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French Ballet
In the French courts during the 17th Century, ballet first begins to flourish with the help of several important men: King Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Pierre Beauchamps, and Molière. The combination of different talents and passions of these four men shaped ballet to what it is today. Early history Louis XIV Louis XIV, the King of France from 1643 to 1715, was a ballet enthusiast from a young age. In fact his birth was celebrated with the ''Ballet de la Felicite'' in 1639. As a young boy, he was strongly supported and encouraged by the court, particularly by Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin, to take part in the ballets. He made his debut at age 14 in the ''Ballet de Cassandre'' in 1651. Two years later in 1653, the teenage king starred as Apollo, the sun god, in '' Ballet Royal de la Nuit'' (Royal Ballet of the Night). His influence on the art form and its influence on him became apparent. His fancy golden costume was not soon forgotten, and his famous performance led to his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Louis XIV
Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reigning monarchs, longest of any sovereign in history whose date is verifiable. Although Louis XIV's France was emblematic of the Absolutism (European history), age of absolutism in Europe, the King surrounded himself with a variety of significant political, military, and cultural figures, such as Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Bossuet, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Colbert, Charles Le Brun, Le Brun, André Le Nôtre, Le Nôtre, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Lully, Cardinal Mazarin, Mazarin, Molière, Jean Racine, Racine, Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne, Turenne, and Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, Vauban. Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister, the Cardinal Mazarin. An adherent o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Positions Of The Feet In Ballet
The positions of the feet in ballet is a fundamental part of classical ballet technique that defines standard placements of feet on the floor. There are five basic positions in modern-day classical ballet, known as the first through fifth positions. In 1725, dancing master Pierre Rameau credited the codification of these five positions to choreographer Pierre Beauchamp. Two additional positions, known as the sixth and seventh positions, were codified by Serge Lifar in the 1930s while serving as Ballet Master at the Paris Opéra Ballet, though their use is limited to Lifar's choreographies. The sixth and seventh positions were not Lifar's inventions, but revivals of positions that already existed in the eighteenth century, when there were ten positions of the feet in classical ballet. Five basic positions The first basic position requires the feet to be flat on the floor and turned out (pointing in opposite directions as a result of rotating the legs at the hips). First posi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme'' (, translated as ''The Bourgeois Gentleman'', ''The Middle-Class Aristocrat'', or ''The Would-Be Noble'') is a five-act ''comédie-ballet'' – a Play (theatre), play intermingled with music, dance and singing – written by Molière, first presented on 14 October 1670 before the court of Louis XIV at the Château of Chambord by Molière's troupe of actors. Subsequent public performances were given at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal (rue Saint-Honoré), theatre of the Palais-Royal beginning on 23 November 1670. The music was composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully, the choreography was by Pierre Beauchamp, the sets were by Carlo Vigarani and the costumes were done by the Laurent d'Arvieux, chevalier d’Arvieux. ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme'' satirizes attempts at social climbing and the bourgeois personality, poking fun both at the vulgar, pretentious middle-class and the vain, snobbish aristocracy. The title is meant as an oxymoron: in Molière's France, a "gent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baroque Dance
Baroque dance is dance of the Baroque era (roughly 1600–1750), closely linked with Baroque music, theatre, and opera. English country dance The majority of surviving choreographies from the period are English country dances, such as those in the many editions of Playford's ''The Dancing Master''. Playford only gives the floor patterns of the dances, with no indication of the steps. However, other sources of the period, such as the writings of the French dancing-masters Feuillet and Lorin, indicate that steps more complicated than simple walking were used at least some of the time. English country dance survived well beyond the Baroque era and eventually spread in various forms across Europe and its colonies, and to all levels of society. The French Noble style The great innovations in dance in the 17th century originated at the French court under Louis XIV, and it is here that we see the first clear stylistic ancestor of classical ballet. The same basic technique ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comédie-ballet
''Comédie-ballet'' is a genre of French drama which mixes a spoken play with interludes containing music and dance. History The first example of the genre is considered to be '' Les fâcheux'', with words by Molière, performed in honour of Louis XIV at Vaux-le-Vicomte, the residence of Nicolas Fouquet, in 1661. The music and choreography were by Pierre Beauchamp, but Jean-Baptiste Lully later contributed a sung courante for Act I, scene 3. Molière, Lully and Beauchamp collaborated on several more examples of ''comédie-ballet'', culminating in the masterpiece of the genre, ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme'', in 1670, and the scenically spectacular ''Psyché'' of January 1671, a ''tragicomédie et ballet'' which went well beyond the earlier examples of the genre.Gaines 2002, p. 394. After quarrelling with Lully, Molière retained the services of Beauchamp as choreographer. His one-act prose comedy '' La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas'' premiered in December 1671 at the Château de Saint-Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beauchamp–Feuillet Notation
