<p>Stars of the romantic ballet, as well as the choreographers, composers, designers, and balletomanes of the time are brought to life in a colorful panorama of this great age of French ballet. The age of romanticism in the first half of the nineteenth century was one of the greatest periods in the history of ballet. In a span of three decades (1820 to 1847) ballet became what it had never been before a major theater art, gaining new vitality and meaning from the ideas of the romantic movement which rapidly infiltrated each one of its component scenarios, music, décor, choreography and dance style.\nThe center of the romantic ballet was the Paris Opéra. Its high priest was the poet Théophile Gautier, who wrote the scenarios of Giselle and other ballets. He explained the dual nature of the romantic ballet by contrasting the two rival ballerinas, the spiritual Taglioni and the passionate Elssler.\nThis definitive study, completely revised and updated, handsomely produced and beautifully illustrated, is based on exhaustive research of the archives of the Paris Opéra and printed and pictorial sources of the time.</p>

The Romantic ballet in Paris

GUEST, Ivor

Dance

Ninette de Valois was gifted with myriad talents. To summarise these as dancer, choreographer, artistic director and theatre administrator tells only a fraction of her story. It has required a wealth of writers, teachers, performers, colleagues, one-time students and collaborators to come together to engage with and celebrate the complexity of this remarkable woman. More details in her portrait may be gleaned from the titles of the sections into which the volume has been divided: Biography; Teaching; Wordsmith; Company; Turkey; Choreography; Collaborations; Herself. Yet these headings merely intimate the strengths of her private inner resources (her acumen, astounding foresight, dedication, daring) and the diversity of her public achievements, the realising and the steady but relentless expanding of her vision both for a company and of the potentials of dance as an art-form. Determining those strengths and that diversity is the objective of Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist. Writing alone, however brilliant the description or the analysis, cannot hope fully to capture the vitality of theatrical performance or the rigours of the training and rehearsal schedules that underpin its virtuosity. To help remedy this lack, the text of the book includes more than fifty photographs and a DVD, offering more than four hours of filmed material of archival value and importance to complement the written word. One intention in devising this volume has been to provide a substantial resource to assist future exploration of de Valois' life and work and appendices outline the contents of the major collections housing materials relevant to further study. The many essays here pursue divergent approaches and encompass contrasting viewpoints. But it is without question that de Valois' unparalleled success derived from her unshaken faith that ballet in its training methods and its repertoire must be both fearlessly adventurous and confidently traditionalist.

Ninette De Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist

Richard Allen Cave

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The Romantic ballet in Paris

Ninette De Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist