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THE ART OF BALLET
[Illustration: _Adolph Bolm in “Carnival.”_
_from a photograph by E. O. Hoppé_]
THE ART OF BALLET
by
MARK E. PERUGINI
London: Martin Secker
Number Five John Street Adelphi
First published 1915
TO
MY WIFE
PREFACE
Some may possibly wonder to find here no record of Ballet in Italy,
or at the Opera Houses of Madrid, Lisbon, Vienna, Buda-Pest,
Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Warsaw, or Petrograd (formerly St.
Petersburg), not to speak of the United States and South America.
This, however, would be to miss somewhat the author’s purpose, which
is not to trace the growth of Ballet in every capital where it has
been seen. To do so effectively were hardly possible in a single
volume. A whole book might well be devoted to the history of the art
in Italy alone, herein only touched upon as it came to have vital
influence on France and England in the nineteenth century. We have
already had numerous volumes dealing with Russian Ballet; and since
the ground has been extensively enough surveyed in that direction
there could be no particular advantage in devoting more space to
the subject than is already given to it in this work, the purpose
of which only is to present--as far as possible from contemporary
sources--some leading phases of the history of the modern Art of
Ballet as seen more particularly in France and England.
A brief series of biographical essays “Cameos of the Dance,” by the
same writer, was published in _The Whitehall Review_ in 1909; various
articles on the subject also being contributed to _The Evening News_,
_Lady’s Pictorial_, _Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News_, _Pall
Mall Gazette_ and other London journals during 1910 and 1911; and
a series of “Sketches of the Dance and Ballet,” coming from the
same hand, appeared in _The Dancing Times_, 1912, 1913 and 1914.
They were based on portions of the manuscript of the present work
which, begun some years ago by way of pastime, and written during
the scant leisure of a crowded business life, was completed at the
publisher’s request, and was--save for a few brief insertions in the
proofs--ready, and announced for publication before the Great War
began in August 1914.
The preparation of this book has involved the marshalling of a
vast array of facts and dates, the delving into and comparison of
some three hundred or more ancient and modern volumes on dancing
and on theatrical and operatic history, the study of scores of old
newspaper-files and long-forgotten theatrical “repositories” and
souvenirs. Error is always possible in spite of care, and if it
should have happened here the writer will be grateful for correction.
In covering so wide a field a full bibliography becomes impossible
from limits of space; but to those interested the following list
of leading authorities--supplemented by those referred to in the
text--may be of service. “La Danse Grecque Antique,” by M. Emmanuel;
“Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire,” by L. Friedländer;
“Dramatic Traditions of the Dark Ages,” by Joseph S. Tunison
(University of Chicago Press); “Orchésographie,” by Thoinot Arbeau
(1588); “Des Ballets Anciens et Modernes,” by Père Menestrier (1682);
“La Danse Antique et Moderne,” by De Cahuzac (1754); “The Code of
Terpsichore,” by Carlo Blasis (1823); “Dictionnaire de la Danse,”
by G. Desrat (1895); “Dancing in all Ages,” by Edward Scott (1899);
“Histoire de la Danse,” by F. de Menil (1905); and “The Dance: Its
Place in Art and Life,” by T. and M. W. Kinney (1914).
CONTENTS
_BOOK I. THE FIRST ERA_
CHAPTER PAGE
OVERTURE: ON THE ART OF BALLET 15
I. A DISTINCTION, AND SOME DIFFERENCES 21
II. EGYPT 25
III. GREECE 32
IV. MIME AND PANTOMIME: ROME, HIPPODROME--OBSCURITY 41
V. CHURCH THUNDER AND CHURCH COMPLAISANCE 47
VI. A BANQUET-BALL OF 1489: AND THE BALLET COMIQUE
DE LA REINE, 1581 53
VII. THOINOT ARBEAU’s “ORCHÉSOGRAPHIE,” 1588 61
VIII. SCENIC EFFECT: THE ENGLISH MASQUE AS BALLET,
1585-1609 71
IX. BALLET ON THE MOVE 83
X. COURT BALLETS ABROAD: 1609-1650 88
XI. THE TURNING POINT: “LE ROI SOLEIL AND HIS
ACADEMY OF DANCING,” 1651-1675 99
_BOOK II. THE SECOND ERA_
XII. SOME EARLY STARS AND BALLETS 109
XIII. “PANTOMIME” AT SCEAUX, AND MLLE. PRÉVÔT 113
XIV. ITALIAN COMEDY, AND THE “THEATRES OF THE FAIR” 119
XV. WATTEAU’S DEBT TO THE STAGE 130
XVI. “THE SPECTATOR” AND MR. WEAVER 142
XVII. A FRENCH DANCER IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON 149
XVIII. LA BELLE CAMARGO, 1710-1770 156
XIX. “THE HOUSE OF VESTRIS” 163
XX. JEAN GEORGES NOVERRE 171
XXI. GUIMARD THE GRAND 179
XXII. DESPRÉAUX, POET, “MAÎTRE,” AND “HUSBAND OF
GUIMARD” 195
XXIII. A CENTURY’S CLOSE 201
_BOOK III. THE MODERN ERA_
XXIV. THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY 207
XXV. CARLO BLASIS, A LEADER OF THE MODERN SCHOOL 213
XXVI. THE “PAS DE QUATRE”: I. MARIE TAGLIONI.
(“SYLPHIDE”) 223
XXVII. THE “PAS DE QUATRE” II. CARLOTTA GRISI.
(“GISELLE”) 235
XXVIII. THE “PAS DE QUATRE”: III. FANNY CERITO.
(“ONDINE”) 240
XXIX. THE “PAS DE QUATRE”: IV. LUCILE GRAHN.
(“EOLINE”) 244
XXX. THE DECLINE AND REVIVAL 249
XXXI. THE ALHAMBRA 1854 TO 1903 252
XXXII. THE ALHAMBRA 1904 TO 1913 269
XXXIII. THE EMPIRE THEATRE 1884 TO 1906 276
XXXIV. THE EMPIRE THEATRE 1907 TO 1914 294
XXXV. FINALE, THE RUSSIANS AND--THE FUTURE 309
INDEX 327
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ADOLF BOLM IN “CARNIVAL” _Frontispiece_
_From a photograph_
AN EGYPTIAN MALE DANCER _Facing page_ 30
_From a Theban fresco_
EGYPTIAN DANCING GIRLS ” 30
_From a mural painting in the British Museum_
A GREEK FUNERAL DANCE ” 30
_From a coloured plaque in the Louvre_
STAGE EFFECT IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY ” 56
_A scene from, the “Ballet Comique de la Royne,”
by Baltasar de Beaujoyeux, 1581_
STAGE EFFECT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ” 88
_From a coloured engraving of a scene from
“Circe,” 1694_
THE DUCHESSE DU MAINE ” 114
THE DEPARTURE OF THE ITALIAN COMEDIANS, 1697 ” 128
_From an engraving by L. Jacob of Watteau’s picture_
PIERROT AND ARLEQUIN, IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ” 128
_From Riccoboni’s “Histoire du Théâtre Italien”_
L’AMOUR AU THÉÂTRE ITALIEN ” 132
_From the Julienne engravings from Watteau, British
Museum_
L’AMOUR AU THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS ” 132
_From the Julienne engravings from Watteau, British
Museum_
LE CONCERT ” 136
_From the painting by Watteau, Wallace Collection_
LA LEÇON DE MUSIQUE ” 136
_From the painting by Watteau, Wallace Collection_
LES PLAISIRS DU BAL ” 138
_From the Julienne engravings from Watteau, British
Museum_
MLLE. DESMARES EN HABIT DE PÈLERINE ” 140
_From the Julienne engravings from Watteau, British
Museum_
L’EMBARQUEMENT POUR L’ILE DE CYTHÈRE ” 140
_From a photograph by E. Alinari of Watteau’s
painting in the Louvre_
MARIE SALLÉ ” 150
_From an engraving by Petit, after a picture by
Fenouil_
M. BALLON AND MLLE. PRÉVÔT ” 160
_From an old print_
CAMARGO ” 160
_From the painting by Lancret in the Wallace
Collection_
GAETAN VESTRIS ” 166
_From an old print_
JEAN GEORGES NOVERRE ” 174
_From an old engraving_
MADELEINE GUIMARD ” 192
_From the painting by Fragonard_
FANNY ELSSLER ” 210
_From an old engraving_
CARLOTTA GRISI ” 210
_From a coloured lithograph_
CARLO BLASIS ” 218
_From a lithograph_
MARIE TAGLIONI ” 228
_From a lithograph dated 1833_
THE PAS DE QUATRE OF 1845 ” 228
FANNY CERITO AND ST. LEON ” 242
LUCILLE GRAHN AND PERROT ” 242
MLLE. PALLADINO IN “NINA” AT THE ALHAMBRA ” 266
_From a photograph_
MLLE. BRITTA ” 266
_From a photograph_
MME. GUERRERO ” 274
_From a photograph_
MLLE. LEONORA ” 274
_From a photograph_
MLLE. ADELINE GÉNÉE ” 292
_From a photograph_
MME. LYDIA KYASHT ” 304
_From a photograph_
MISS PHYLLIS BEDELLS ” 304
_From a photograph_
MISS ISADORA DUNCAN ” 314
_From a photograph_
MME. KARSAVINA AND M. ADOLF BOLM IN “L’OISEAU DE FEU” ” 322
_From a photograph_
BOOK I: THE FIRST ERA
THE ART OF BALLET
OVERTURE
ON THE ART OF BALLET
There may be some who could not agree that Ballet _is_ an “art,”
or even that it has, or ever had, any special charm or historic
interest. The charm--as in the case of any other art--will probably
always remain rather a matter of individual opinion; the historic
interest is merely a matter of fact.
No man can hope for agreement with his fellows in all things. The
world were flat if it could be so. He may hector, and not convince;
he may cajole and not convert; he may tell the simple truth in simple
speech and still be misunderstood. So many of his partners in the
dance of life speak in different tongues; or, speaking the same, use
words and phrases more familiar to them than to himself.
