“Ballets have hitherto been the faint sketch only of what they might one day be. An art entirely subservient, as this is, to taste and genius, may receive daily variations and improvements. History, painting, mythology, poetry, all join to raise it from that obscurity in which it lies buried; and it is truly surprising that composers have hitherto disdained so many valuable resources.... If ballets are for the most part uninteresting and uniformly dull, if they fail in their characteristic _expression_ which constitutes their very essence, the defect does not originate from the art itself, but should be ascribed to the artists. Are then the latter to be told that dancing is an imitative art? I am indeed inclined to think that they know it not, since we daily see the generality of composers sacrifice the beauties of the dance and forego the graceful _naïveté_ of sentiment, to become servile copyists of a certain number of figures known and hackneyed for a century or more.... It is uncommon and next to impossible now to find invention in ballets, elegance in the forms, neatness in the groups, or the requisite precision in the means of introducing the various figures.” “Ballet masters should consult the productions of the most eminent painters. This would bring them nearer to Nature and induce them to avoid as often as possible that symmetry of figures which, by repeating the object, presents two separate pictures on one and the same canvas. A ballet, perfect in all its parts, is a picture drawn from life, of the manners, dresses, ceremonies and customs of the various nations. It must be a complete _panto-mime_ and through the eyes speak, as it were, to the very soul of the spectator. If it wants expression, if it be deficient in point of situation and scenery, it degenerates into a mere _spectacle_, flat and monotonous. “This kind of composition will not admit of mediocrity; like the art of painting it requires a degree of perfection the more difficult to attain in that it is subordinate to a true imitation of Nature, and that it is next to an impossibility to achieve that all-subduing truth which conceals the illusion from the spectator, carries him, as it were, to the very spot where the scene lies; and inspires him with the same sentiments as he must experience, were he present at the events which the artist only represents. “Ballets, being regular representations, ought to unite the various parts of the drama. Most of the subjects, adapted to the dancer, are devoid of sense, and exhibit only a confused jumble of scenes, equally unmeaning and unconnected; yet it is in general absolutely necessary to confine oneself within certain rules. The historical part of a ballet must have its exposition, its incidents, its _dénouement_. The success of this kind of entertainment chiefly depends on choosing good subjects, and dealing with them in a proper manner.”