Jean-Baptiste Blache

Jean-Baptiste Blache de Beaufort (17 May 1765, in Berlin – 24 January 1834, in Toulouse) was a German ballet dancer and ballet master active in France. A student of Deshayes, he learned the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

and

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

and had what was in essence a provincial career, mainly at

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

, where he succeeded

Jean Dauberval Jean Dauberval, a.k.a. Jean D’Auberval, (born Jean Bercher in Montpellier, 19 August 1742 – Tours, 14 February 1806), was a French dancer and ballet master. He is most noted for creating the ballet, ''La fille mal gardée'', one of the ...

. He worked briefly at the

Opéra de Paris The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be ...

, putting on ''

The Barber of Seville ''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was base ...

'' (1806) and ''Les Fêtes de Vulcain'' (1820) there. Among his best known and most popular ballets are ''Les Meuniers'' (1787, admired by

Arthur Saint-Léon Arthur Saint-Léon (17 September 1821, in Paris – 2 September 1870) was the '' Maître de Ballet'' of St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet from 1859 until 1869 and is famous for creating the choreography of the ballet ''Coppélia''. Biography He was ...

), ''L'Amour et la Folie'', ''La Chaste Suzanne'', ''La Fille soldat'' and ''Almaviva et Rosine'' (1806). He retired to Toulouse and declined an offer from that theatre that he become its ballet master. His eldest son, Frédéric-Auguste Blache (1791- ?) revived his father's work at the

Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin is a venerable theatre and opera house at 18, Boulevard Saint-Martin in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. History It was first built very rapidly in 1781 under the direction of (1726–1810) to house t ...

from 1816 to 1823, then at the Ambigu-Comique, where he revived the ''La Fille soldat''. Frédéric-Auguste also wrote ''Polichinelle vampire'', interpreted by Charles-François Mazurier (1823) and ''

Jocko ou le Singe du Brésil ''Jocko ou le Singe du Brésil'' (''Jocko or the Monkey of Brazil'') is a two-act play by Edmond Rochefort, inspired by a novel of Charles de Pougens (1824). Plot A rich Portuguese man travelling to Brazil captures a monkey which, during the A ...

'' (1825). Jean-Baptiste's younger son, Alexis-Scipion (1792-1852), was a ballet master at

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

and

St-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), i ...

. Musicians from Berlin 1765 births 1834 deaths German male ballet dancers Emigrants from the Holy Roman Empire to France French ballet masters French choreographers 18th-century German ballet dancers 19th-century German ballet dancers {{Ballet-bio-stub