In going to a foreign land we change our currency; but it is hardly
to be accounted spurious because it is not as ours. There may be
something to be said for the variety; and, also, there may be some
common basis of value which can be accepted readily by both. A
world-currency has not yet arrived. In opinion it is much the same.
But the sense of “fair play” is so admirable, and so truly British
a characteristic, that one may usually rely on it for a considerate
hearing. Possible dissentients may be the more inclined to grant
this if they are informed at the outset that this book has no
specially persuasive purpose, and that I am content that it should be
mainly accounted a record of fact.
One of the facts which it chronicles is that Ballet, whether an
“art” or not, has existed, in some form or another, for about two
thousand years. An interest which can show so long a record may yet
not be of such surpassing importance, let us say, as Statecraft or
Religion; but one which has thus long and widely appealed to the
æsthetic sense of mankind can hardly be considered worthless. It
were a vast and complex matter to decide the relative values of the
various “arts,” and, certainly this book is no endeavour to pronounce
thereon, nor to persuade any that Ballet is the greatest, though it
is unquestionably one of the oldest of the arts. But it will suffice
to offer the opinion that, whether it has reached its highest level
or not as yet Ballet _is_ an art in itself; one that in the past has
had so many judicious and sympathetic exponents, and has so long a
record of existence, that there is really some justification for the
expenditure of casual leisure by any who cares to play the chronicler
or to read such chronicle.
This much said, before setting out to travel the road of the past,
let us for a moment reconsider another fact, namely, that we have in
London two theatres where for about a quarter of a century Ballet
_was_ the main attraction. The fact is unique in the annals of the
British stage.
Ballets have been produced elsewhere occasionally. We have seen
operas, pantomimes, burlesques, of which they formed a part. At
earlier periods--as in the ’forties of last century--they have also
been seen as separate items in the programme of an operatic season;
and there has been a quite remarkable revival of interest during the
past few years. But in all the history of the stage there was never
before a time when it could be said that for such a period not one
but two theatrical houses in London _continuously_ offered this kind
of entertainment as their chief attraction.
It has to be remembered that this sustained existence of Ballet in
England has been, as in the case of all “legitimate drama,” without
State aid such as it has received in Milan, Rome, Naples, Paris,
Vienna, Petrograd, Copenhagen, and elsewhere on the Continent, where
the physical advantages of dancing and the artistic value of Ballet
are fully appreciated. The arts must flourish haphazard here! We have
no national conservatoire in which this art of Ballet is taught as it
is abroad. Consequently it has been less generally understood; and,
being so, has had to exist in face of considerable prejudice.
Some critics profess to despise it because it ignores the spoken
word. Some have decried it because of the presence of dancing. Some
will not admit that it is worthy to be called an art at all, and
there are possibly still some primly primitive people who pretend to
view with moral pain the existence of any such entertainment. They
may patronise a theatre or tolerate an actor or actress--but a Ballet
or a Ballet-Dancer!
The misunderstanding of the aims and possibilities of the Art of
Ballet, as seen at its best, is to be regretted.
Not for such critics are the music of moving lines, the modulating
harmonies of colour, the subtleties of mimic expression, nor all the
wealth of historic associations and romantic charm which a knowledge
of its past recalls.
Austere critics would do well, when deprecating Ballet, to remember
that many others have found it, as Colley Cibber regretfully admitted
it was found in his time: “a pleasing and rational entertainment.”
That it is “pleasing” many know from witnessing some of the best
of modern examples. As to whether it can be considered “rational”
depends so much on the kind of meaning that may be given to that
word. All rational people speak in prose; constantly to speak in
verse might be considered quite irrational. But are we to banish
poetry from the world because it is not the common form of speech?
Some people might find it quite irrational to sit in a theatre and
laugh or weep at the imaginary joys or woes of imaginary characters
impersonated by people who are not seriously concerned therewith, and
with whom, personally, we are not at all concerned.
It might be well considered irrational to be moved by any “concord of
sweet sounds,” at least in the shape of “opera”; or to be enspelled
by the charm of a statue or a painting, or by the wizardry of any
form of art; for once it is questioned whether it be “rational,”
there need be no end to dispute; and one remembers how poor Tolstoy
fared in essaying to decide: “What is Art?”
That of Ballet surely is no less rational than Poetry, than Drama,
than Music, Sculpture, Painting--all of which exist by _their_
conventions, all of which in principle it employs; to all of which it
is akin. It is not less an art; and when looking at a modern ballet
we can hardly fail to consider the long train of reasoned thought and
of artistic tradition that lie beyond the entertainment that we see
to-day.
What is it that we see? An orchestra of dancers who are also mimes,
who represent--one should rather say, realise--the imaginative
creations of an author, or a number of authors working harmoniously
together, in terms of rhythmic movement and dramatic expression, with
the aid also of colour and music and sound.
Every one of these dancers has had to undergo a special and arduous
training, the traditions of which reach back through centuries till
lost in time’s obscurity.
Each has an allotted place at any given moment in the general scheme.
Every grouping and dispersal of a group--like the formation and
modulation of chords in music--is part of an ordered plan.
Every step of every dancer, every gesture, every phrase of music, is
composed or selected to express particular ideas or series of ideas;
every colour and each change of tone in the whole symphony of hues
has been appraised. Not a thing that happens is haphazard.
It is probably by reason of the number of people that must be
employed, and the labour entailed before a successful result can be
achieved, and on account of the difficulties and risks attendant
on its production, that we have had so few theatres devoted to an
art so thoroughly appreciated abroad, not only as one of ancient
institution, but as one that still offers wide scope for the creative
genius of poet, artist and musician, apart from the interpretative
abilities of dancer and of mime.
CHAPTER I
A DISTINCTION, AND SOME DIFFERENCES
The chief elements of Ballet as seen to-day are--dancing, miming,
music and scenic effect, including of course in this last the
costumes and colour-schemes, as well as the actual “scenery” and
lighting.
It is in the proper harmonising of these elements that the true
art of Ballet-composition, or, as it is called, “choreography,”
consists. Each has its individual history, and all have been combined
in varying proportions at various periods. But it is only in the
past hundred and fifty years or so that they have been harmoniously
blended in the increasing richness of their development to give us
this separate, protean and beautiful art--the Ballet of the Theatre.
These four elements are the material of which Ballet is composed, and
the result may be judged by their balance.
We are to think not of the worst examples that have been, but of the
best, and of those that yet might be.
Most of the older writers on dancing speak of almost all concerted
dances as ballets and refer to the “ballets” of the Egyptians, the
Greeks and the Romans. The Abbé Menestrier, however, writing in the
seventeenth century, wisely observed the distinction between dances
that are _only_ “dances,” and those that approximate to “ballet.”
It should be borne in mind that it is possible to dance and not
represent an idea save that of dancing, as when a child dances for
joy, _not in order to represent the joy of another_. That is the
province of the Mime. It is equally possible to mimic without dancing.
The best ballet-dancer is one who has intelligence and training to do
both, whose dancing and mimicry are interpretative.
Speaking of certain Egyptian and Greek figure-dances and the approach
of some of them to the Ballet as he knew it towards the end of the
seventeenth century, Menestrier wrote: “_J’appelle ces Danses Ballets
parce qu’elles n’etoient pas de simples Danses comme les autres,
mais des Representations ingenieuses, des mouvements du Ciel et des
Planétes, et des evolutions du labyrinthe dont Thésée sortit_.”
That is a distinction to be remembered by any who may look on the Art
of Ballet as simply--dancing.
It is necessary to-day to make another distinction, that between
“ballet,” and “the ballet of the theatre.” In a sense the Hindus,
the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, indeed all peoples in past
ages have had ballets; that is, dances which were “_representations
ingenieuses_,” which represented an idea or told a story.
There have been entertainments, too, of which dancing formed
a considerable part--such as our English “masques,” which,
contemporaneously, were often spoken of as “ballets.”
But though they may for convenience have been so called, they were
never more than partly akin with the ballet of the theatre as we
see it to-day. They never exhibited that balance of subordinated
and _developed_ arts which the best examples of later times have
shown; and were not seen in the public theatre, as a form of dramatic
entertainment apart from others.
One has only to consider for an instant what were the musical and
scenic resources of the Greek and Roman stage, and compare them with
the resources of modern orchestration and scenic effect to realise
the difference between antique “ballet” and that of to-day.
Setting aside this difference, which arises from the development of
the several elements through the centuries, one may find many an
ancient definition of “ballet” that appears apt enough to-day, for
the difference is not so much one of principle as this of resources.
Athenæus, a second-century Greek critic, declared: “Ballet is an
imitation of things said and sung,” and Lucian, that--“It is by the
gesture, movements and cadences that this imitation or representation
is made up, as the song is made up by the inflections of the voice.”
This is a happy illustration. Inflections might well be described as
“gestures” _of the voice_.
Menestrier (who, besides writing an exceedingly entertaining history
of Ballet, also wrote extensively on Heraldry, and was author
of several solid historical works as well as numerous poems and
_libretti_) has said: “Ballet is an imitation like the other arts,
and that much has in common with them. The difference is, that while
the other arts only imitate certain things, as painting, which
expresses the shape, colour, arrangement and disposition of things,
Ballet expresses the _movement_ which Painting and Sculpture could
not express, and by these movements can represent the nature of
things, and those characteristics of the soul which only can find
expression by such movements. This imitation is achieved by the
movements of the body, which are the interpreters of the passions
and of the inmost feelings. And even as the body has various
parts composing a whole and making a beautiful harmony, one uses
instruments and their accord, to regulate those movements which
express the effect of the passions of the soul.”
These definitions have decided value, but hardly quite meet the case
of modern Ballet.
Noverre, Blasis, Gardel, and other of the older _maîtres de ballet_,
have told us in several charming books, essays, letters, dialogues
and _libretti_, much as to what Ballet can and should be, but yet
leave something to seek in the matter of brief yet comprehensive
definition.
It is with some hesitancy, therefore, that I venture, before talking
of its history, to suggest as a simple definition that: “a ballet
is _a series of solo and concerted dances with mimetic actions,
accompanied by music and scenic accessories, telling a story_.”
