Marian Smith recaptures a rich period in French musical theater
when ballet and opera were intimately connected. Focusing on the
age of "Giselle" at the Paris Opera (from the 1830s through the
1840s), Smith offers an unprecedented look at the structural and
thematic relationship between the two genres. She argues that a
deeper understanding of both ballet and opera--and of
nineteenth-century theater-going culture in general--may be gained
by examining them within the same framework instead of following
the usual practice of telling their histories separately. This
handsomely illustrated book ultimately provides a new portrait of
the Opera during a period long celebrated for its box-office
successes in both genres.
Smith begins by showing how gestures were encoded in the musical
language that composers used in ballet and in opera. She moves on
to a wide range of topics, including the relationship between the
gestures of the singers and the movements of the dancers, and the
distinction between dance that represents dancing (entertainment
staged within the story of the opera) and dance that represents
action. Smith maintains that ballet-pantomime and opera continued
to rely on each other well into the nineteenth century, even as
they thrived independently. The "divorce" between the two arts
occurred little by little, and may be traced through unlikely
sources: controversies in the press about the changing nature of
ballet-pantomime music, shifting ideas about originality,
complaints about the ridiculousness of pantomime, and a
little-known rehearsal score for "Giselle.""
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