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The World of Arts:
The romantic ballet
Gwen HERAT
From beginning of dancing with Romans and Ancient Greeks, it
developed into Renaissance and Romantic ballet to modern dance. Its
historical changes are fascinating in classical repertory.
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On pointe; The grace and charm of a ballerina. |
Among the pioneers, Noverre advocated a natural and free unstrained
manner in movements and this may have materialised had not Romanticism
prevented it. With several changes that followed a successful basic plan
for ballet survived which saw in the repertories of many Soviet and
Western companies. First of its kind was seen in 1789 when Jean
Dauberval mounted La Fille Mal Gardee in Bordeaux.
Poetic environment continued to inspire choreographers for great many
years during and after Romanticism. Two examples are Fokin’s Les
Sylphides and Balanchine’s Serenade.
The exploitation of dancing on the tips of toes in specially designed
padded shoes for dancing on pointe was the most important change during
this period. Toe-dancing in theatrical terms was certainly in vogue long
before the auro of Romanticism touched ballet. This is a matter of
opinion.
Whether toe-dancing denoted pointe-dancing where choreographers used
the term ‘pointe’ because of its classical bearings will naturally argue
in favour of Romantic period. In 1827, Taglioni was positively dancing
on toes and although critics of that day never considered it a necessity
to discuss ‘pointe’ work.
Perhaps, because it was more than likely it was accepted. Why points
dancing assumed such importance was because of the natural continuation
of movements demanded by many characters of Romanticism characters such
as Sylphs and Fairies who were taking-off positions for flight and
‘illusions’ of flight.
It gave the ballerina a new added grace and endowed her with an
immortal touch, dressed in pristine white. Dazzling feats of ‘pirouttes’
became a part of her repertoire. And such charming pirouttes were
produced by pointe-work. A terrific example was ‘pas de bourree couru’
that the great Pavalova immortalised years later in the Dying Swan.
It was left to Taglioni to demonstrate how a ballerina could stand on
tips of the toes to reveal how pointe could produce new subtleties in
the repertoire of the dancer as well as the choreographer.
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Strapping up for pointe work |
However, it was La Camargo who a century earlier introduced heel-less
ballet shoes as Tagilioni went further and developed the pointe work.
It was a personal triumph for Taglioni and added tremendous feats of
elevation and an impression of weightlessness. With all these added
merits and qualities, her father, Fillipo Taglioni created the title
role of La Sylphide which was first performed at the Paris Opera Ballet
in 1832.
This was the beginning of Romanticism in ballet.
The Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen mounted another production of
La Sylphide four years later, based on the works of Fillipo Taglioni.
This has remained in the company’s repertory as the definite original
version of Taglioni to this date. Its choreographer, August Bournoville
used a new score by Levenskjold to replace the 1832 music of
Schneitzhoffer whose sheer charm of music contributed to its survival.
In 1841, Gautier joined up with Saint-Georges to write the scenario
for Giselle. The ballet had all the requisites of Romantic ballet and
was a major test for the classical ballerina. Giselle ended as one of
ballet’s finest examples of the Romantic period. It is more surprising
that it was produced in such short time. Adolf Adam took just ten days
to score the music. The ballet enjoyed immediate success to date with
all leading ladies in the title role:
Anna Pavlova - 1903
Tamara Karsavina - 1910
Olga Spessivtseva - 1924
Galina Ulanova - 1932
Alicia Markova - 1934
Margot Fonteyn - 1937
Yvette Chauvire - 1944
Svetlana Beriosova - 1956
Lucette Aldous - 1960
Ekaterina Maximova - 1960
Natalia Markarova - 1961
Natalia Bessimertnova - 1965
Margaret Barbieri - 1971
Eva Evdokimova - 1971
Ballet music during this period was becoming stero-typed. It was
difficult to identify ballet score one from the other. Choreographers
often ordered a few bars of music. All this and many among other, ballet
was forced into decline. To this date, Paris Opera has not recovered
from the wounds it suffered during the period of Romanticism but its
tradition of training still produce remarkable dancers.
A ray of hope appeared in the horizon during the early years of
Romantic Ballet’s decline in France when the thirty two year old
composer, Leo Delibes, together with Hungarian composer Leon Minkus
wrote the score for Les Source for the Opera in 1866.
Delibes was responsible for the scores of all ballets that followed.
In fact, Tchaikovsky who was one of Delibes’s great admirers, wrote of
him, ‘Swan Lake is poor stuff compared to Sylvia. The vigour with which
Romantic ballet flourished in France was no match to other countries.
London took to Romantic ballet with great expectation. Bournonville
was making his own significant contribution towards romantic movements.
But, there lurked behind all these happenings the emergence of another
phenomenon - The Russian Imperial Ballet. |