It is by reason of this definition that I propose to pass somewhat
lightly over the early dawn of Ballet, or rather of its earliest
elements, the dance and miming; and that I propose to deal more fully
with the period _after_ the advent of Louis Quatorze--in France and
in England--which saw the development of the _Ballet du Théâtre_.
There have, of course, been modern ballets that did not tell a story.
But the true Ballet of the theatre should.
Such have been the best of those of Noverre, of Blasis, of Perrot,
Nuittier, Théophile Gautier, and of later composers of ballet like
Taglioni, Manzotti, Coppi, Mme. Lanner, Wilhelm, Curti, Fokine, and,
indeed, all the best ballets of later years; and such will the best
always be.
CHAPTER II
EGYPT
The origin of the drama is hardly to be reckoned among the historic
mysteries. By serious triflers debate might be held as to what should
be considered the first dramatic representation and when it actually
took place.
Some five centuries before the Christian era the first plays of
which scholarship has taken note were performed at Athens, those
of Thespis, forerunner of the first great dramatists of the
world--Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
For convenience the origin of Western drama may be dated from Thespis
because it seems first to have assumed then a definite form. That is
not its actual origin any more than the origin of any human being is
to be dated from its birth. As a possibility it may be said to have
existed always. Even Chronology has its limitations, and preceding
any given event there must have existed principles or tendencies.
When it is said, therefore, that the origin of the Drama is not an
historic mystery it is because we are not very much in the dark as
to when it began to assume a somewhat definite form; and, moreover,
we can be fairly clear as to what must have preceded it. There seems
rather more than a probability that the Drama derived its existence
from the Poet, in his capacity as a Narrator.
For some hundreds of years the Drama has been chiefly a
representation of character and events, whether real or fictitious.
In its earliest forms it was mainly descriptive. It would seem to be
the natural order of things that from mere description there should
arise in time--possibly from a half-conscious feeling of the need
of _emphasis_, of a desire to _impress_ the hearers--the attempt
to _illustrate_ or to _represent_ the scenes or actions described.
The mere repetition of any story seems to tend towards that. Have
we not observed that no “fish” story is ever quite complete--if not
convincing--without histrionic illustrations?
Though in India and China, with their more ancient civilisation, the
chronologic origin of the Drama might be more remotely placed, it is
probable that in the Homeric bard and the Homeric audience, should
be sought the true beginning of the Western theatre; while, all the
world over, the evolution of the dramatic form has probably been much
the same--namely, a gradual transition from poetic _narration_ to
imitative representation. Thus at the back of the Drama is probably
the Poet. Beside the Poet, too, is often the Priest.
Greek tragedy is usually said to have had a purely “religious”
origin, and certainly it was from early times employed for the
purposes of, or in the service of, Religion; but it would, one
feels, be rather truer to presume its actual origin to be purely
secular, and to be found in the Poet making his appeal to an ordinary
audience, in a word, to the People, while sometimes under the
patronage of priestly and ruling classes.
When, however, we come to consider the origin of the Dance--first and
most important of the “four elements” of Ballet--we are forced to
the conclusion that, even though we are on more uncertain ground, it
must, nevertheless, be far older than the Drama. Why this should be
so, even though we have no approximate date to go upon as in the case
of the Thespian theatre, is not difficult to see.
The Drama evolved from, and has always depended on, the faculty of
speech, and on the growth of a language. A copious vocabulary and
flexibility of verbal expression are not exactly characteristics of
the primitive races; and, without both, the Drama, as we have known
it for some centuries, could not have existed.
But the Dance (with mimicry, which has always followed close upon its
heels) has no need of words, and is itself a kind of speech, in which
the whole body is used as a means of expression.
We are none of us old enough to remember, and there is consequently
no need to be dogmatic and assert that the Dance actually _did_
precede speech; but it is far from improbable that it could
have done; and while one shudders to think of the ardent _danse
tourbillon_ our Mother Earth must have danced from the moment of her
birth, it is perhaps more amusing--and yet not wholly frivolous--to
contemplate a possible origin of the Dance in the sport some Simian
ancestors may have found in rhythmically swaying on the flexile
branches of some primeval tree, before they had acquired a vocabulary
sufficiently copious for the analysis of their sensations.
Seriously, however, and just because it has a rhythmic basis, dancing
in some form is among the earliest instincts of mankind, even as it
is of children. In all climes, at all periods, men and women have
danced; and its origin is lost in the mists of prehistoric years.
Non-civilised races still existent may offer evidence as to stages
in its evolution; but even among the more primitive races, dancing
seems to have some definiteness of form, marking a heritage of long
practice.
From some earliest, uncouth leapings and gestures of savage or half
savage tribes (the effect of mere exuberant physical energy) may have
grown the idea of thus expressing joy and thankfulness; for joy, not
sorrow, one feels must surely have been always the first inspirer of
the Dance; and possibly a victory over an enemy, or gratitude for a
full harvest may have come to be first the inspiration, and then the
excuse for repeating such manifestations.
Repetition of an act tends to create a habit, and what may be at
first apparently a spontaneous experiment grows by repetition into a
cult, with set form and ritual.
The ritual of the Dance seems to be as ancient as the stars, in
representing the movements of which, it is supposed by some to have
had its origin in Egypt over two thousand years ago. Nowhere is it
found without form. All must be done in a certain way, according
to the traditions of the locality in which the dance is seen, or
according to some wider tradition. Always it has a ritual of its own,
but also with religious ritual the origin of the Dance--as also of
the Drama--appears in some mysterious manner to be upbound.
Of all the records that we have of dancing, the earliest are,
apparently, those of Egypt. Its origin is not there; it must be
older; but we know at least that the Egyptians were among the first
people with a civilisation that encouraged dancing.
One of the finest among modern historians of the art, divides
dancing, for convenience in tracing its evolution, into “sacred” and
“profane”; that is, the Dance forming, as so often it did in ancient
times, part of a religious ceremonial, and that which in any other
of its forms was merely a pleasure of the people. For our purpose
in tracing the growth of Ballet, however, it would seem advisable
to divide the Dance yet further, into “sacred,” “secular,” and
“theatrical.”
The Egyptians had no Ballet of the theatre, because they had no
theatre. They had dances which seem to have been “_representations
ingenieuses_,” and to that extent, as mimetic dances, partook of
the nature of Ballet; but they were not organised as theatrical
spectacles for private or public entertainment.
The Greeks had no Ballet of the theatre because, though they had the
theatre, they, like the Egyptians, had merely mimetic dances, not
Ballet.
But if Egypt had no popular theatre in which dancing was seen, it
appears to have existed, nevertheless, in three distinct forms--as
a pleasure of “the man in the street”--just as we see children
dance to a barrel-organ in the London streets to-day; again, as an
entertainment for the wealthy, just as a popular singer, dancer
or other entertainer of to-day is engaged for an “at home” or
dinner-party; and, finally, as an element of the elaborate and
somewhat theatrical Egyptian religious ceremonial.
Monuments from Thebes and Beni Hassan show pictures of Egyptian
dancers performing steps very similar to some we can see to-day. They
appear to be performing them for the pleasure of onlookers as well as
their own. This acquiring of an audience has, after all, been always
of first importance, and without it the Drama could hardly have come
into existence.
Most people are interested in seeing others do something they are
unable to do themselves, and when they can see it well done, in a
manner, that is, suggesting a difficult feat accomplished with ease,
they will even pay for the exhibition. That is the popular (with
managers the extremely popular) side of the theatrical arts, of which
dancing is one. When there arises the desire to see the exhibition
repeated frequently, then must follow the special place with special
facilities and accessories for the performance, and the theatre,
or something like it, thus comes into existence as an institution
sustained by popular support. There is first the thing done for
pleasure--which is art; then the exploitation of it for profit--which
is commerce; that is the brief epitaph of any art as a fruit of
civilisation.
The Egyptians did not reach the “theatre” stage. But dancing,
essentially a popular art, received encouragement as an element in
religious festivals and as an entertainment of the wealthy classes.
Considerable difference of opinion exists as to the “religious”
dances of Egypt. Enthusiastic historians of dancing seem rather too
prone to expand the little store of fact we possess, and some go to
the length of speaking of the religious and popular “ballets” of the
Egyptians. But it is certain that they had no regular theatrical
spectacles in which dancing was of prime importance; and their
popular dances, to any such extent as they could be described as
“_representations ingenieuses_,” were primitive in comparison with
any of later times.
Solo-dances and _pas de deux_ were general enough, but the dancing
of massed groups, and the dramatic representation of a story, appear
to have been unknown, or have passed unrecorded if they were known.
The nearest approach to them, though not of course performed as
a theatrical spectacle, would seem to have been an “astronomical
dance,” which was done by or under the direction of the priests
of Apis, and is said to have been--appropriately enough!--a
representation of the movements of the stars. It is probable that it
was employed mainly as a means of education.
Holy Church in mediæval times took advantage of the popular craving
for theatrical shows, and sought by the aid of “mystery plays,” and
“moralities” to extend the knowledge of religious truths. It may be
conjectured that the Egyptian hierarchy similarly had some such end
in view, and that the priestly caste sought to utilise the popular
taste for dancing as a means of influence, and that the actual
performance of the dance served to fix more lastingly in the minds of
novices the religious and astronomical truths it embodied.
[Illustration: An Egyptian Male Dancer
(_From a Theban Fresco_).]
[Illustration: Egyptian Dancing Girls
(_From a mural painting in the British Museum_).]
[Illustration: A Greek Funeral Dance
(_From a coloured plaque in the Louvre_).]
In addition to the star-dance, the Egyptians are said to have had a
“funeral” dance, but it is doubtful if this, the “Maneros”--of which
Herodotus speaks--was a solemn dance. The fact is, however, that
information both as to the religious and ceremonial uses of dancing
among the Egyptians is very scant, and what little record we have of
their dancing is mainly on its popular side and is to be gleaned from
monuments.
One of the frescoes in the British Museum shows two girls performing,
apparently before a select audience of women, one of whom is seen to
be applauding, or perhaps marking the time with syncopated clapping,
as negroes do to-day.
