It was with Giselle, first performed in Paris in 1841, that Romantic dance-making reached its highest peak, thanks to the brilliant narrative devised by Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) and the music by Adolphe Adam (1803 -1856). Gautier was a well-known poet, novelist and, most importantly, dance critic. He was inspired to create Giselle after reading a work by German Romantic author Heinrich Heinebased upon an ancient legend about dancing female spirits. Adolphe Adam, the composer of Giselle, is now unjustly scorned by musicologists, yet he was one of the first to create a full-length ballet score – until then ballet music was a hotchpotch of citations from popular operas, concerts etc. For the first time in the history of ballet music, he also employed a number of leitmotifs, or main themes, in line with the precepts of early Romantic opera.
The great success of Giselle, alas, could not be repeated, and soon Romantic ballet was plagued by a sterile reiteration of trite formulae aimed exclusively at displaying the ballerina’s talents. A clear sign of the decadence of the genre was the Pas de Quatre, arguably the first plotless ballet, created as a purely technical showcase for four of the most famous female dancers of the time: Marie Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi,Fanny Cerrito (1817-1909) and Lucile Grahn (1819-1907). This bravura showcase was the brainchild of a clever English impresario, Benjamin Lumley and was first performed on 12 July 1845 at the Her Majesty’s Theatre in London. The British capital had responded particularly enthusiastically to appeal of the Parisian-born Romantic ballet.
Information From:
http://www.roh.org.uk/discover/ballet/history/partthree.aspx
Key Points:
ReplyDeleteGiselle had some of the most famous ballet dancer (of the time) performing: Marie Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi,Fanny Cerrito and Lucile Grahn.