticism in the field of dance. Legacies of Twentieth-Century is a selection of her essays and reviews that together document the extraordinary transformation of dance, especially ballet, since the early 20th century. Part I, Ballet Russes and Beyond, explores the relatively uncharted landscape of French ballet and European art dance in the early 1900s. Part II, Reconfiguring the Sexes, focuses on women, such as choreographer Bronislava Nijinkska and dancer Ida Rubinstein, as well as phenomena that invite a feminist interpretation, such as the feminization of 19th-century ballet and the invisibility of women choreographers in ballet. Part III, Dance in New York, examines the period when New York became not only the U.S. dance capital but also, by the 1960s, the dance capital of the world. Finally, Part IV, Staging the Past, deals with issues of memory, reconstruction, and historical neglect. The book includes a generous selection of photographs.

Italian Influence on the English Court Masque

ITALIAN INFLUENCE ON THE ENGLISH COURT MASQUE. The subject of this paper requires a word of explanation. During the course of research into the history of the English Masque, I found it necessary to give some attention to contemporary ltalian festivities, which I believed had influenced our court masques even more deeply than was commonly supposed. My anxiety to discover the extent and character of this influence was increased by a study of the designs for masque scenery by Inigo Jones, which are collected at Chatsworth and which I was enabled to examine and trace by the kind permission of the Duke of Devonshire. Many of these designs are of real delicacy and beauty, and the question arose whether they were genuine products of the imagination of our English architect. The general influence of the art of the ltalian Renaissance was obvious enough; were they not actually borrowed from the work of ltalian artists? This suspicion proved to be correct. I found that several of the designs were taken? either whole or in part?from the work of the Florentine artist Giulio Parigi, the master of the famous French engraver, Jacques Callot. Further, I found that the designs and libretti of many English masques, were borrowed from certain ltalian festivities which took place in the year 1608. These facts, of which, as far as I know, historians of the masque have hitherto been unaware, are of more than mere antiquarian interest. They do, I believe, throw valuable light on the character and develop? ment of the English court masque. The masque is sometimes treated as a rather unimportant subdivision of the drama; but it may almost be said to have been less closely related to dramatic literature than to music, dancing, painting and architecture. The nucleus of the whole performance was the arrival of magnificently disguised masquers, who first appeared carefully grouped in some gorgeous machine, set against an elaborate background; and then descended into the hall to dance new figured dances and to join in ordinary ball-room dancing with the spectators. There was just enough dramatic dialogue (spoken or chanted by professionals) to fornish a [75] ENID WELSFORD 395 motive for the appearance of the noble and silent masquers1. Grand spectacular effects and transformation scenes were generally considered to be far more important than consistent plot or good poetry. This English masque was closely related to various types of entertainment which were popular at the same period in France, Italy and elsewhere. From the fifteenth century onwards the pastimes of European aristocracies were largely aesthetic in character; poets, painters, musicians were all required for their preparation. At the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was a tendency to shape this inchoate mass of revellings into a definite genre, which was intended to be a harmony of all the arts. The result of this attempt was the Italian Opera, the French Ballet de Cour, and the English Court Masque. In France and Italy this development was the result of conscious thought and effort; in England there was, as usual, very little deliberation and theorizing and the aesthetic development of the masque was chiefly due to the fact that a favourite court amusement was taken in hand by two great artists: the architect Inigo Jones and the poet Ben Jonson. This happened at the beginning of the Stuart period. In 1605 King James was entertained at Oxford by the performance of a tragedy, Ajax Flagellifer. Hoping to make their play unusually splendid, the Oxford men c hired one Mr Jones, a great traveller, who undertook to further them much, and furnish them with rare devices, but performed very little to that which was expected2.' He did however arrange for three changes of scene, worked by a system of revolving pillars, a device which he had taken from the Italian stage8. For the moment Inigo Jones may have disappointed the expectations of his countrymen; but in a very few years he had acquired a great reputation as a designer of scenery for the English court masques, and, no doubt, he owed his initial success very largely to his association with Ben Jonson. From 1605 to...

Cross-Casting in French Court Ballet: Monstrous Aberration or Theatrical Convention?

The phenomenon of men playing women's roles in the theatre has always provoked comment, and often controversy. Anti-theatrical tracts in Renaissance England, for example, are riddled with the complaint that actors who perform female roles are 'monsters'. This charge stems not only from a belief that cross-dressing will lead to effeminization on the part of both cross-dresser and viewer, but moreover from the way cross-casting highlights disturbing insights into questions of personal identity. In this article, I examine the ways in which this notion of monstrosity is played out with regard to cross-cast roles in French court ballet under Louis XIV. While cross-casting is sometimes employed to monstrous effect, it will be seen from contemporary ballet programmes that the monstrosity of a man appearing in feminine attire was subordinate to the need for women at court to conform to their role as beautiful object.

I See America Dancing: Selected Readings, 1685–2000 edited by Maureen Needham. 2002. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, xiii + 249 pp., photographs, bibliographies and fdmography, appendix, index. $44.95 cloth; $18.95 paper.

Representing dancers, scholars, admirers, and critics, I See America Dancing is a diverse collection of primary documents and articles about the place and shape of dance in the United States from colonial times to the present. This volume offers a lively counterpoint between observers of the dance and dancers' views of what they do when they dance. Dance traditions represented include the Native American pow-wow; tribal music and dance activities on Sunday afternoons in New Orlean's Congo Square; the colonial Playford Balls and their modern offspring, country line dancing; and the Buddhist-inspired Japanese Bon dances in Hawaii. Anti-dance perspectives include government injunctions against Native American dancing and essays from a range of speakers who have declared the waltz, the twist, or the senior prom to be a careless quick-step away from hell or the brothel. I See America Dancing examines the styles that have marked theatrical dance in America, from French ballet to minstrel shows, and presents the views of influential dancers, choreographers, and the pioneers of early modern dance in Specific pieces examined include George Ballanchine's ballet Stars and Stripes, Yvonne Rainer's protest piece Flag Dance, 1970, and Sonj Mayo's Naked in America. Covering historical social attitudes toward the dance as well as the performers and their works, I See America Dancing is a comprehensive, scholarly sourcebook that captures the energy and passion of this vital artform.

Sauvages, sex roles, and semiotics: Representations of Native Americans in the French ballet, 1736–1837, part one: The eighteenth century

(2000). Sauvages, sex roles, and semiotics: Representations of native Americans in the French Ballet 1736–1837, part two: The nineteenth century. Dance Chronicle: Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 275-320.

Sauvages, sex roles, and semiotics: Representations of native Americans in the French Ballet 1736–1837, part two: The nineteenth century*

Sauvages, sex roles, and semiotics: Representations of native Americans in the French Ballet 1736–1837, part two: The nineteenth century*

Opera and National Identity: New Canadian Opera

Much has changed on the Canadian stage since 1969, when composer Barbara Pentland lamented to Musicanada that “[w]hat comes from outside the country must de facto be superior. Prime example: the opening of our multi-million-dollar ‘National’ Arts Centre with an imported French ballet company dancing to a score by a Greek composer conducted by an American born in Germany” (qtd. in Kallmann and Potvin 1033). In fact, by 1969 things were already changing – at least on the operatic stage. The centennial year 1967 had made government money available for commissions, and as a result there was an explosion of new operatic productions: Murray Adaskin’s Grant, Warden of the Plains, Kelsey Jones and Rosabelle Jones’s Sam Slick, Robert Turner and George Woodcock’s The Brideship, Raymond Pannell’s The Luck of Ginger Coffey and, perhaps the best known, Mavor Moore and Harry Somers’s Louis Riel.