Another representation of dancing is on a fresco from Thebes showing
three figures, the centre of whom is apparently performing an
_entrechat_, as seen to-day, the step in which the dancer crosses
feet in mid-air; while a fourth acts as orchestra with a couple of
the curious curved maces which were beaten together to mark the
rhythm in sonorous fashion.
Other Egyptian monuments also show dancers, one from Beni Hassan
depicting several couples, apparently boys, performing a dance that
obviously had certain set steps, and suggests that it was used
mainly as a rhythmic athletic exercise, as were many of the Greek
dances. And yet another monument shows men apparently in the act of
performing a pirouette. About them all there is the air of decision,
a suggestion of trained performance that in itself, remembering that
these monuments are some four thousand years old, and depict steps
similar to some performed to-day, is testimony to the antiquity of
the art of dancing.
CHAPTER III
GREECE
There is no lack of testimony, pictorial and literary, to the ancient
Greek love of the Dance.
Among the various arts of war and peace that Vulcan engraved upon
that wondrous shield which he fashioned at the entreaty of sad Thetis
for her son Achilles, the Dance was not forgotten; and the Homeric
singer must have been a lover of the art to limn as clear a picture
as is given in the eighteenth book of the Iliad.
“There, too, the skilful artist’s hand had wrought
With curious workmanship, a mazy dance,
Like that which Dædalus in Knossos erst
At fair-haired Ariadne’s bidding framed.
There, laying each on other’s wrists their hand,
Bright youths and many-suitored maidens danced.”
* * * * *
“Now whirled they round with nimble practised feet,
Easy, as when a potter, seated, turns
A wheel, new-fashioned by his skilful hand
And spins it round, to prove if true it run:
Now featly moved in well-beseeming ranks.
A numerous crowd, around, the lovely dance
Surveyed, delighted; while an honoured Bard
Sang, as he struck the lyre, and to the strain
Two tumblers, in the midst, were whirling round.”
The “two tumblers” is an interesting detail, but it does not
necessarily refer to the sort of acrobatic “tumbling” we are
familiar with to-day. There have always been two phases of the Dance
which can best be understood by noting the distinction marked by the
use of two words in French--at least by their use among the masters
and writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--namely,
_danser_ and _sauter_. The former means to dance, “_terre-à-terre_,”
that is, always with the feet, or one foot at least, on or close to
the ground; _sauter_, means invariably to leap into the air, or even
to perform steps while both feet are in the air.
We usually speak of “a somersault,” a “double somersault,” and so
forth. The word is a corruption from the old French _soubresault_,
from the Latin _supra_, over, and _saltus_, leap.
Early historians of the Dance frequently speak of “saltation,”
without any reference to the “somersault” as we know it, but to what
we should call simply dancing.
The Homeric picture must have been repeated innumerable times since
it was first limned, whenever and wherever there has been a gathering
of men and maids on a village green, dancing in a circle, with a
couple of high-leaping lads in the centre inciting all to quicken the
rhythm of the whirling dance. Many an Elizabethan village must have
realised such a scene; and for all the artifice of the stage, with
its paint and footlights, does it not hold something of the antique
tradition in the picture often seen, of a circle of dancing girls
enclosing two wildly turning “stars”? Is it impossibly un-Hellenic to
presume that the “Two tumblers, in the midst, were whirling round” in
_pirouettes_? At least it may be considered--a presumption!
Far later in Hellenic days we have a gracious picture of the Dance
in Theocritus’ eighteenth Idyll, “The Bridal of Helen,” which reads
delightfully in Calverley’s translation:
“Whilom in Lacedæmon tripped many a maiden fair
To gold-pressed Menelaus’ halls with hyacinths in her hair,
Twelve to the painted chamber, the queenliest in the land,
The clustered loveliness of Greece came dancing hand-in-hand.
With woven steps they beat the ground in unison and sang
The bridal hymn of triumph till all the Palace rang.”
The Greek dance, it should be noted, was almost invariably
accompanied by singing; and the poet probably was often indebted
to the dance for the rhythm of his verse. The bridal dance was of
very ancient institution. Indeed, there were few occasions which
were not celebrated with dancing, and the Greeks even followed the
Egyptian custom of having “dancers” at their funerals! It is not to
be thought, however, that the steps were exactly gay; nor need there
have been anything incongruous, for we can be sure the instinctive
taste of the people would not have admitted such a thing, and,
moreover, a dance and a dancer as they saw it, were rather different
from the vision we have recalled by such words.
To the ancient Greeks the Dance was a cult, an element in the
religious and physical well-being of the individual and the State:
and the dance that was taught to the child became an important and
lasting factor in the physical growth and culture of the man.
We who, most of us, are only too apt to look on dancing as a mere
trivial pastime, may wonder that it _was_ so seriously considered
by the Greeks, and that it should have so earnestly engaged the
attentions of such philosophers as Plato and Lucian. But perhaps that
is only because we have not considered it sufficiently ourselves and
have associated it too closely with theatrical display.
In any form in which it is at its best the theatre is one of
the noblest and most influential institutions of civilisation;
as dancing, at its best, is one of the finest, because most
comprehensive, of the theatrical arts. But there is a vast difference
between the dance which was a means of physical and mental
development, pursued amid the health-giving surroundings of sunshine
and fresh air, and, let us say, some such degradation of art as
some examples of the “classic” dance we have seen of recent years,
performed in the glare of footlights, amid the smoke-laden atmosphere
of a music-hall.
The contrast is an obvious one, but the thing to consider is that we
in England have allowed an art which held an important place in Greek
national life, and which should be of the greatest educational value
to ourselves, to become mainly a spectacle of the theatre, where more
often than not it is seen at its best, not necessarily because it is
the result of the best system, _but because it is the fruit of the
greatest practice_.
It is obviously impossible to deal very fully with the Hellenic
dance in the space of a chapter in a volume which is not intended
to trace the evolution of the Dance but of Ballet. An entire book
were needed to treat the subject adequately--and we have not such a
book in English, as yet. But Emmanuel’s masterly technical review of
Hellenic dancing in his volume _La Danse Grecque_, is invaluable, and
is testimony to the sound and catholic scholarship which in France
scorns no subject as “trivial” merely because those ignorant of its
history dismiss it as such; and which finds sympathetic students in
a country where all the arts are treated with a respect that is at
least as great as that offered to commercialism.
The Greeks are said to have derived their earlier dances from Egypt.
This may be questionable, because it is equally likely that there
was a traditional, indigenous dance in Greece. But it was _through_
the Greeks, certainly, that dancing first assumed that variety and
perfection of form and style which all the arts seemed destined to
attain under their quickening, purifying, and inspiring influence;
and it was the Greeks, too, who first began to develop the art of
mimicry.
First, as already suggested, there would probably have been some
occasion for joy, tending to express itself by dancing; and a victory
over an enemy, or gratitude for a full harvest (the more exalted when
the harvest was of the grape!) would have been such occasions. Later
must have come the idea of _representing_ the victory celebrated, or
the imagined characteristics of the being or beings who were supposed
to be the cause of the earth’s fruition, and who, if propitiated by
this tumultuous acknowledgment of gratitude, perhaps might renew
their favours.
Thus, in time, out of the ritual of the Dance would have grown the
ritual of representation--Mimicry, miming, or “acting,” as we call
it; and little by little, from the wild exuberance of recurring
poetic festivals, such as those in honour of Dionysus, would
have grown the ordered sense of Drama, the _representation_ of
thanksgiving, of feelings, events and things by Mimicry, the actor’s
art; either allied with, or separate from, dancing.
The Greeks, improving on the Egyptians, invented and developed the
idea of the Theatre. But though the Greeks in their Drama _utilised_
the arts of dancing and mimicry, it would seem that they were quite
subordinated to the literary and dramatic art of the all-inspiring
Poet, and that words, with a meaning behind them, words representing,
as far as words can, thoughts, passions, emotions, actions, things,
were the essential medium of Greek Drama, _not_ the art of the Dancer
or the Mime.
It should be noted that the Greek _orcheisthai_ (ὀρχεῖσθαι),
to dance, implied more than mere steps with the feet. It
included much that goes to make a really good ballet-dancer of
to-day--interpretative dancing and mimetic gesture. The Greeks in
fact had some of the material, if they did not have as we know
it--the Ballet.
The earliest dramatic poets, Thespis, Phrynichus, were called
“dancers” because in addition to providing the drama as poets, their
function was to train their choruses in the dances which, accompanied
by singing, were introduced in the play.
One of the most celebrated of the actors in the plays of Æschylus,
Telestes, was said not merely to indicate feelings but to “describe”
events with his hands; and this, which was really miming, was
considered as part of dancing, which Aristotle defined as “the
representation of actions, characters and passions by means of
postures and rhythmic movements.”
Plutarch analyses dancing as “Motions, Postures and Indications,” a
“posture” being the attitude of the dancer at the moment of arrested
movement, and an “indication,” the gesture which indicated an
external object referred to in a poet’s lines, such as the sky; or
such as an orator would use when raising his hand heavenward invoking
the gods.
The chief dances used in the Greek drama were the _Emmeleia_, a
stately measure; _Hyporchemata_, lively dances; the _Kordax_, a very
coarse and rough comic dance; and finally the _Sikinnis_, which was
attached especially to satyric comedies and parodied as a rule the
measure of the _Emmeleia_.
These were all a part, though a subordinate part, of the classic
drama, and, according to some authorities, had their foundation
in the rhythm of the poet’s verse as it was sung by the chorus or
declaimed by the chief actors.
But apart from these there were mimetic dances. One, in which we
may perhaps even see a hint of the origin of dancing itself, is
found in Longus’ novel, _Daphnis and Chloe_, in which Dryas performs
a vintage-dance, “pretending to gather grapes, to carry them in
panniers, to tread them in a vat and pour the flowing juice into
jars, and then to drink of the wine thus newly made”; and all done so
cleverly that the spectators were deceived for the time and thought
they really saw the grapes, the vats, and the wine the actor made
pretence of drinking. This, probably an incident drawn from life, was
indeed a “_representation ingenieuse_,” and even suggests yet another
of the many possibilities as to the origin of the Dance, namely--that
dancing itself may have originated from the treading of grapes.
