Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty MasterworksLincoln Kirstein, co-founder (with George Balanchine) and longtime General Director of the world-famous New York City Ballet, is one of America's most eloquent and influential spokesmen for the dance. In this profusely illustrated study, he brings extraordinary erudition, a ballentomane's passion and a critic's perception to the task of illuminating four centuries of ballet history. Here is an examination, lucid and brilliant, not only of dances and dancers, but of dance itself. Kirsten surveys the five components of theatrical dance - choreography, gesture and mime, music costume, scenery and decor - and traces their development over the past 400 years. "If there is a hero, " he writes, "it is choreography" - that "map of movement" embodying the syntax, idiom and vocabulary of dance. |
Contents
Materials and Structure | 2 |
Gesture and Mime | 20 |
Key Composers | 28 |
Antique and Historical | 34 |
Décor for Dancing | 40 |
A Conspect of Ballets 15731968 | 48 |
Le Ballet des Polonais Court Ballet Beginnings | 50 |
BalletComique de la Royne Louise Court Ballet Culmination | 54 |
Giselle ou les Wilis Ballet Romantique Score and Corps | 150 |
La Esmeralda Realism Character and Corps | 154 |
Le Pas de Quatre Ballet Embodied | 158 |
La Fille du Pharaon Ballet à Grand Spectacle | 162 |
Koniok Gorbunok FrancoRussian Ballet | 166 |
Coppélia ou La Fille aux Yeux dEmail Decadence The Dancing Doll | 170 |
La Belle au Bois Dormant Romanov Ballet de Cour | 174 |
Le Lac des Cygnes Music for Masterwork | 178 |
La Liberazione di Tirreno e dArnea Autori del Sangue Toscano Ballet at Court Italy | 58 |
La Délivrance de Renaud Ballet at Court France | 62 |
Salmacida Spolia The English Court Masque | 66 |
La Finta Pazza La Folle Supposée Décor and Divertissement | 70 |
Le Ballet de la Nuit Royal Ballet | 74 |
Les Nopces de Pelée et de Thétis OperaBallet | 78 |
Les Fâcheux French ComedyBallet | 82 |
Les Amants Magnifiques End of the Amateur | 86 |
Les Horaces French Pantomime | 90 |
The Loves of Mars and Venus English Pantomime | 94 |
Les Caractères de la Danse Rococo Variety | 98 |
La Guinguette Ballet Burlesque | 102 |
Pygmalion Ballet dAction Vienna | 106 |
Les Fêtes Chinoises The Exotic Living Pictures | 110 |
Le Turc Généreux Der Grossmutige Türke The Exotic Danced Drama | 114 |
Don Juan ou le Festin de Pierre MusicDrama Danced | 118 |
Jason et Medée Ballet dAction Heroic Pantomime | 122 |
La Fille Mal Gardée Country Dances Peasant Comedy | 126 |
Flore et Zéphyre Flight Wires and Toe Shoes | 130 |
La Vestale Choreodrama | 134 |
La Somnambule ou lArrivée dun Nouveau Seigneur Ballet Bourgeois | 138 |
Robert le Diable Gothic Romanticism | 142 |
La Sylphide Ballet Romantique | 146 |
La Pavillon dArmide Frances Gift to Russia Returned | 182 |
Les Sylphides Romantic Reprise and Recapitulation | 186 |
Schéhérazade Diaghilevs Oriental Orgy | 190 |
Petrouchka Ballet Russe Music and Magic | 194 |
LAprèsMidi dun Faune Restriction Toward Revolution | 198 |
Jeux Modernity Sex as Sport | 202 |
Le Sacre du Printemps Russian Ballet Rite and Revolution | 206 |
Parade Modern Life Paint and Pantomime | 210 |
Triadisches Ballet Abstract Ballet Costume as Décor | 214 |
Tanzsynfonia Movement as Music Symphonism | 218 |
Les Noces Villageoises Ritual Synthesis | 222 |
Apollon Musagète The Academy Renewed | 226 |
Jardin aux Lilas English DanceDrama | 230 |
Fancy Free Broadway Ballet | 234 |
Orpheus Mime and Music Another Start | 238 |
Agon Mastery by Music for Movement | 242 |
Enigma Variations The Composer as FirstDancer | 246 |
Acknowledgments | 250 |
Notes to Illustrations | 251 |
Bibliography | 274 |
| 279 | |
Common terms and phrases
academic Alexandre Benois Apollo artists Bakst Balanchine ballerina ballet d'action ballet master Baroque Benois Bibliothèque body century choreography classic Cocteau commedia dell'arte composer Coppélia corps de ballet costume dancing master danse décor designed deux Diaghilev divertissement drama drawing dress Engraving Esmeralda Faune Fokine France French gesture Giselle grand illus Isadora Isadora Duncan Italian Italy Juan king La Sylphide later Léon Bakst libretto Lithograph Louis XIV Lully male dancer ment metaphor Michel Fokine mime mimicry Molière Moscow movement Museum Nijinsky Nijinsky's Noverre Noverre's numbers Opéra opera houses orchestra Orpheus painters painting palace pantomime Paris pas de deux performed Perrot Petersburg Petipa Petrouchka Plot or Pretext Politics Precedent Prince Priority Production Rameau repertory Roman Russian Salmacida Spolia scene scenery Schéhérazade score Social dance spectacle stage Stravinsky style Sylphide Taglioni Théâtre Théâtre du Châtelet Thétis tion tradition Vaslav Nijinsky Vienna Viganò virtuosity Watercolor York and London