Ballet and Opera In the Age of 'giselle' (ebook)

Argumento de Ballet and Opera In the Age of 'giselle' (ebook)

Marian Smith recaptures a rich period in French musical theater when ballet and opera were intimately connected. Focusing on the age of Giselle at the Paris Opéra (from the 1830s through the 1840s), Smith offers an unprecedented look at the structural and thematic relationship between the two genres. She argues that a deeper understanding of both ballet and opera--and of nineteenth-century theater-going culture in general--may be gained by examining them within the same framework instead of following the usual practice of telling their histories separately. This handsomely illustrated book ultimately provides a new portrait of the Opéra during a period long celebrated for its box-office successes in both genres.

Smith begins by showing how gestures were encoded in the musical language that composers used in ballet and in opera. She moves on to a wide range of topics, including the relationship between the gestures of the singers and the movements of the dancers, and the distinction between dance that represents dancing (entertainment staged within the story of the opera) and dance that represents action. Smith maintains that ballet-pantomime and opera continued to rely on each other well into the nineteenth century, even as they thrived independently. The "divorce" between the two arts occurred little by little, and may be traced through unlikely sources: controversies in the press about the changing nature of ballet-pantomime music, shifting ideas about originality, complaints about the ridiculousness of pantomime, and a little-known rehearsal score for Giselle.

Winner of the 2001 De la Torre Bueno Prize for Most Distinguished Book in Dance Scholarship, Dance Perspectives Foundation (New York)

"Marian Smith's book is a swift and easy read, fully researched, informative, genuinely insightful about her subject. Definitely one for the bookshelf."--David Blewitt, Opera Now0LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS ix
PREFACE xi
ACKN0WLEDGMENTS xix
NOTE T0 READER xxi
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction: Music and the Story 3
CHAPTER TWO: A Family Resemblance 19
CHAPTER THREE: The Lighter Tone of Ballet-Pantomime 59
CHAPTER FOUR: Ballet-Pantomime and Silent Language 97
CHAPTER FIVE: Hybrid Works at the Opera 124
CHAPTER SIX: Giselle 167
APPENDIX ONE: Ballet-Pantomimes and Operas Produced at the Paris Opera, 1825-1850 201
APPENDIX TWO: The Giselle Libretto 213
APPENDIX THREE: Sources for Musical Examples 239
NOTES 241
INDEX 301