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Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443802190
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 420
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Book Description
La Bayadère was first produced at the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, on 4 February 1877. The scenario was by Sergei Khudekov and Marius Petipa, who also devised the choreography. The music was by the Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus (1827-1917), who spend most of his life working for the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg. His music for this ballet—long scorned, never published, and endlessly re-arranged— has slowly emerged, since its revival began in the West in the 1960s, as a viable and significant musical achievement in its own right. Apart from the strongly defined melodies, infectious rhythm, and affecting harmonies, there is a powerful unity of conception and a sustained attention to mood that establishes its own unique incidental atmosphere. In its evocation of far-off times, the score conjures up an exotic Indian setting, where two spheres are set in contrast—a bright external world of colour and pomp, of ambition, rivalry and death; and an internal realm of night and dreams, of ideals, transcendent love and life—all realized most completely in the famous Kingdom of the Shades in act 3. The generous self-offering love of the temple dancer Nikia is one of the great stories of the Romantic ballet. Here for the first time is the piano score of the entire ballet. The music derives from four sources: a clear manuscript from the days of the Soviet Union; a version of Act 4 as held in the Library of Covent Garden; a beautiful Russian copy of the Kingdom of the Shades; and a potpourri from the 1880s by Johann Resch—the only music ever published from the score.
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443802190
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 420
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Book Description
La Bayadère was first produced at the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, on 4 February 1877. The scenario was by Sergei Khudekov and Marius Petipa, who also devised the choreography. The music was by the Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus (1827-1917), who spend most of his life working for the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg. His music for this ballet—long scorned, never published, and endlessly re-arranged— has slowly emerged, since its revival began in the West in the 1960s, as a viable and significant musical achievement in its own right. Apart from the strongly defined melodies, infectious rhythm, and affecting harmonies, there is a powerful unity of conception and a sustained attention to mood that establishes its own unique incidental atmosphere. In its evocation of far-off times, the score conjures up an exotic Indian setting, where two spheres are set in contrast—a bright external world of colour and pomp, of ambition, rivalry and death; and an internal realm of night and dreams, of ideals, transcendent love and life—all realized most completely in the famous Kingdom of the Shades in act 3. The generous self-offering love of the temple dancer Nikia is one of the great stories of the Romantic ballet. Here for the first time is the piano score of the entire ballet. The music derives from four sources: a clear manuscript from the days of the Soviet Union; a version of Act 4 as held in the Library of Covent Garden; a beautiful Russian copy of the Kingdom of the Shades; and a potpourri from the 1880s by Johann Resch—the only music ever published from the score.
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443800805
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 275
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Book Description
The composer Ludwig Minkus represents one of music’s biggest mysteries. Who was he? Hardly anything is known about him, and yet he occupied an influential position in the theatres of the Imperial ballet in late nineteenth-century Russia. He has been recognised as a predecessor of Tchaikovsky, but as a musician is commonly held to have been so feeble as to be beneath contempt. Yet despite the scorn heaped on him, and his consequent obscurity, Minkus is far from being forgotten. Since the early 1960s his name has slowly begun to re-surface. Two works, Don Quixote (1869) and La Bayadère (1877), have been presented in their entirety for the first time to new audiences all over the world. The musical and dramatic power of both ballets has taken people by surprise. The stories have a very real human appeal, the choreography attracts the admiration of balletomanes, and the music, with its rhythm, verve, and beauty of melody, holds attention and engages the heart wherever it is heard. This introduction seeks to discover something more behind the blank façade of Minkus’s life and work. What do we actually know about him as a man and as an artist? Are we able to apprehend his oeuvre as a whole, and how much can we establish from the available material? What is the nature of the music he created for those few works that have survived the years, and that have come to the fore again recently to delight those who have ears to hear? This study includes iconography from the life and times of the composer, many musical examples from his works, and a comprehensive bibliography and discography.
