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La Boutique Fantasque
''La Boutique fantasque'', also known as ''The Magic Toyshop'' or ''The Fantastic Toyshop'', is a ballet in one act conceived by Léonide Massine, who devised the choreography for a libretto written with the artist André Derain, a pioneer of Fauvism. Derain also designed the décor and costumes for the ballet. Ottorino Respighi wrote the music based on piano pieces by Gioachino Rossini. Its world premiere was at the Alhambra Theatre in London on 5 June 1919, performed by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Massine described how, in Rome for a ballet season, Respighi brought the score of Rossini's '' Péchés de vieillesse'' to Diaghilev. The impresario played them to Massine and Respighi. Toulouse-Lautrec was an influence on the period setting and style of ''La Boutique fantasque'', and Massine envisaged the principal character "quite Lautrec-like". Diaghilev arranged for Massine to meet Derain in Paris, and they worked out the scenario with the artist's marionette theatre at hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Léonide Massine
Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (russian: Леони́д Фёдорович Мя́син), better known in the West by the French transliteration as Léonide Massine (15 March 1979), was a Russian choreographer and ballet dancer. Massine created the world's first symphonic ballet, ''Les Présages'', and many others in the same vein. Besides his "symphonic ballets," Massine choreographed many other popular works during his long career, some of which were serious and dramatic, and others lighthearted and romantic. He created some of his most famous roles in his own comic works, among them the Can-Can Dancer in ''La Boutique fantasque'' (1919), the Hussar in ''Le Beau Danube'' (1924), and, perhaps best known of all, the Peruvian in ''Gaîté Parisienne'' (1938). Today his oeuvre is represented by his son Theodor Massine. Early life and education Massine was born into a musical family on 9 August 1895 in Moscow, Russia. His mother was a soprano in the Bolshoi Theater Chorus and his father ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing '' agon'' or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
"The Steadfast Tin Soldier" (Danish: ''Den standhaftige tinsoldat'') is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a tin soldier's love for a paper ballerina. The tale was first published in Copenhagen by C.A. Reitzel on 2 October 1838 in the first booklet of ''Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection.'' The booklet consists of Andersen's "The Daisy" and "The Wild Swans". The tale was Andersen's first not based upon a folk tale or a literary model. "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" has been adapted to various media including ballet and animated film. Plot On his birthday, a boy receives a set of 25 toy soldiers all cast from one old tin spoon and arrays them on a table top. One soldier stands on a single leg because, as he was the last one cast, there was not enough metal to make him whole. Nearby, the soldier spies a pretty paper ballerina with a spangle on her sash. She, too, is standing on one leg, and the soldier falls in love. That night, a goblin among the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes and translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. His most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", " The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", " The Red Shoes", " The Princess and the Pea", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", " The Little Match Girl", and " Thumbelina". His stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films. Early life Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark on 2 April 1805. He had a stepsister named Karen. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), is the second-largest city in Russia. It is situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, with a population of roughly 5.4 million residents. Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe after Istanbul, Moscow and London, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As Russia's Imperial capital, and a historically strategic port, it is governed as a federal city. The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after apostle Saint Peter. In Russia, Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolai Legat
Nikolai Gustavovich Legat (russian: Никола́й Густа́вович Лега́т) (30 December 1869, Moscow – 24 January 1937, London) was a premier dancer with the Russian Imperial Ballet from 1888 to 1914, and also with the Mariinsky Ballet. Both he and his younger brother, Sergey, became ballet masters and caricaturists. Legat is considered to be the main successor to Pavel Gerdt. Legat later served as a balletmaster in Russia, teaching and passing on the repertoire of the Imperial ballet company, whose groundwork was the legacy of the great choreographer-balletmaster, Marius Petipa. He left Russia with his third wife, Nadine, in 1922 and eventually settled in England in 1926. The couple opened their first ballet school in Kent. They were later able to start classes in Hammersmith, London. Among their notable pupils were Ninette de Valois and Margot Fonteyn. Legat's wife, Nadine Nicolaeva, was a ballerina of the Imperial and State theatres of Moscow and St. Pet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Legat
Sergei Gustavovich Legat (russian: Серге́й Густа́вович Лега́т; 27 September 1875 – 1 November 1905) was a Russian ballet dancer. Background Sergei Gustavovich Legat was born on 27 September 1875, in Moscow. The younger brother of Nikolai Legat, he studied at the imperial ballet school with Pavel Gerdt, Christian Johansson, Lev Ivanov and his brother. Legat joined the Mariinsky Theatre in 1894 and quickly became a soloist. Admired for his stylistic performances he also taught, with pupils including Vaslav Nijinsky. Legat originated the dual role of the Nutcracker/Prince in Tchaikovsky's famous ballet. He married Marie Petipa (1857–1930). Many of the male variations that make up the traditional classical ballet repertory were created especially for him at the turn of the 20th century. Death At the outbreak of the First Russian Revolution, Legat fell out with the authorities, and on 1 November 1905, he committed suicide in Saint Petersburg, slashing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josef Bayer
Josef Bayer (6 March 1852 – 12 March 1913) was an Austrian composer and the director of the Austrian Court Ballet from 1883 until his death. He was born and died in Vienna. Biography He studied at the Vienna Conservatory under the elder Josef Hellmesberger, Anton Bruckner and Otto Dessoff, and was a violinist in the Wiener Hofoper (the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra), 1870-1898. In 1883 he was appointed Court Kapellmeister. Though he created over twenty one-act ballets including '' Die Braut von Korea'', he is remembered for ''Die Puppenfee'' ("The Fairy Doll") of 1888, which began life as ''Im Puppenladen'' ("In the Doll Shop"). It was the definitive Austrian court ballet, and remains in the repertory of the Vienna State Opera. Bayer was also friends with the Viennese waltz composer Johann Strauss II and it was Bayer who completed the unfinished Strauss Cinderella ballet, '' Aschenbroedel'' in 1900, Strauss having died in 1899 leaving a completed draft of the work lacki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Drummond (arts Administrator)
Sir John Richard Gray Drummond (25 November 1934 – 6 September 2006) was a British arts administrator who spent most of his career at the BBC. He was described by Rodney Milnes of ''Opera'' magazine as "one of the most formidable figures in the arts world of the UK for 40 years".Milnes, R. "Obituary: Sir John Drummond". ''Opera'', November 2006, pp. 1311-1312. Early life Drummond was born in London, the son of a Scottish Sea Captain in the British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ... line and an Australian singer, principally of ''lieder''. He spent much of his childhood in Bournemouth, being evacuated to the resort at the beginning of World War II, spending hours in the public library absorbing all he could on creative arts, and also attending concerts b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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