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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Western music, periods & styles > Romantic music (c 1830 to c 1900)
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The Ballets of Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber (Paperback, Unabridged edition)
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Discovery Miles 15 620
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The Ballets of Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber (Paperback, Unabridged edition)
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Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber (Caen 29 January 1782- Paris 12/13 May
1871) is primarily remembered as one of the great masters of
opera-comique, but also played a very important role in the
development of Romantic ballet through the long danced interludes
and divertissements in his grand operas La Muette de Portici, Le
Dieu et la Bayadere, Gustave III, ou Le Bal masque, Le Lac des
fees, L'Enfant prodigue, Zerline, and the opera-ballet version of
Le Cheval de bronze. Auber also adapted music of various of his
operas to create the score of the full-length ballet Marco Spada;
it is quite different from his own opera on the subject.
Additionally, several choreographers have used Auber's music for
their ballets, among them Frederick Ashton (Les Rendezvous, 1937),
Victor Gsovsky (Grand Pas Classique, 1949) and Lew Christensen
(Divertissement d'Auber, 1959).La Muette de Portici (1828),
choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer, is set against the Neapolitan
uprising of 1647, and was performed 500 times in Paris alone
between 1828 and 1880. The opera provides one of the few serious
subjects the composer tackled, and one which critics found to have
a persuasive dramatic content. An unusual aspect of the work is
that the main character, a mute girl, is performed by a mime or a
ballerina. The role of ballet in La Muette is important in setting
the local scene, using dance episodes, whether courtly, and
therefore Spanish-as in the guarucha and bolero in act 1, or
popular, and therefore Neapolitan-as in the act 3 tarantella. Dance
is also innate to the dramatic situation in the extended mime
sequences for the mute heroine each with its own specially crafted
music and character. The music responds to, and reflects, the vivid
and imposing scenic effects (based on historical and pictorial
research by the great stage designers and painters Ciceri and
Daguerre). Le Dieu et la Bayadere (1830), set in India, was
choreographed by Filippo Taglioni. Eugene Scribe, not only one of
the most influential of opera librettists, but also a leading
figure in the history of ballet, wrote the scenario for the danced
part, which was fairly long and of artistic merit. In the ballet
scenes of the opera, the choreographer, one of the most important
exponents of dance in the Romantic period, was already
experimenting with the ideas and style that were to characterize
the creations of his prime, and of the Romantic ballet as a whole:
an exotic fairy tale subject (often pseudo-Medieval or pastoral),
and strange love affairs with supernatural beings, in the
theatrical, musical and literary taste of the period. Above all,
the Romantic ballet focused on the idealization of the ballerina,
floating on the tips of her toes, a figure of ethereal lyricism.
All the ballets by Filippo Taglioni were designed to display his
daughter Marie's luminous artistic personality. The heavily
mime-oriented role of the bayadere Zoloe was one of Marie
Taglioni's createst triumphs. Gustave III (1833), based on the
assassination of King Gustavus of Sweden in 1792, and also
choreographed by Filippo Taglioni, was heavily influenced by the
impact of the production of Robert le Diable, which saw a
particular emphasis placed on sets and stage effects. The grand and
historical nature of this opera is powerfully underscored by the
two intercalated ballets. The first divertissement comes as early
as act 1, and is in the nature of a grand historical pageant based
on the life of Gustavus Vasa (1523-60), founder of the present
Swedish state, before he gained the crown. There are two dances
illustrating the prince's leadership of the populace of Dalecarlia
on the campaign to gain freedom from Denmark. The second
divertissement is the legendary masked ball of the title at which
the king was assassinated in 1792. The spectacle provided by the
Opera was sensational: the stage was illumined by 1600 candles in
crystal chandeliers, and 300 dancers took part, all dressed in
different costumes, and with 100 dancing the final galop. There are
six numbers: three airs de danse (Allemande, Pas de folies,
Menuet), two marches, and the famous final galop. Much time in Le
Lac des fees, a tale of love between a human and a supernatural
being, choreographed by Jean Coralli, is taken in elaborating the
central depiction of popular festivity. Indeed, the requirements of
grand-opera are realized with an original twist in the big act 3
depiction of the Medieval Epiphany celebrations, with its attempt
at recreating the variety of genre and mood. There is a detailed
description of the procession through the streets of Cologne,
organized by the Medieval guilds, each preceded by its own
standard, with choruses. It unfolds in several movements:-the
chorus of students "Vive la jeunesse", the Fete des Rois with its
Chant de Noel, the whole culminating in a big ballet sequence of
four dances: 1) Valse des Etudiants, 2) Pas de Bacchus et Erigone,
3) Styrienne, and 4) Bacchanale. Scribe's stage directions provide
vivid details and combine historically informed spectacle,
pantomime and dance into a single artistic conception.L'Enfant
prodigue (1850), based on the Biblical parable of the Prodigal Son,
was choreographed by Arthur Saint-Leon. A special aspect of the
opera is the dance sequence in act 2-No.10 Scene, containing 5 Airs
de ballet, as part of the celebrations of the sacred bull Apis.