The famous Pyrrhic dance was of course mimetic and represented
a series of war-like incidents, all of which had an educational
purpose, as by their means the youthful soldier was taught how to
advance and retreat, how to aim a blow or hurl a javelin and to dodge
them; and how to leap and vault, in event of meeting ditches and
walls. Apart from military dances in which physical culture and grace
were the chief aims, there were many dances of a purely festival
character taken part in by young men and girls, and by girls alone.
The close association between religion and the Dance in ancient
Hellenic days is seen in the number of festivals in honour of the
gods, at which special dances were performed, apart from those which
formed part of the classic drama and others which were merely by way
of joyous pastime. Certain dances were performed annually in honour
of Jupiter; others, such as the _Procharysteriæ_, were in honour of
Minerva; then there was the _Pæonian_ dance in honour of Apollo;
the _Ionic_, and the _Kalabis_ and the famous Dance of Innocence,
instituted by Lycurgus, and executed to the glory of Diana, by young
Lacedæmonian girls before the altar of the goddess. The Delian
dance, special to the isle of Delos, was much the same in character
and closed with the offering of floral garlands on the altar of
Aphrodite. One of the most solemn incidents of the Eleusinian
mysteries was the mystical dance-drama representing the search of
Ceres for her daughter Proserpine--practically a “ballet,” in the
older acceptance of the word.
The secular dance of the Greeks was essentially an individualistic
form. Men and women only rarely danced together, and when they did,
the joining of hands, or anything like chain-dancing was exceptional.
One of these exceptions was the _Hormos_, or Collar-dance as it
was called, which Lucian describes as being danced by youths and
maidens advancing one by one in the form of a collar, made up of the
alternating jewels of feminine grace and manly strength, the dance
being led by a youth. Most of the Greek dances had a leader, and
the favour in which the art was held is shown by the fact that they
termed their Chief Magistrate _Pro-orchestris_, or Leader of the
Dance. As a rule, chain-dances were performed by one or the other sex.
In another sense also the Hellenic dance was individualistic. We are
accustomed to see entire groups, eight, sixteen, or even thirty-two
or more dancers all performing the same step simultaneously. It
is one of the conventions of Ballet, like the chorus in “musical
comedy.” But the Greeks had not that convention.
Although their dance was based on strict rhythm and was governed
by rigid rules, they governed the dance of the individual, not of
groups. He, or she, was adjudged a good dancer by the grace of line
displayed and rhythmic balance of movement, and many a vase painting
exhibits groups of dancers who, though dancing in the mass, are
each doing different steps; and equally the gestures and mimetic
expression of each differed.
The system unquestionably had its advantages, for while the rhythm
of the song or poetic verse which accompanied the performers was the
common basis of the dance for all, the individuality of expression
undoubtedly gave a vitality to the group which accounts for the
vividness and charm of their representation on many an antique vase.
Numerous indeed were the various forms of the Hellenic dance,
sacred, dramatic, secular--Meursius catalogues some two hundred--but
further description would detain us too long _en route_ towards the
culmination of all these earlier types of mimetic and other dances in
the Ballet of to-day, and we have next to trace the growth of Latin
Mime and Pantomime.
CHAPTER IV
MIME AND PANTOMIME: ROME, HIPPODROME--OBSCURITY
If to Greece modern Ballet owes much for the encouragement of the
Dance, to Rome it is even more indebted for the development of the
art of Pantomime.
By many the word Pantomime is associated solely with that
time-honoured entertainment which children, home for the Christmas
holidays, are supposed to be too _blasé_ to care for, but which they
go to by way of obliging parents who feel it their duty to take them.
The Christmas pantomime has long been one of our cherished
institutions, though, like the British Constitution, it has undergone
many changes. It is still given at Christmas. That much of tradition
remains. But most of its original features have all but disappeared.
Time was, two hundred years ago, when it was mainly “Harlequinade,”
and Harlequin and his gay comrades of Italian comedy were the heroes
of the play. Then classical plots and allusions, with an elaboration
of scenic effect and “machines,” brought about a gradual change. In
the early nineteenth century a “topical” and “patriotic” element had
crept in; but the Harlequinade, although shortened, and, shall we
say, _broadened_, still remained.
Then a craze for “transformation” scenes set in because the extreme
gorgeousness of the tinsel productions of Kemble and Macready--the
archæological and historic “accuracy” of which was always
emphasised!--forced the pantomime producers in self-defence to go one
better.
And then came Grimaldi to give a new life to the whimsies of that
Clown whose prototype dates back to ancient Rome; and for half a
century or more the Christmas pantomime continued much the same--a
familiar nursery-story played out to the accompaniment of fairy-like
and glittering scenic accessories, concluding with a rough-and-tumble
Harlequinade, until in recent years the introduction of the
Music-hall performer gave us the entertainment we have to-day.
Not thus, however, was the antique “pantomime,” which, evolving
from the more ancient and spoken “Mimes,” became, because it took
all nature for its province--pan-mimicry, or pantomime; the stage
representation, without the spoken word, of all that eye could see or
mind of man conceive.
Now, it is a far step from narrative to impersonation--marking an
advance in the technique of acting; and it was some time before the
Greek Drama had achieved this. But it was not so much the impressive
and noble side of the Greek Drama that taught the actors, not merely
to _declaim_ situations but to _act_ them; it must have been the
popular, the comic side; and it was probably the Doric farce, and
later the early Latin comedy derived therefrom, that really brought
to perfection under the Roman Empire the art of _Miming_ apart from
the art of Dancing.
The comic is so much nearer to life as we see it every day than the
tragic; and it was this ability to see the more familiar comic side
of life, and the desire to travesty the serious--whether in Greece or
Rome--that first gave flexibility and variety to the art of miming,
or “acting,” as we call it nowadays.
It is because of this nearness to the life of the time, because of
the travesty of contemporary types and public affairs, that the Latin
actors made their wide appeal.
From public encouragement would come the increasing endeavour of
popular actors to outshine each other in technical _tours de force_;
and from playing the familiar types of Latin Comedy, such as Maccus,
with his double hump, prototype of our Punch; Pappus, forerunner of
Pantaloon, and other characters (some from the early _Mimi_, some
from the _Atellanæ_ and _Togatæ_ of tradition), the Latin Actors
of the first and second centuries A.D. ultimately aspired to the
wordless representation of the gods and heroes of myth and legend.
According to one authority, “the Latin Pantomime grew out of the
custom at this period--the first century of the Christian era--of
having lyrical solos, such as interludes to flute accompaniment,
between the acts of the Latin comedies.” According to that
admirable historian of the stage, Mr. Charles Hastings, “this new
mode (Pantomime) was a kind of mime, in which poses and gestures
constituted the fundamental portion of the play. Words occupied
a secondary place, and _eventually disappeared altogether_. Only
the music was preserved, and in order that the audience might
understand the gestures of the actors, little books were distributed
in Greek text, intelligible only to the learned and to the upper
classes. Later on the mask--rejected by the mime--was adopted, and
a chorus was employed to _accompany the comedian with their voices,
and to explain the multiple gestures by which the actors created
the different characters in turn. Moreover, there was a company
of mute players._ The libretti left almost unlimited liberty of
detail. Sometimes the music broke off to enable the actor to finish
his _fioritura_ and variations. Sometimes, on the other hand, the
comedian paused, or left the stage, while the story was taken up by
the recitative and the instruments.”
All this reads much like a description of a modern “mimodrame,” such
as “L’Enfant Prodigue,” or “Sumurun.” Again it reads not unlike a
description of a modern ballet, for with these do we not often have
printed synopses distributed, though _not_ in Greek text? But we have
to remember that the music was primitive, the scenic effect, though
often remarkable, was different from that of our modern stage, with
its greater mechanical resources; and, finally, that all this was an
innovation of the Roman stage, for we are talking of the period that
saw the dawn of the Christian era.
Among the more famous of the Latin pantomimists were Pylades, who
was the inventor of tragic pantomimes; and Bathyllus, who was the
composer of livelier episodes. For some time they joined forces and
had a theatre of their own, where they staged comedies and tragedies
composed by themselves without words or any other aid in telling the
story of the play than dancing, pantomime and music.
The innovation struck the popular fancy, and all Rome flocked
to support the new venture. The two actors were received at the
Emperor’s Court, and became the spoilt darlings of the Roman “smart”
set. The inevitable happened. They began to intrigue at Court,
and were made the centre of intrigue; they became as jealous of
each other as rival opera singers, and in time a financially happy
partnership was dissolved, and there were two theatres devoted to
pantomimes instead of one.
But as this form of drama was a novelty, and pleased the
“connoisseurs,” who were numerous and increasing in numbers, both
theatres were equally successful, perhaps the more so in that the
public is always specially interested in ventures that appear to be
in rivalry. The taste for existing stage-productions slackened in
favour of those offered by Pylades and Bathyllus. Their “ballets”
whether tragic, comic or satiric were looked on as the very
perfection of tragedy, comedy or satire.
It was no longer a matter of declamatory style to enjoy or to
criticise, it was a matter of steps, movements, gestures, attitudes,
figures or positions that were discussed by wise connoisseurs of
“the new thing,” who in Rome, as elsewhere to-day, had much to say
on what they presumed to understand because--it was new! And such,
it is said, was the genius of the “producers” of this novel form of
entertainment; the effect was so natural, the stage-pictures were
so convincing, the pathos was so moving or the gaiety so free and
infectious, that the audiences forgot they had ears while using
enchanted eyes; and expressive gestures took the place of vocal
inflections, of the power of words and the magic of poetic verse.
Pylades before long found a rival star arise in the person of Hylas,
whose greatest performance was said to be in _Œdipus_. If Pylades and
Bathyllus had quarrelled, there was evidently no love lost between
Pylades and Hylas.
Hylas on one occasion was giving a representation of Agamemnon and,
at a particular line referring to that historic personage as “the
great,” he rose up on tip-toe. “That,” said Pylades scornfully, “is
being _tall_, not ‘great’”; a criticism not only just, but giving
an excellent insight into the methods and ideas of the famous Latin
pantomimist.
