Romanticism in ballet

by Gwen Herat

In the pre-Romantic age which is between 1800-1850 when ballet was stirring, people became curious and showed interest because of the reason under which ballet came to the notice of the first set of directors who took notice and moved on. This was followed by the Romantic Movement where the make believe-world of swan-maidens, sylphs and fairies dominated the scene, while the dancer was fighting shy to come out in full bloom.

Like Romantic classical that saw the birth of symphonic and concerto form mature development of Romantic opera, it also became the age of piano virtuoso that introduced the nocturnes and symphonic poems. This is the main reason that Romantic ballet and music has to depend on each other for survival even today. Romantic ballet gave the impetus to composers to compose scores mainly for ballet and its movements where later choreographers depended on them. Then came the Hugh-Romantic ballet along with music between 1830-1850 and the future.

Vibrant

This provided the dancers to experience a new attitude from tip-toe movements from its repertoire to the scintillating pointe dancing that we all dancers dance upon. Associated during this period were some great dancers who paved the way were Marie Taglioni and Fanny Cerrito. The glorious production that came on board at this time was Giselle followed by La Sylphide whose repertoire is still maintained but replaced by gorgeous costumes. The best Giselle I saw to date is the one danced by Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn.

Today the choreography is different but more important is the fact that the aura of Romanticism still prevail in classical ballet. Poetic atmosphere and classicism make ballet more vibrant as it moves into the new millenium but syllabus remains the same around the world.One would wonder why toe-dancing assumed such importance during Romanticism. This is because of the natural continuation of movements demanded by many Romantic central characters. This offered the ballerina fantastic taking-off positions of flight and offered a new line of grace. When pointe dancing resulted from such movements, dazzling feats of turns now known as Pirouettes became a part of her repertoire.

It left her partner poorer by his dancing but picked up later when ballet moved into modern repertoire as dance today. In fact, it was Rudolf Nureyev who placed the male dancer centre-stage giving him such importance that stunned the ballerina. The use of pointe work produced gliding effect when Pavlova immortalised The Dying Swan.

It was over a century before that La Camargo introduced the heel-less flat ballet shoe but it took another century when Taglioni improved on the existing flat shoe and bring to pointe work for the ballerina get on her toes and produce new subtleties and create an impression of weightlessness driving the choreographer into ecstacy.

This was the beginning of the Romantic ballet. Four years later August Bournoville produced La Sylphide for the Royal Danish Ballet in Cophenhagen. He used the music of Lovenskjold to replace Schneitzhoffer original score.

Conviction

An essential artistic philosophy was awakening fired by the conviction that Gautier collaborated with Saint-Georges to write the music for Giselle. Like La Sylphide, Giselle's characters consist of the real and earthy part and all the requisites of Romantic Ballet. Giselle is the finest surviving example of the Romantic period and took only ten days for Adolphe Adams to write the haunting score that is still maintained by all choreographers who directed the ballet. Giselle is the finest of all titles that were immortalised by virtuostic ballerinas such as Anna Pavlova - 1903, Tamara Karsavina - 1910, Olga Spessivtseva - 1924, Galina Ulanova - 1932, Alicia Markova - 1934, Margot Fonteyn - 1937, Yvette Chauvire - 1944, Svetlana Beriosova - 1956, Lucette Aldous - 1960, Ekaterina Maximova - 1960, Natalia Markorava - 1961, Natalia Bessmertnova - 1966, Margeret Barbieri - 1971, and Efa Evdokimova - 1971.

The Paris Opera Ballet to this day, has not recovered from the trauma it suffered from Romatisicism but still maintains training and producing remarkable dancers.

But the early years of Romantic ballet had its decline especially in France but the young composer, Leo Delibes collaborated with the Hungarian composer, Leon Minkus to score La Source which had already appeared at the Opera in 1866. Delibes who had thrilling potential as a ballet composer was responsible for Act II and Act III.

His Coppelia and Sylvia endorsed him as a foremost ballet composer of the day and urged Delibes' great champion, Tchaikovsky to write him a letter and say 'Swan Lake is poor stuff compared to Sylvia.' Ballet raged in other countries generated by Romanticism in France with its zest and vigour. London too took on to Romantic ballet with enthusiasm as France reached its culminating point in the 1840s.

But a new force was to come. That is the Russian Imperial Ballet to be discussed later.