Beauchamp–Feuillet notation is a system of dance notation used in Baroque dance. The notation was commissioned by Louis XIV (who had founded the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661), and devised in the 1680s by Pierre Beauchamp. The notation system was first described in detail in 1700 by Raoul-Auger Feuillet in ''Chorégraphie''. Feuillet also then began a programme of publishing complete notated dances. It was used to record dances for the stage and domestic use throughout the eighteenth century, being modified by Pierre Rameau in 1725, and surviving into at least the 1780s in various modified forms. One of the innovations of this notation, as you can see in the sample below, was to show the music, on a staff as a musician would use it, across the top of a page. The roles of the dancer or dancers, the tract they were to follow, and the steps to perform are shown in the notation below. The bar markings on the music are also drawn across the tract of the dancers, clarifyin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entrée De Ballet
An entrée de ballet ("ballet entrance") is an autonomous scene of ballet de cour, divertissement, comédie-ballet, opéra-ballet, even tragédie lyrique, which brings together several dancers in and out of the scenario. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, baroque dance distinguished several types of entrances, according to their character and step style: serious, severe, comical or grotesque. In his , Raoul Auger Feuillet Raoul Auger (or Anger) Feuillet (c.1660–1710) was a French dance notator, publisher and choreographer most well-known today for his ''Chorégraphie, ou l'art de décrire la danse'' (Paris, 1700) which described Beauchamp–Feuillet notation, ... qualified the entrances he described according to the number of characters and sometimes their sex: ''entrance alone'', ''entrance of a woman'', ''entrance for two'', etc. This choreographic form disappeared in the 1720s. External links "Entrée"on Ballet glossary on History of ballet Ballet termi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opéra-ballet
''Opéra-ballet'' (; plural: ''opéras-ballets'') is a genre of French Baroque lyric theatre that was most popular during the 18th century, combining elements of opera and ballet, "that grew out of the '' ballets à entrées'' of the early seventeenth century".Pitou 1983, p. 278 "''Opéra-ballet''". It differed from the more elevated ''tragédie en musique'' as practised by Jean-Baptiste Lully in several ways. It contained more dance music than the ''tragédie'', and the plots were not necessarily derived from classical mythology and allowed for the comic elements, which Lully had excluded from the ''tragédie en musique'' after ''Thésée'' (1675). The ''opéra-ballet'' consisted of a prologue followed by a number of self-contained acts (also known as ''entrées''), often loosely grouped around a single theme. The individual acts could also be performed independently, in which case they were known as ''actes de ballet''. The first work in the genre is generally held to be Andr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballets De Cour
''Ballet de cour'' ("court ballet") is the name given to ballets performed in the 16th and 17th centuries at courts. The court ballet was a gathering of noblemen and women, as the cast and audience were largely supplied by the ruling class. The festivities, which were descendants of festivals, processions and mummeries dating back to the Middle Ages, looked more like a modern-day parade, than what people today would identify as a ballet performance. Where early court ballet differed from its predecessors, is that it was a secular, not religious happening. It was a carefully crafted mixture of art, socializing, and politics, with its primary objective being to exalt the State. Because these celebrations occurred long before the proscenium stage had been invented, and were instead executed in large halls with audience members stacked up on three sides of the performance, early court ballet’s choreography was constructed as a series of patterns and geometric shapes that were inten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully ( , , ; born Giovanni Battista Lulli, ; – 22 March 1687) was an Italian-born French composer, guitarist, violinist, and dancer who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Best known for his operas, he spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France and became a French subject in 1661. He was a close friend of the playwright Molière, with whom he collaborated on numerous ''comédie-ballets'', including ''L'Amour médecin'', ''George Dandin ou le Mari confondu'', ''Monsieur de Pourceaugnac'', ''Psyché'' and his best known work, ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme''. Biography Lully was born on November 28, 1632, in Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, to Lorenzo Lulli and Caterina Del Sera, a Tuscan family of millers. His general education and his musical training during his youth in Florence remain uncertain, but his adult handwriting suggests that he manipulated a quill pen with ease. He used to say that a Franciscan friar ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris Opera Ballet
The Paris Opera Ballet () is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded as one of the four most prominent ballet companies in the world, together with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg and the Royal Ballet in London.Pourquoi les ballets de l'Opéra de Paris font partie des spectacles favoris des fêtes article by Martine Robert, 27 December 2013, Les Echos. The position of director of dance is currently vacant, but [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