There are some further danced passages in the opening part of act
3, where the formal operatic elements of prayer, drinking song,
bacchanal, and lullaby are integrated with singing and dancing into
an artistic whole, once again with reference to the venerable
French tradition of the opera-ballet. Scribe's scenarios show that
the formal dances are either enmeshed in the unfolding of the drama
(act 2), or use dance an integral element in the thematic
ramifications of the plotline (in act 3).Zerline, ou La Corbeille
d'oranges (1851) was choreographed by Joseph Mazilier. Act 3 is
dominated by the great princely festivities featuring eight dance
movements (No. 15 Airs de Ballet and No. 16 Choeur (Valse), a
pallid reminiscence of the great Masked Ball of Gustave in 1832.
Auber reused much of the ballet music from act 3 of Le Lac des fees
in this elaborate semi-allegorical masque that employs a variety of
forms and fuses various types of danced entertainment, from
classical pas de deux and formal ball through national dance,
vaudeville and children's routines to carnival.Marco Spada, ou La
Fille du bandit (1857) was choreographed by Joseph Mazilier.
Scribe's libretto for the opera-comique Marco Spada which had been
produced at the Opera-Comique in December 1852 with Auber's music,
met the fundamental requirement of having two important female
characters, and provided Scribe with the right opportunity to adapt
his story to a scenario for dancing. So the opera-comique was
transformed into a ballet-Auber's only full length one. The music
was not an adaptation of the opera, but rather a composite score
made up of the most striking numbers from several of Auber's works:
Le Concert a la cour, Fiorella, La Fiancee, Fra Diavolo, Le Lac des
fees, L'Ambassadrice, Les Diamants de la couronne, La Barcarolle,
Zerline and L'Enfant prodigue. The original scenario required
elaborate decor and stage machinery, which was a factor in this
later revival of the work at the Academie de musique on 21
September1857. In 1857 Auber reworked the score of the
opera-comique Le Cheval de bronze as an opera-ballet in four acts,
adding recitatives, and extra ballet and ensemble numbers. The
choreography was by Lucien Petipa. The divertissements consisted of
1) a seven-movement Pas de quatre in act 12) a four-movement Danse
in act 33) and five-movement Pas de deux in act 4.This version of
the opera has never been published.The 20th century saw Auber's
music used for three significant ballet arrangements.Les Rendezvous
is an abstract ballet created in 1933 with choreography by
Frederick Ashton, the first major ballet created by Ashton for the
Vic Wells company. It was first performed on Tuesday, December 5th,
1933, by the Vic Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Premiered
in Paris in the year 1949, Grand Pas Classique by Russian
choreographer and ballet master Victor Gsovsky (1902 74) is a
homage to classical dance. Based on musical extracts from the
three-act ballet Marco Spada (1857), published by the composer as
an offshoot of his opera by the same name, this pas de deux is a
masterpiece of exquisite virtuosity. Divertissement d'Auber is set
to excerpts from Auber's four most famous and dazzling operatic
overtures. It is quicksilver, joyous music that inspired Lew
Christensen's most brilliant and effervescent choreographic style.
The work showcases the technique of classical ballet at its peak,
with the form and movement of the choreography running the gamut of
the dancer's virtuoso vocabulary. Divertissement d'Auber is a
staple of Christensen's canon.
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