The Ballet Lover's Companion

385 Pages·2015·2.38 MB·English

by  Zoe Anderson

THE BALLET LOVER’S COMPANION
i
ii
BaT H Ell et
Lover’s
C O M P A N I O N
Z O Ë A N D E R S O N
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW HAVEN AND LONDON
iii
Published with assistance from the Nancy Batson Nisbet Rash Publication Fund
Copyright © 2015 Zoë Anderson
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and
except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers.
For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact:
U.S. Office: [email protected] www.yalebooks.com
Europe Office: [email protected] www.yalebooks.co.uk
Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd
Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Anderson, Zoë.
The ballet lover’s companion / Zoë Anderson.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-15428-3 (hardback)
1. Ballet. 2. Ballet—History. I. Title.
GV1787.A469 2015
792.809—dc23
2014047020
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
iv
This book is dedicated to my parents,
Gavin and Maggie Anderson.
v
vi
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xii
A Glossary of Ballet Terms xiii
1 Ballet’s Beginnings 1
2 The Romantic Ballet 6
3 Imperial Ballet 32
4 The Ballets Russes and After 67
5 National Ballets 114
6 Soviet Ballet 175
7 The Ballet Boom 205
8 International Ballet: Crossing Boundaries 270
Notes 334
Index of Ballet Titles 341
General Index 346
vii
viii
PREFACE
B
allet may be venerable, but it isn’t a museum art form. In the twenty-
first century it has found a fresh lease of life, with excitement generated
by new works and new choreographers. There’s another chapter to add
to the existing story of ballet’s roots in sixteenth- century European courts,
its development on the gaslit stages of the Romantic era, its reflections
of the grandeur of Imperial Russia, and the adventures of the twentieth
century. By the end of that century, there were fears of ballet’s decline:
a generation of major choreographers had died, leaving its future uncer-
tain. Since then, however, there’s been a burst of energy, with the emergence
of leading names such as Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon,
and even newer names such as Justin Peck and Liam Scarlett. Ballet is
busy again.
So this is a good time for an overview of the art form, a time in
which current works can be added to ballet’s long history. That history is
complicated. Where theatre or opera can confidently resurrect works from
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, ballet has not been so lucky. For
much of its history, dance works have been passed down from dancer
to dancer in a movement equivalent of an oral tradition: there was no
standardised, universally accepted notation, such as that for music. If ballets
were neglected for a generation, their choreography was lost. If they were
adapted or updated, the update was usually what survived. All art forms
look at their past through the lens of the present; ballet does this more than
most. In recent years there’s been an attempt to reverse this, with compa-
nies going back to the roots of celebrated works, paying new attention to
notation systems and recording works on film. The repertory is expanding
in two directions: as new works are created, ballet is also rescuing and
reconstructing apparently ‘lost’ works. If I had written this book fifteen
ix