Jean-Georges Noverre

Jean-Georges Noverre (Paris, April 29th 1727 - Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer, October 19th 1810) is a Ballet master Danseur and French. He is regarded as the creator of the modern ballet.

The day of its birth, on April 29th, became the international Journée dance.

Biography

It begins with Fontainebleau in 1742, before the court of Louis XV, then prince Henri of Prussia invites it to Berlin. Of return to Paris, it enters the troop of ballet of the Op3era Comique. He marries in 1748 the actress and dancer Marguerite-Louise Sauveur. To the closing of the Op3era Comique in 1748, Noverre goes to Strasbourg and Lyon, where he dances until 1752. It spends then two years to London with the British actor David Garrick. In 1754, it returns to the Op3era Comique and composes there its first ballet, the Chinese Festivals .

Of return to Lyon between the years 1758 and 1760, it produced there several ballets and publishes its Lettres on the dance and the ballets which will know several editions and of the translations in English, German and Spanish. Called with Stuttgart in 1760, there remain seven years there, then goes to Vienna, under the protection of the future queen Marie-Antoinette who names it main ballets of the court. It composes of many ballets, of which some in close cooperation with Gluck. In 1775, Marie-Antoinette makes it come to Paris and the fact of naming main ballets of the Opéra. After a second stay in London, from 1785 to 1793, Noverre withdraws themselves with Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer about 1795 and dies there in 1810, whereas it prepares the edition of a Dictionnaire of the dance .

In addition to the Letters on the dance , one owes him of the Observations on the construction of a new room of the Opera (1781), Two letters of Mr. Noverre in Voltaire (on Garrick, 1801), of the Lettres to an artist on the public festivals (1801), as well as a manuscript not dated, entitled Théorie and practical of the dance in general, composition of the ballets, music, costume, and decorations which are to them clean .

Noverre was friendly of Voltaire, Frederic II and David Garrick (who called it “the Shakespeare dance”). Its more famous ballets are the Toilet of Venus , the Death of Ajax , the Judgment of Pâris , Jason and Médée , Horaces , Small the riens , etc He is the large theorist of the Ballet of action.

The theorist

Continuing the reforms outlined by Louis de Cahusac, the librettist of Branch, Noverre estimates that the ballet must paint a dramatic action “without being mislaid in the entertainments”, to depict passions, manners and the uses of all the people. The type-setter of ballet must follow nature and the truth, it must offer a founded logical narration, like the dramatic account, on the succession “exposure - node - outcome”. The dance must be natural and expressive more than technical and virtuoso. The dance “in action” must move the spectator by an expressive mime, insiprée of the theatrical play, such as that of Garrick.

Noverre does not spare its criticisms with regard to the dance of its time, and more particularly on the situation of the Opera of Paris: it calls into question the hierarchical organization of the ballet, it proscribes the mask which, says he, “chokes the affections of the heart”, it continues the reform of the costumes previously introduced with the Opera by Marie Sallé and preaches veracious costumes, reduced and adapted better to the dance. As for the dancer, it must have a broad general culture, including the study of the Poésie, of the Histoire, the Peinture, the Géométrie, the Musique and the Anatomie.

Thus, the new proposals which it puts forth will form the compost of the romantic Ballet.

The Letters on the dance

See also: Letters on the dance

Principal ballets

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