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443820385
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 170
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Book Description
This volume reproduces the piano score of the ballet La Source, a joint composition by Ludwig Minkus and Léo Delibes. After the success of Néméa (1864), the Paris Opéra ordered a new grand ballet from the famous choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon to a libretto based on a Persian legend by Charles Nuitter. Saint-Léon involved his musical collaborator in St Petersburg, Ludwig Minkus, in the project, securing for him a hand in the composition of the first and fourth scenes of the of this new work, La Source, a fantastic ballet in three acts. The composition of the other two scenes (the second and third) were entrusted to the young, unknown Léo Delibes, thirty at the time, who had drawn favourable attention to himself in the preparation of the ballet music for the première of Meyerbeer’s posthumous L’Africaine in 1865. The first performance of La Source was on 12 November 1866 at the Théatre Impérial de l’Opéra, with the principal dancers Guglielmina Salvioni (Naila), Eugénie Fiocre (Nouredda) and Louis Mérante (Djemil). The ballet as a whole was very successful, with 73 performances until 1876. Saint-Léon immediately began planning another work with Nuitter and Delibes—Coppélia—one which would crown the young French’s composer’s success with triumph. This was premiered on 25 May 1870, the last of Saint-Léon’s work, and the last great success of the French Romantic ballet at the Salle Le Peletier before the crisis of the Franco-Prussian War, and the end of the Second Empire. As regards the music of La Source, Delibes’s contribution to the score, his first essay at ballet music, was noted for its vigour and many delightful melodies. In Jouvin’s opinion, his music was “vivacious and especially lively,” and contrasted effectively with the plaintive melodies of Minkus. “The style of the two composers,” observed the critic of La France Musicale (18 November 1866), “is essentially different and easily recognizable at a first hearing. M. Minkus's music has a vague, indolent, and melancholic character, full of grace and languor. That of M. Delibes, fresher and more rhythmic, is much more complicated in orchestration, and sometimes a little more ordinary. I should add that this difference in style is perfectly justified by the: contrasting character of the two parts of the ballet.”
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443820881
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 165
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Book Description
Aloysius Ludwig Minkus (1826–1917), famous for his ballets Don Quixote (1869) and La Bayadère (1877), was born in Bohemia, and grew up in the dance capital Vienna. He hoped to establish a reputation as a violinist and composer, and by 1853 had emigrated to St Petersburg where he became the conductor and solo violinist of the private orchestra of Prince Nikolai Yusupov. In 1861 he was appointed violin soloist and, a year later, conductor of the Moscow Bolshoi Orchestra. He began a happy collaboration with the great French choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon (1821–1870), who was a real friend and inspiration to Minkus, and more than anyone else, helped to launch his career as a theatrical composer, producing five works in association with him in St Petersburg and Paris. Minkus’s first ballet, the three-act Plamya lyubvi, ili Salamandra (The Flame of Love, or the Salamander, also called Fiammetta), was given its premiere on 13 February 1864 at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater in St Petersburg (with Marfa Muravyeva in the leading role). The scenario and the choreography were by Saint-Léon, the most important dance master of the day in both Paris and Russia. Saint-Léon’s influence secured this work production in the French capital, and it was perhaps for this occasion that Minkus accompanied Saint-Léon to Paris to mount the work at the Académie Royale de Musique. Reduced to two acts, and re-christened Néméa, ou l’Amour vengé (with a scenario adapted by Henri Meilhac & Ludovic Halévy), the ballet was performed at the Paris Opéra on 11 July 1864, with considerable success (again with Marfa Muravyeva, and with Eugénie Fiocre as Cupid). It remained in the repertoire for seven years, attaining 53 performances by 1871. Théophile Gautier remarked on the atmospheric quality of Minkus’s music, its “haunting, dreamy quality.” Roqueplan singled out Saint-Léon's choreography for its “imagination and originality, his ability to handle masses.” Some of the Airs de Ballet were almost immediately published by Henri Hegel (1865), and are reproduced here. By now Minkus was becoming known internationally. So when five years later the Paris Opéra ordered a new grand ballet from Saint-Léon to a libretto by Charles Nuitter, Saint-Léon involved Minkus in the project, securing for him a hand in the composition of the first and fourth scenes of this new work, La Source. The other two scenes were entrusted to the young Léo Delibes, thirty at the time, who had drawn favourable attention to himself in the preparation of the ballet music for the première of Meyerbeer’s posthumous L’Africaine in 1865. The first performance of La Source on 12 November 1866 was great success for Delibes, whose bold and colourful composition was praised at the expense of Minkus’s subtler contribution. Saint-Léon immediately began planning another work with Nuitter and Delibes, and one which would crown the young French’s composer’s success with triumph, Coppélia. Saint-Léon nevertheless continued to work with Minkus, despite his busy engagements in Paris. The choreographer’s greatest ballet for Russia was his work with Cesare Pugni, Koniok-Gorbunok (The Little Humpbacked Horse) (1864), based on a Russian fairytale. He now tapped into the same folk material in a new work with Minkus, Zolotaya rybka (The Golden Fish), based on Alexander Pushkin’s Legend of the fisher and the little fish. On 20 November 1866, for the celebration of the Tsarevitch’s wedding, Saint-Léon oversaw the production of a one-act version of this new ballet, Le Poisson doré, at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater in St Petersburg. The work was then developed as a three-act ballet for the same theater a year later (8 October 1867). Minkus’s music was very well received. As with La Source, it was carefully adapted in form and mood to the scenario, remarkable for its panache and beautiful writing for solo instruments (violin, flute, cello, cornet), and for reflecting the nature of the fairytale scenario in the appropriation of national folk styles (Polish, Kazak, Cossack). The score was considered worthy of full publication in piano reduction by the St Petersburg house of Stellowsky (c. 1870), and is reproduced here. The last collaboration between Minkus and Saint-Léon followed two years after that, a partial arrangement of La Source, given in St Petersburg as Liliya (Le Lys) in 1869.