It is somewhat uncertain whether it was the Court intrigues of
Bathyllus or of Hylas or of both which ultimately secured from the
Emperor the sentence of banishment for Pylades, or whether it was the
daring, not to say impudence of the actor in representing well-known
people, or whether again it may not have been the increasing danger
of the constant brawls which were taking place daily in the streets
of Rome between the rival factions--the Pyladians and the Bathyllians.
But whatsoever the reason, the probability is that the perpetual
strife between the parties supporting the adored actors (worse than
ever was that between the Piccinists and Gluckists of the eighteenth
century), with the constant blood-shed it involved, was made the
excuse for the convenient removal of one of the principal factors in
the disorder, and that the influence of Bathyllus, possibly backed up
by that of Hylas, was able to secure the removal of the tragic actor.
Pylades, however, had his revenge, for such was the uproar in Rome on
his banishment that the Emperor was practically forced to recall him,
and he returned in triumph.
It is time, however, to leave the affairs of popular actors of the
ancient world, since it is less the details of their personal history
we need to consider than their importance as the virtual inventors
of the second element of Ballet, the art of the mime, or, to use for
a moment the more comprehensive word--pantomime. Thus we can see
that it is largely due to the perfecting by the Italians of that
art which seems to have been even more natural to them than to the
Greeks--miming, that we have the Ballet of to-day.
From the dawn of the Christian era, comedy gave place to a perfect
craze, first for the mime, and then for its offspring, pure
pantomime. But, finally, the mimetic art as a standing entertainment
of the Roman public, came to suffer neglect in favour of circuses;
then, together with the circuses, it was opposed by the Churches.
There were spasmodic revivals in the fourth and fifth centuries, but
from the fifth century mime and pantomime practically ceased to exist
in Constantinople, to which the seat of the Roman Empire had by that
time been removed; and the arts both of the dancer and the mime fell
upon a period of obscurity, though they went into retirement with all
the reluctance of a modern “star.”
CHAPTER V
CHURCH THUNDER AND CHURCH COMPLAISANCE
It is a truism of history that opposition towards the amusements
of a people only increases the desire for them, and that the undue
pressure of a law, or of a too rigid majority, only stimulates the
invention of evasions. In dramatic history there is ample proof of
this.
In England during the seventeenth century the force of Puritan
opinion and of law did not crush the Drama, but led to unseemly
licence.
When, in the early eighteenth century, Paris was enlivened by the
spectacle of the majestic Royal Opera, endeavouring by legal thunder
to suppress the lively vaudeville performances of the too popular
Paris Fairs, and even going to the length of obtaining decrees
forbidding the Fair theatres to perform musical plays in which words
were sung, were the managers of the little theatres downhearted?
No! they merely evaded the law and made a mockery of pompous
interference by having the music of their songs played, while the
meaning was acted in dumb-show, and--the actual words, printed very
large, were displayed on a screen let down to the stage from above!
Their audiences, catching the spirit of the thing, enjoyed the wit of
the evasion and supported the performances all the more.
There are many people who can only relish that which they have been
told is wrong.
Much the same spirit was abroad about sixteen hundred years ago, when
the growing power of the Christian Church began to be a calculable
factor in “practical politics,” and the embarrassment of successive
Roman emperors in trying to rule an unwieldy and decaying Empire was
increased by the moral warfare between the more rigid sects of the
new Church and the pleasures of the people.
It should, however, be said in justice to the early Churchmen that
many of the pleasures of the people had become entirely scandalous,
and detrimental to the manhood of the Empire, at least as seen in the
Empire’s capital. Over such let us draw a veil!
While, in these “democratic” days, it may be doubted if there _are_
any of the English-speaking race who “dearly love a lord” (though
there is really no reason why they should not!), there were certainly
some thousands of the Byzantine populace in the third and fourth
centuries to whom a successful circus-rider or gladiator, actor or
dancer, was of far more interest than any peer of their period.
The histrionic favourites lacked, of course, the advantages of
picture-postcard fame, and had to be content with immortality in
verse. But as for the now hackneyed “stage romance” of the marriage
of a youthful scion of a noble house with some resplendent star of
the theatrical firmament, did not a Byzantine Emperor, Justinian,
marry Theodora, once a popular dancer at the Hippodrome!
Yet he it was who made one of the more effective moves to suppress
some of his people’s excessive opportunities for amusement, by
abolishing the laws under which the expense of the performances in
the Hippodrome, and some of the less important theatres had been
met by the Imperial treasury. This, however, was mainly due to his
beautiful wife, who had seen all the vilest side of theatrical life
in a time when the older dramatic culture had given place to banal
and vulgar entertainments involving a horrible servitude of those
engaged in providing them.
Before this, however, the Church’s thunder had been launched at the
grosser theatrical spectacles, and the Theatre had retaliated by
mocking the adherents of the then new religion. Where fulmination
failed, control by influence was essayed. But for all the attacks
of the more advanced and severer leaders of the early Church, there
must have been something of confusion for at least the first five
centuries of the Christian era. Indeed, in the endeavour of the
Church to transmute the popular love of theatrical spectacles into
something higher, and to awaken the public interest in the service of
the Church, what with the introduction of choral song, with strophe
and antistrophe, and of solemn processionals, even it is said of
ceremonial dances performed by the choir--such as the Easter dances
still seen in Spain to-day--the Church itself must have come at
times to seem perilously sympathetic towards the very things it was
professing to condemn.
Did not Gregory Nazianzen implore Julian, before he became “the
Apostate,” to be more discreet, saying in effect: “If you must dance,
and if you must take part in these fêtes, for which you seem to
have such a passion, then dance, if you must; but _why_ revive the
dissolute dances of the daughter of Herodias, and of the pagans?
Dance rather as King David did before the Ark; dance to the glory of
God. Such exercises of peace and of piety are worthy of an Emperor
and a Christian.”
In short, wise cleric as he was, he found no fault with the healthy
exercise of the dance itself, but only with such dance and other
Byzantine entertainment as had tended, or might tend, to become
merely an exhibition of depraved taste.
Indeed, how could he have inveighed against the dance as an
expression of clean rejoicing when it had been recorded: “And
Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her
hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels _and with
dances_”?[1] Had not the servants of Achish said: “Is not this David
the king of the land? did not they _sing one to another of him in
dances_, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten
thousands?”[2] Had it not, too, been written: “And David danced
before the Lord with all his might.”[3]
No, the Church thunder had been directed against the licence by which
the arts of dancing and miming had been corrupted, and against,
not wholesome athleticism and healthy sport, but the hysterical
brutalities and “professionalism” of the arena.
And if further proof were required of ecclesiastical interest in
and practice of the thing it only attacked when seen in degraded
form, it is to be found in the fact that in 744, the Pope Zacharias
promulgated a Bull suppressing all so-called “religious dances,” or
“baladoires” as he called them, which were showing signs of becoming
“degenerate.”
These were dances which were performed in, or within the precincts
of cathedrals and churches at certain festivals such as Easter,
Midsummer and Christmas; and of which the old English bonfire dances
of St. John’s Eve, were (and the modern carnival, and the Eastertide
ceremonial seen in Seville to-day, _are_) probably survivals, though,
to be sure, they should be accounted originally as survivals of
earlier pagan dances in honour of the sun, and of the harvest, and
not as originating with the Christian Church.
It may seem a far cry from the date of Pope Zacharias’ edict of 744,
to 1462, when the first of the _ballets ambulatoires_ is recorded,
but it must not be supposed that dancing, if not miming, is entirely
lacking in history during those seven hundred odd years. Any history
of dancing would aid us in at least partly bridging such a gap; but
it will be convenient in a chapter dealing more especially with
early ecclesiastical influence on the evolution of Ballet, to deal
now with a form of entertainment or of religious festival which was
essentially a creation of the earlier Church.
The famous procession of the Fête Dieu which King René d’Anjou,
Count of Provence, established at Aix in 1462, was, as an old
historian tells us, an “ambulatory” ballet, “composed of a number of
allegorical scenes, called _entremets_.” This word _entremets_, which
was later replaced by “interludes,” designated a miming spectacle
in which men and animals represented the action. Sometimes jugglers
and mountebanks showed their tricks and danced to the sound of their
instruments. These entertainments were called _entremets_ because
they were instituted to occupy the guests agreeably at a great feast,
during the intervals between the courses. “The entre-actes of our
first tragedies,” the writer adds, “were arranged in this manner,
as one sees in the works of Baif, the interludes in the tragedy of
_Sophonisbie_. More than five hundred mountebanks, Merry Andrews,
comedians and buffoons, exhibited their tricks and prowess at the
full Court which was held at Rimini to arm the knights and nobles of
the house of Malatesta and others.”
As the fêtes and tournaments, given on these occasions, were
accompanied by acts of devotion, the festivals of the Church often
displayed also something of the gallant pomp of the tournaments.
These _ballets ambulatoires_, however, with all their richer
pageantry, were yet to be outshone by the two secular entertainments
to which we must devote our next chapter--the banquet-dance of
Bergonzio di Botta, of 1489, and the still more famous “Ballet
Comique de la Reine,” of 1581, the last of which, there can be little
doubt, had important effect in the development if not creation of
our English masque, which, in turn, had an immense influence on the
evolution of modern Ballet.
CHAPTER VI
THE BANQUET-BALL OF BERGONZIO DI BOTTA, 1489, AND THE FAMOUS “BALLET
COMIQUE DE LA REINE,” 1581
A superb and ingenious festivity was that arranged by Bergonzio di
Botta, a gentleman of Tortona, in honour of the wedding of Galeazzo,
Duke of Milan, with Isabella of Aragon.
The good Bergonzio was a lover of all the best things of life, but
especially of dining and of dancing. That historic _gourmet_, Brillat
Savarin, commends him for his taste in the former matter, as may
we for the bright idea of combining a dinner with a dance, one of
somewhat nobler plan than any modern example!
The dinner was of many courses and each was introduced by the servers
and waiters with a dance in character, the whole constituting a
sort of dinner-ballet. In the centre of a stately salon, which was
surrounded by a gallery where various musicians were distributed,
there was a large table.
