The Dance (by An Antiquary): Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D.Anonymous
History
The Dance (by An Antiquary): Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D.
Anonymous
Dance -- History
A detailed history of the ballet is, however, impossible here, and we
must proceed to touch only on salient points. It passed from the
Court to the theatre about 1680 and had two characteristics, one with
feminine dancers, the other without.
[Illustration: Fig. 63a.--Dancing satyr playing castanets, by Myron,
in the Vatican Museum. The action is entirely suggestive of that of
Fanny Ellsler, and might be evidence of the antiquity of the Spanish
tradition.]
It is not a little curious that wearing the mask, a revival of the
antique, was practised in some of these ballets. The history of the
opera-ballet of those days gives to us many celebrated names of
musicians, such as Destouches, who gave new "verve" to ballet music,
and Rameau. Jean Georges Noverre abolished the singing and established
the five-act ballet on its own footing in 1776. In this it appears he
had partly the advice of Garrick, whom he met in London. The names of
the celebrated dancers are numerous, such as Pecourt, Blaudy (who
taught Mlle. Camargo), Laval, Vestris, Germain, Prevost, Lafontaine,
and Camargo (fig. 61), of the 18th century; Taglioni, Grisi, Duvernay,
Cerito, Ellsler, etc., of the 19th century, to those of our own day. A
fair notice of all of these would be a work in itself.
[Illustration: Fig. 64.--Mlle. Taglioni. From a lithograph of the
period.]
The introduction of the ballet into England was as late as 1734, when
the French dancers, Mlle. Salle, the rival of Mlle. Camargo, and Mlle.
de Subligny made a great success at Covent Garden in "Ariadne and
Galatea," and Mlle. Salle danced in her own choregraphic invention of
"Pygmalion," since which time it has been popular in England, when
those of the first class can be obtained. There are, however, some
interesting and romantic circumstances connected with the ballet in
London in the last century, which it will not be out of place to
record here. Amongst the dancers of the last century of considerable
celebrity were two already mentioned, Mlles. Duvernay (fig. 62) and
Taglioni (fig. 64), whose names are recorded in the classic verse of
"Ingoldsby."
"Malibran's dead, Duvernay's fled;
Taglioni has not yet arrived in her stead."
[Illustration: Fig. 65.--_Pas de Trois_ by Mlles. Ferraris, Taglioni,
and Carlotta Grisi.]
Mlle. Duvernay was a Parisian, and commenced her study under Barrez,
but subsequently was under Vestris and Taglioni, the father of the
celebrity mentioned in the verse.
[Illustration: Fig. 66.--Mlle. Adeline Genee, 1906. Photo, Ellis and
Walery.]
Duran hangs over the mantelpiece of the refectory of the presbytery.
[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Mlle. Anna Pavlova, 1910. From a photo by
Foulsham and Banfield.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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