Author: Nadine Meisner
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190659297
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 553
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Book Description
This cultural biography of the nineteenth-century ballet master Marius Petipa -- creator of The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake -- tells the full story of his life and work in the remarkable context in which he lived.
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443830224
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (Caen 29 January 1782- Paris 12/13 May 1871) is primarily remembered as one of the great masters of opéra-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 Bayadère, Gustave III, ou Le Bal masque, Le Lac des fées, L’Enfant prodigue, Zerline, and the opéra-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 Cicéri and Daguerre). Le Dieu et la Bayadère (1830), set in India, was choreographed by Filippo Taglioni. Eugène 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 bayadère Zoloé 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 Opéra 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 fées, 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-opéra 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 Fête des Rois with its Chant de Noël, the whole culminating in a big ballet sequence of four dances: 1) Valse des Étudiants, 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-Léon. A special aspect of the opera is the dance sequence in act 2—No.10 Scène, 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 opéra-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 fées 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 opéra-comique Marco Spada which had been produced at the Opéra-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 opéra-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 à la cour, Fiorella, La Fiancée, Fra Diavolo, Le Lac des fées, L’Ambassadrice, Les Diamants de la couronne, La Barcarolle, Zerline and L’Enfant prodigue. The original scenario required elaborate décor and stage machinery, which was a factor in this later revival of the work at the Académie de musique on 21 September1857. In 1857 Auber reworked the score of the opéra-comique Le Cheval de bronze as an opéra-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 1 2) a four-movement Danse in act 3 3) 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.
Author: George Balanchine
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385033982
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 562
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Book Description
Authored by one of the ballet's most respected experts, this volume includes scene-by-scene retellings of the most popular classic and contemporary ballets, as performed by the world's leading dance companies. Certain to delight long-time fans as well as those just discovering the beauty and drama of ballet.
Author: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590519981
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
Now in paperback, a collection of the legendary filmmaker's short fiction and nonfiction from 1950 to 1966, in which we see the machinations of the creative mind in post-World War II Rome. In a portrait of the city at once poignant and intimate, we find artistic witness to the customs, dialect, squalor, and beauty of the ancient imperial capital that has succumbed to modern warfare, marginalization, and mass culture. The sketches portray the impoverished masses that Pasolini calls "the sub-proletariat," those who live under Third World conditions and for whom simple pleasures, such as a blue sweater in a storefront window, are completely out of reach. Pasolini's art develops throughout the works collected here, from his early lyricism to tragicomic outlines for screenplays, and finally to the maturation of his Neo-realism in eight chronicles on the shantytowns of Rome. The pieces in this collection were all published in Italian journals and newspapers, and then later edited by Walter Siti in the original Italian edition.
Author: Reinhard Strohm
Publisher: Proceedings of the British Aca
ISBN: 9780197266564
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The Music Road contains contributions on musical cultures from the Mediterranean to India which brings together historical research, philology, and ethnographic fieldwork to revive the differentiated voices of this world region. It is here referred to as "the Music Road", to emphasize the musical traditions in this western half of the "Silk Road", and the transitional nature of its cultural migrations and coherences. Mobility in space, transmission in time and "the East-West imagination" are demonstrated in the following historical cultures: Ancient Gandhar? (N.W. India, first centuries CE) and the tradition of Alexander's conquest; sections on "Intercultural Islam" from medieval Persia to modern Turkey; "Indian encounters" with the West - and vice versa - in music and dance (18th-20th centuries); Greek music and theatre as a bridge between East and West; and Gypsy musical styles in European nationalist music.
Author: Ann Hutchinson Guest
Publisher: Noverre Press
ISBN: 9781906830779
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 178
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Book Description
The Pas de Six from La Vivandiere is the only ballet preserved intact from the glorious period of the Romantic Ballet. Because it was recorded in detail by the choreographer Arthur Saint-Leon in his own dance notation system it could be revived faithfully for audiences to enjoy and students and scholars to study. The historical background of the piece - the period, the choreography, the style - has been provided by world renowned ballet historian Ivor Guest. The Study and Performance Notes which provide a guide in studying and reviving the ballet are the result of productions of the work for professional companies. Publication of the ballet in Labanotation, the contemporary dance notation system, makes the choreography accessible internationally to researchers, students, teachers and dancers. While the steps are technically challenging, the ballet is an excellent piece for students to dance, thereby gaining insight into the Romantic Ballet style.