As the Duke and his lady entered the salon by one door, from another
approached Jason and the Argonauts who, stepping proudly forth to the
sound of martial music and by dance and gestures expressing their
admiration of so handsome a bride and bridegroom, covered the table
with the Golden Fleece which they were carrying.
This group then gave place to Mercury who, in recitative, described
the cunning which he had used in stealing from Apollo, who guarded
the flocks of Admetus, a fat calf, with which he came to pay homage
to the newly married pair. While he placed it on the table three
“quadrilles” who followed him executed a graceful _entrée_.
Diana and her nymphs then succeeded Mercury. The Goddess was followed
by a kind of litter on which was a hart. This, she explained, was
Actæon, who, although no longer alive, was happy in that he was to be
offered to so amiable and fair a nymph as Isabella of Aragon. At this
moment a melodious symphony attracted the attention of the guests.
It announced the singer of Thrace, who was seen playing on his lyre
while chanting the praises of the young duchess.
“I mourned,” he sang, “on Mount Apennine the death of tender
Eurydice. Now, hearing of the union of two lovers worthy to live for
one another, I have felt, for the first time since my sorrow, an
impulse of joy. My songs have changed with the feelings of my heart.
A flock of birds has flown to hear my song. I offer them to the
fairest princess on earth, since the charming Eurydice is no more.”
A sudden clamour interrupted his song as Atalanta and Theseus,
heading a nimble and brilliant troupe, represented by lively dances
the glories of the chase. The mimic hunt was terminated by the death
of the wild boar of Calydon, which was offered to the young Duke,
with triumphal “ballets.”
A magnificent spectacle then succeeded this picturesque entrance. On
one side was Iris, seated on a car drawn by peacocks and followed by
several nymphs, covered in light gauze and carrying dishes of superb
birds. The youthful Hebe appeared on the other side, carrying the
nectar which she poured for the gods. She was accompanied by Arcadian
shepherds, laden with all kinds of food and by Vertumnus and Pomona
who offered all manner of fruits. At the same time the shade of that
famous _gourmet_ Apicius rose from the earth, presenting to this
superb feast all the delicacies he had invented and which had given
him the reputation of the most voluptuous among ancient Romans. This
spectacle disappeared and then there was a wondrous ballet of all
the gods of the sea and rivers of Lombardy; who carried the most
exquisite fish and served them while executing dances of different
characters.
This extraordinary repast was followed by a yet more singular
spectacle opened by Orpheus, who headed a procession of Hymen and a
troop of Loves, followed by the Graces who surrounded Conjugal Faith,
whom they presented to the Princess, while offering, themselves, to
serve her.
At this moment, Semiramis, Helen, Medea and Cleopatra interrupted
a recitative by Conjugal Faith to sing of the delights of Passion.
Then a Vestal, indignant that the recital of pure and true marriages
should be sullied by such guilty songs, ordered the notorious queens
to withdraw. At her voice, the Loves, who accompanied her, joined
in a lively dance, pursuing the wicked queens with lighted torches
and setting fire to the gauze veils of their headdress! Lucretia,
Penelope, Thomiris, Porcia and Sulpicia replaced them and presented
to the young Princess that palm for chastity which they had merited
during their lives. Their “modest and noble” dance, however, was
interrupted by Bacchus, with a troop of revellers who came to
celebrate so illustrious a bridal, and the festival terminated in a
manner as gay as it was ingenious.
The fête achieved a prodigious fame throughout Italy. It was the talk
of every city and a full description of its glories was published,
while crowds of “society hostesses” of the period endeavoured to
emulate the ingenuity of its originators, and the vogue of the
dinner-ballet “arrived.”
One effect of its fame was that for a century it set the fashion for
the Royal and Ducal Courts throughout Europe. Every Court had its
“ballets,” in which lords and ladies of highest degree took part;
and the movement was greatly fostered by Catherine de Medici, who
sought to divert the attention of her son, Henry III, from political
affairs towards the more congenial ways of social amusement, of which
Court-ballets formed considerable part.
The culmination of these sumptuous entertainments came, however, in
1581, when in celebration of the betrothal of the Duc de Joyeuse and
Marguerite of Lorraine, sister of the Queen of France, a spectacle
was arranged, the splendour of which had never been seen in the world
before. This was Beaujoyeux’s famous “Ballet Comique de la Royne”--or
_de la Reine_ in modern spelling--which set all cultured Europe
aglow with praise of its designer. A special account of it, with
many charming engravings, was printed by order of the King to send
to foreign Courts. So much did it set a fashion that the elaborate
masked balls and the numerous Court-masques and entertainments which
followed in the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth and James were
directly inspired by the success of Beaujoyeux’s ballet, even as they
in turn influenced the subsequent productions of Louis XIV in France.
The author and designer was an Italian, by name Baltasarini, famous
as a violinist. He was introduced by the Duc de Brissac to the notice
of Catherine de Medici, who appointed him a _valet de chambre_, and
subsequently he became official organiser of the Court fêtes, ballets
and concerts, assuming the name of Baltasar de Beaujoyeux.
[Illustration: Stage Effect in the 16th Century
(_A Scene from the “Ballet Comique de la Royne,” by Baltasar de
Beaujoyeux_, 1581).]
The account of the ballet was sumptuously published. The title-page
read as follows:
BALET COMIQUE
De la Royne, faict
aux nopces de mon
sieur le Duc de Ioyeuse &
madamoyselle de Vau
demont sa sœur.
par
Baltasar de Beavioyevlx
valet de chambre du
Roy et de la Royne sa mère.
à Paris
par
Adrian le Roy, Robert Ballard, et Mamert Patisson
Imprimeurs du Roy.
MDLXXXII
Avec Privilege.
After a courtly dedication “Au Roy de France, et de Pologne,” full of
praise for his prowess in arms and his taste in art, full of graceful
compliment by classic implications, he follows with an address:
AU LECTEUR.
Povravtant, amy Lecteur, que le tiltre et inscription de ce livre
est sans example, et que lon n’a point veu par cy deuant aucun
Balet auoir esté imprimé, ny ce mot de Comique y estre adapté: ie
vous prieray ne trouver ny l’un ny l’autre estrange. Car quant au
Balet, encores que ci soit vne inuention moderne, ou pour le moins,
repétée si long de l’antiquité, que l’on la puisse nommer telle:
n’estant à la verité que des meslanges geometriques de plusieurs
personnes dansans ensemble sous vne diuerse harmonie de plusieurs
instruments: ie vous confesse que simplement representé par
l’impression, cela eust eu beaucoup de nouveauté, et peu de beauté,
de reciter vne simple Comedie: aussi cela n’eust pas esté ny bien
excellent, ny digne d’vne si grande Royne, qui vouloit faire
quelque chose de bien magnifique et triomphant. Sur ce ie me suis
advisé qu’il ne seroit point indecent de mesler l’un et l’autre
ensemblement, et diversifier la musique de poesie, et entrelacer
la poesie de musique et le plus souvent les côfrondre toutes deux
ensemble: ansi que l’antiquité ne recitoit point ses vers sans
musique, et Orphée ne sonnoit jamais sans vers, i’ay toutes fois
donné le premier tiltre et honneur à la danse, et le second à la
substâce, que i’ay inscrite Comique, plus pour la belle, tranquille
et heureuse conclusion, ou elle se termine, que pour la qualité
des personnages, qui sont presque tous dieux et déesses, ou autres
personnes heroiques. Ainsi i’ay animé et fait parler le Balet, et
chanter et resonner la Comedie: et y adjoustant plusieurs rares et
riches représentations et ornements, ie puis dise avoir contenté
en un corps bien proportionné, l’œil, l’oreille, et l’entendement.
Vous priant que la nouveauté, ou intitulation ne vous en face mal
juger; car estant l’invention principalement. Composée de ces deux
parties, ie ne pouvois tout attribuer au Balet, sans faite tout à
la Comedie, distinctement representée par ses scènes et actes: ny à
la Comedie sans prejudicier au Balet, qui honore, esgaye et rempli
d’harmonieux recits le beau sens de la Comedie. Ce que m’estant
bien advis vous avoir deu abondamment instruire de mon intention,
ie vous prie aussi ne vous effaroucher de ce nom et prendre le tout
en aussi bonne par, comme i’ay desire vous satisfaire pour mon
regard.
Although the quaint spelling of the old French may offer a passing
difficulty to some readers, I have felt it advisable to give the
address as it stands, for it presents several points of extraordinary
interest.
First and foremost is the fact that it claims Beaujoyeux’s ballet to
be the first ever printed!
His description of a ballet as “_meslanges geometriques de plusieurs
personnes dansans ensemble_” is extremely interesting. Pylades the
Latin dancer-mime declared that no man could become a perfect
mime who did not understand music, painting, sculpture _and_
geometry! And in recent years a well-known Italian _maître_ with
whom I was discussing Ballet remarked, as he held up a case of
drawing instruments, “Here is the whole art of choreography,” or
ballet-composition. This may seem a somewhat exaggerated assertion,
but it is a fact that without some knowledge of geometry it would
be difficult for a composer of Ballet to tell the effect that would
be produced by lines and groups of dancers in the sight of a huge
audience all looking at the stage from different angles.
Beaujoyeux’s claim to appeal to and satisfy “_l’œil, l’oreille, et
l’entendement_” is also interesting, and quite in accord with modern
ideas of the Ballet.
The entertainment itself must have been a remarkable affair. It began
with a fine water display by a fountain with twelve sides, on each of
which were two naiads, with musical instruments, for the “concert,”
which accompanied the singers. Above the fountain-basin, which was
full of fish, rose another on pillars, where twelve niches made seats
for so many nymphs. In the middle, dolphins carried a crown and
formed a throne for the Queen. Two other basins rose again above,
formed of other dolphins grouped, which spouted great jets of water,
and the whole was topped by a golden ball five feet in diameter.
