A Brief History of Ballet

Origin of Ballet

In the 15th century, ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance courts and was spread to France through Catherine de’ Medici. In 1533, Catherine de’ Medici married Henri II of France and begun fund ballet in the French court. The ballet, Ballet Comique de la Reine, choreographed by Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx, is the first ballet that integrates poetry, dance, music, and set design into a dramatic storyline, the genre of which is called Ballet de court. Ballet de court flourished in France, performed by royalty and nobility, and became a propaganda tool to establish the power and exalted grandeur of the Monarch. 

In the late 17th century, realizing the political strength of court spectacle, Louis XIV commissioned Le Ballet  de la Nuit, in which the young king dressed in gold, rubies, and diamond as the rising Sun, depicting the power of monarchy after the victory over the Fronde rebellion. In 1669, Louis XIV founded the Académie Royale d’Opéra, which emerged to be the first theatrical ballet company. He appointed Pierre Beauchamp as the director, who first codified the five positions of the feet. Although reviving ballet was mainly out of political consideration as Louis XIV stopped performing after 1670 when his authority was firmly established, the sheer number and diversity of the roles the king danced indicate his deeper passion and interest in this form of art. As France’s court was a leading source in fashionable culture, ballet as an entertainment style was soon spread throughout Europe. 

Selected ballets	Notable choreographers	Notable composers
Le Ballet de la Nuit	Pierre Beauchamp	Jean-Baptiste Lully

Romantic Era

In the early 19th century, following the great triumph of science (the Enlightenment), rationality and physical materialism gradually gave way to emotion and spirituality. As romanticism emphasized on the aesthetics of ideal beauty and transcendental imagination, the romantic ballets were characterized by depicting otherworldly spirits and fairies. It is also an era marked by the rise of the ballerina - with the development of the pointe technique, female dancers and their weightless floating steps takes over previously male-dominated center stage.

Premiered in 1832, La Sylphide, originally choreographed by Filippo Taglioni as a showcase for his daughter Marie, is the first ballet in which dancing on pointe was employed. It is also the first ballet where ballerinas were seen in long white tutus (Romantic tutu). Shortly after, the archetypal romantic ballet, Giselle, originally entitled Giselle, ou Les Wilis, premiered at Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique, received great success with its tragic romantic storyline and melodic score by Adolphe Adam, who used leitmotifs, recurring musical phrases, to present the characteristics of main roles. 

Coppélia is a comic ballet based on an adaptation of E.T.A Hoffmann’s story Der Sandmann. It was created by Arthur Saint-Léon and first performed in 1870 at the Salle Louvois to a huge yet short success, as it was soon interrupted by France-Prussian War. Until in 1882, Petipa revived Coppélia for Imperial Bolshoi Ballet. 

Selected ballets	Notable choreographers	Notable composers
La Sylphide Gisselle Pas de Quatre Coppélia	Jules Perrot                              Filippo Taglioni	Adolphe Adam

Classical Era

In the late 19th century, the center of ballet gradually shifted from Western Europe to Russia. Unlike romantic ballet's focus on fragile and emotional femininity, classical ballet reintroduced muscularity and robustness of performance by reviving the role of male dancers on stage. There is also more emphasis on the precision of the techniques which bring forth a shortened skirt (Classical tutu) to accommodate and to reveal the higher jumps and faster movement of steps. The rise of grand pas de deux as the finale invented by “the father of Classical Ballet”, Marius Petipa, has become a classical ballet staple. Petipa also introduced the dramatic use of corps de ballet to deliver grand spectacle. 

The flamboyant Don Quixote, choreographed by Marius Petipa, was premiered in 1869 at the Ballet of the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre to a great success. The ballet is based on the Spanish novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes and is rich in bravura elements, for example, the flying leaps in the famous Kitri Variation in Act I and Act III, and the high lifting and huge jumps in the pas de deux in the wedding finale. 

When speaking of classical ballet, the music of the Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky is almost inevitably to be mentioned. As a key collaborator of Petipa, Tchaikovsky scored the three most famous ballets of all time: The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Swan Lake, the artistic landmark for classical ballet.

Although only four-minute long, The Dying Swan, a short solo depicting a swan in its last moments of life, has become one of the most famous classical solo’s of all time. It was choreographed by Michel Fokine for ballerina Anna Pavlova, whose interpretation of the wounded swan struggling in the macabre agony was so pristine that the piece has since become her symbol. 

Selected ballets	Notable choreographers	Notable composers
Swan Lake The Sleeping Beauty The Nutcracker Don Quixote La Bayadère The Dying Swan	Marius Petipa	Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Modern Era

The early 20th century witnessed a considerable change in ballet, attempts to break free from its strict regime. In 1909, with the groundbreaking ballet Les Sylphides presented at the Paris Opéra, Sergei Diaghilev and his ballet company Ballet Russe soon became the leading force in Western Europe. Then came The Rite of Spring, a ballet that is so unballetic and full of uncomfortable movements and barbarity elements that it caused disturbance in the audience the night of premiere in 1913.

The reformation of ballet prospered outside of Russia as well. In the US, George Balanchine co-founded New York City Ballet and exemplified neoclassical ballet, an abstract style that strips away intricate narratives and grand sets while retaining the emphasis on the techniques. In 1928, Apollon Musagète (Apollo) premiered as the first example of neoclassical style. Serenade, his first full-length ballet, was premiered in 1934, and later in 1958, he collaborated with Igor Stravinsky and choreographed Agon. In the UK, Frederick Ashton established the "English style". In 1948, he choreographed Sergei Prokofiev’s Cinderella, where he infused comic elements into the stage by introducing the Ugly Sisters. In 1965, Kenneth MacMillan restaged Romeo and Juliet, putting more emphasis on the characters, which soon becomes The Royale Ballet's signature work. 

Selected ballets	Notable choreographers	Notable composers
Apollo Serenade Agon Symphony in C Jewels Cinderella Romeo and Juliet	George Balanchine         Sergei Diaghilev         Vaslav Nijinsky         Frederick Ashton         Kenneth MacMillan	Igor Stravinsky         Sergei Prokofiev

 

Fig. Illustration of Ballet Giselle, Act II

   

REFERENCE

[1] Durante, Viviana. Ballet: The Definitive Illustrated Story. DK, 2018.

[2] Homans, Jennifer. Apollo's angels: A history of ballet. Random House, 2010.