Marius Petipa is a key French choreographer who restaged the romantic ballet ‘Giselle’ in 1884. He was born in Marseille, France on 11th March 1818. His mother and father both had careers already in the performing arts industry. His mother was an actor and a drama teacher and his father was a dancer. Marius’ father wanted him to become a professional dancer, just like himself. Therefore, he started the train Marius at the young age of 7 in order for him to be successful. However, Marius didn’t like the training and wasn’t interested because he wanted to play the violin. However, he began to excel in his training because it is his families identity and culture so therefore, Marius travelled the world with his parents at a very young age to continue getting experience for his training. Just aged 9, the family toured America but it failed. I think this is because at that current time, America wasn’t really used to this classical/romantic style of dancing that the Petipa family were performing so they were a bit confused so didn’t really like what they were seeing. Marius grew up in Belgium where he attended the Grand College where he studied music at the conservatoire. The revolution made many theatres close and shut down which left the Petipa family with no money for years as Marius’ mother and father both worked in this industry and as there were no theatres – they had no jobs. In 1938, he became a principal dancer at the theatre in Nantes, France where he staged opera dances for the theatre. From there Marius moved to America to perform in Broadway. They decided to relocate to Bordeaux in France in which Marius completed his training in 1843 then decided he wanted to start choreographing. In 1869 he became a ballet master for the Russian Imperial Ballet. Marius had the biggest impact of the formation and function of the Russian Ballet.
Marius Petipa’s choreography is simple, clean and is made of the same combinations. This relates to the Ballet style – Romantic Ballet. In my opinion, Marius’ childhood had a big impact on his style of choreography and his routines. This is because within his choreography, he incorporates Russian folk dance – this relates to when he became a ballet master at the Russian Imperial Ballet. Marius Petipa staged the Romantic Ballet ‘Giselle’ for present day. His classical choreography style absorbed his own experiences and changing aspirations. His choreography is said to be “devoid of personal features”. This means that it is less narrative and had fewer combinations. He didn’t like the rules of dancing at that time; therefore he simply didn’t incorporate them in his work. By doing this, he slowly started to change the view and structure of Ballet over time, e.g. the belle tutus worn by a ballet dancer and the male roles played in choreography. The Belle tutus were considered to be one of the main elements in a Romantic Ballet. They were just above the ankles, so that the audience could see the technical foot/pointe work of the dance. However, some people thought it was horrendous that these dancers were showing their ankles. It was considered to be disrespectful. However these dresses were in the style of big, heavy Victorian dresses and if they went down to the floor (over their feet), nobody would be able to see the detailed pointe work of the choreography so that’s why they made them just above the ankles. Marius Petipa didn’t care about the rule of people thinking they were disrespectful; he liked the idea of the belle tutu where you could see their ankles so he incorporated this into his choreography which overtime changed the view of the costume, because nowadays, we just wear tights and a leotard (occasionally a fairy tutu) to show off the legs as well as the feet. Also, the decrease of male dancers showed within his choreography because he mainly used women dancers, once again this showed that he didn’t care about the traditions of the time. He just did what looked best for his choreography.
Many of Petipia's early works for the imperial stage were re-stagings of ballets originally produced in Paris from the 1830's to the 1850's, the height of ballet romanticism, and Petipa's later, original works reveal thematic and structural debts to them. The basic themes, plot structure, and imagery of the ballets of the Romantic period served as models for the ballets of the nineteenth century until the premise of narrative ballet was finally abandoned in the twentieth century.
ReplyDeleteGiselle (1841), the most durable and frequently staged ballet of the French romantic repertory, furnishes the best example. Like the other heroines of the nineteenth-century lyric stage, Giselle selflessly "redeems" her unfaithful lover from beyond the grave. Mrtyred heroines were something of a commonplace of nineteenth century opera, literature and art, but the opera and ballet theatres, using the relatively new technology of gas lighting and old standbys like tulle and muslin, were particularly adept at bringing these morbid themes to life. The ballet of dead nuns in Meyerbeer's 1831 opera, Robert le Diable, brought romantic themes and pseudo-Gothic imagery to the lyric stage, inaugurating the brief but influential era of ballet romanticism.
Tim Scholl
"From Petipa to Balanchine, Classical revival and the modernization of ballet"
Routledge (First published 1994)
11 New Fetter Lane,
London,
EC4P 4EE
"The secondary characters are also positive projections of their romantic counterparts. The Lilac Fairy replaces Myrtha, the authoritarian presence in Giselle; the wilis, the bodily representation of her power, are replaced by Aurora's spectral friends. And where Giselle's wilis pry their heroine from Albrecht and form impenetrable walls to contain him, the nymphs in Sleeping Beauty never admit their physicality."
ReplyDeleteTim Scholl
"From Petipa to Balanchine, Classical revival and the modernization of ballet"
Routledge (First published 1994)
11 New Fetter Lane,
London,
EC4P 4EE