It was from this “machine,” drawn by sea-horses and accompanied by
twelve tritons and as many sirens with their instruments, that there
descended the Queen, the Princesse de Lorraine, the Duchesses de
Mercueil, de Guise, de Nevers, d’Aumale and de Joyeuse, Marechal de
Raiz, and de l’Archant and the Demoiselles de Pons, de Bourdeille
and de Cypierre--who had all been seated in golden cars, and who
were dressed in silver cloth and crêpe encrusted with gold bullion
and precious stones. Thus they made the first entrance, arranging
themselves in twelve different figures. At the first entrance they
were six abreast and three in front in a triangle, of which the Queen
formed the first point.
After this impressive opening the ballet meandered through the story
of Circe, with musical interludes, songs and dances, and elaborate
allegory. But as the first act began at ten in the evening and the
last did not finish till after five in the morning, it will be seen
that the production was as lengthy as it was magnificent. Some idea
of the splendour of the fête, indeed, may be gathered from the
fact that it cost something over three and a half million francs.
The conclusion was graceful. The Queen and the Princesses, who
had represented naiads and nereids, presented gold medals to the
princes and seigneurs who, in the guise of tritons, had danced with
them--presumably as a reward for their patience! This presentation of
gifts became quite a custom at these courtly ballets, and doubtless
the modern _cotillon_ is a survival.
The “Ballet Comique” set a fashion throughout Europe, and various
Courts vied with each other in similar entertainments. The English
Court had, of course, already had its ceremonial balls, masked balls
and “masques,” but their splendour had been nothing to this, and the
subsequent fêtes at the Courts of Elizabeth and James were directly
influenced by the example of the French in this direction, as we
shall see when we come to deal with the English masque as a form of
Ballet.
Let us first, however, consider the dances of the period, for which
we have an excellent authority in the work of Thoinot Arbeau.
CHAPTER VII
THOINOT ARBEAU’S “ORCHÉSOGRAPHIE,” 1588
“In Spring,” we know, “the young man’s fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of love.” In the winter of life it would seem that an
old man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of the dances that his
time-stiffened limbs can no more achieve with their earlier agility
and grace, and he takes to--writing about them. For it is strange
but true that some of the most entertaining volumes on the subject
are those written on the history of the dance by “grave and reverend
seigneurs”; who, one would imagine, had long foregone all thought of
youthful pastimes and turned their minds to solemner affairs. Three
such, at least, I can recall--Thoinot Arbeau, Bonnet, and Baron.
Over three centuries ago--nay, nearly four, we come upon a somewhat
sage and elderly gentleman, Thoinot Arbeau, whose book with its
strange title, _Orchésographie_, was published in 1588.
Was it shyness, or sheer fraud that made him write it under a false
name, a _nom de théâtre_ it would almost seem. For Thoinot Arbeau
was _not_ his name, but a sort of anagram on his real one, which was
Jehan Tabourot. Moreover, he was sixty-seven when he wrote it, and
was a Canon of the Church! He was born at Dijon in 1519, and was the
son of one Estienne Tabourot, a King’s Counsellor! Think of it--born
four hundred years ago, yet he speaks to our time, telling us, albeit
in somewhat stiff and difficult French, of the dances that were in
vogue in _his_ dancing days.
As to the strange title of his work, its meaning will of course be
apparent to all who know anything of the history of the subject,
for they will remember that the Greek word for the dance was
_Orcheisthai_ (the _Orchestra_ being the floor-space where the
dancers performed); and so Orchéso_graphie_ is merely a treatise on
the writing of dances; that is, the setting of them down in such form
that subsequent readers could study the dances therefrom.
The recording of the actual steps of dances has always been a
problem, and other leading masters in France (such as Beauchamps,
Pécourt, Feuillet) and in England (such as Weaver) had several more
or less successful shots during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries at inventing a sort of dance-shorthand.
The very first author to attempt such a thing with any real success
was apparently our friend Arbeau; for earlier works, such as that of
Caroso, are very poor. Into the full details of his system, however,
I do not propose to enter now, for the matter is somewhat technical.
The interest of Arbeau’s work, however, is by no means mainly
technical.
The book, which was published at Lengres in 1588, is written in the
form of a dialogue “by which everyone can easily learn and practise
the honest exercise of the dances,” to give the quaint phraseology of
the original, the two speakers being Arbeau the author, and Capriol,
a youth who some few years earlier had left Lengres to go to Paris
and Orleans and now, on his return, has sought out Arbeau to learn
from him all that he can of dancing. Thoinot at first does not
recognise him because, as he says, “You have grown so, and I believe
that you have also enlarged your spirit by virtue and knowledge.” He
asks the young man’s opinion of the study of Law, remarking that he
was also once a law-student.
Capriol expresses his admiration for the law as a necessary
institution, but complains that his neglect of the polite arts, while
in the company of the Orleans law-students, has made him dull and
wooden. He says that his knowledge of fencing and tennis makes him an
acceptable companion with other youths, but he fails as a dancer to
please the _demoiselles_, a point on which, it seems to him, depends
the whole reputation of a young man who contemplates marriage. Then
follows some sound advice, with curious details, from Arbeau, on the
advantages of dancing as a matrimonial agent, and he acclaims the art
as one necessary to social welfare.
Capriol agrees and expresses his disgust that the dance should have
been so subject to bitter attacks, of which he quotes historic
instances. Arbeau neatly responds that, “For one who has blamed, an
infinity have esteemed and praised the art,” also following with
quoted examples, saying, indeed, that “_Le S. prophete royal dauid
dāça au deuāt de l’arche de Dieu_,” or, in other words, that “the
holy prophet, King David, danced before the Ark of God.”
In the course of their conversation, Arbeau makes learned references
to the derivation of the word “Dance,” mentioning others then in use
that were allied to it, such as _saulter_ (from the Latin _saltare_),
_caroler_ (hence our “carols,” or songs which, originally,
accompanied certain religious dances), _baler_, and _trepiner_,
Capriol remembers that the ancients had three kinds of dances: the
sedate _Emmeleia_, the gay _Kordax_, and the mixed _Sikinnis_, the
first of which Arbeau likens (quite unhistorically) to the _pavanes_
and _basse-dance_ of his own period; the second, to the _gaillardes_,
_voltas_, _corantos_, _gavottes_ (note that--a reference to the
_gavotte_ in 1588!) and _branles_ (or, as Elizabethan Englishmen
called them, “brawls”); while the third, he declares, must have been
similar to the _branles doubles_ and to “the dance which we call
_bouffons_ or _matachins_.”
Then, very wisely, he points out that most objections to dancing
have been provoked not by decent but by--objectionable dancing!
And as Capriol hastily assures his austere but kindly teacher that
he wants none of _that_ sort, but that he is anxious to teach his
twelve-year-old sister what Arbeau is good enough to teach him, the
old man proceeds on most polite and methodical lines.
Arbeau, truly remarking that rhythm is the basis of the dance, as it
was always of all military marching and evolutions, then goes on to
give a wonderful disquisition on that glorious instrument, the drum,
and a masterly analysis of its rhythmic possibilities, both as an
inspirer of soldiers on the march and as a stimulus to the dance.
The old man’s enthusiasm for an instrument that has never really
received its due homage is truly fine, and he gives no less than
seventy-six examples of drum-beat on a common-time basis. He follows
this with an exposition of fife-playing (with musical examples); his
earnest plea for this study of drum (_tambour_) and fife being only
preparatory to a study of the _basse-dances_, which were properly
accompanied by both instruments.
As several of these dances of three centuries agone have been revived
in our time, it is of interest to consider them in some detail, more
especially as they formed the choregraphic basis of all the ballets
subsequently for some two centuries. Arbeau informs us that most of
what he calls the “recreative” dances (or as we might say “social,”
as opposed to the more ceremonial affairs necessitating an orchestra)
were performed in his forebears’ time to the music of the flute and
little drum.
Capriol asks: “Tell me, what are these dances and how are they done?”
To which Arbeau replies that they danced, in his father’s days,
“_pavanes_, _basse-dances_, _branles_ and _courantes_, which have
been in use some forty or fifty years.”
Capriol asks: “How did our fathers dance the _basse-dance_?”
Arbeau replied that they had two sorts, the one common and regular,
the other irregular, the former being danced to “_chansons
régulieres_,” and the latter to “_chansons irrégulieres_,” and
proceeds to explain that, for the former songs, there were sixteen
bars which were repeated, making thirty-two to commence with; then a
middle part of sixteen bars; and a close of sixteen, repeated; making
eighty bars in all. If the air of the song was longer than this, the
_basse-dance_ played on it was termed “irregular.” He then explains
that the _basse-dance_ proper was in three parts, the term being
really only applied to the first; the second being called “_retour de
la basse-dance_,” and the third and last being termed “_tordion_.”
Then comes the following:
“_Memoire des mouvements pour la basse-dance._
R b ss d r d r b ss ddd r d
r b ss d r b c.”
Not unnaturally Capriol, who is for ever asking quite intelligent
questions, wants a translation of this cryptic-looking array of
letters. It is better understood when one hears that “R” stands
for _reverence_, “b” for a _branle_, “ss” for _deux simples_, “d”
for a _double_ (or three “ddd” for three “doubles”); the small “r”
stands for a _réprise_, and “c” for _congé_; all of which are terms
understood by dancers of to-day.
He gives very careful directions not only for performing the
“_reverence_,” the “_simple_,” the “_double_,” the “_réprise_,”
and the “_congé_,” but for performing the various movements of the
_basse-dance_, the _retour_, and the _tordion_; as, for instance,
when he remarks that “You begin the dance of the _tordion_, which is
in triple time, just like the _basse-dance_: but it is (to give his
own words) _plus legiere and concitée_.”
He describes the _Pavane_ as “easy” to dance, and gives details of
its performance, together with the music of that famous and lovely
example, “_Belle qui tiens ma vie captive_,” the words being given in
full, for four voices and _tambour_ accompaniment.
The _Gaillarde_, he says, is so-called “_parce qu’il fault estre
gaillard and dispos pour la dancer_,” and with much detail as to its
performance explains that while danced somewhat like the tordion the
latter is done “_plus doulcement and avec actions and gestes moings
violents_.”
He gives nearly a dozen musical examples for the _gaillarde_, one
called “_La traditors my fa morire_”; another “_Anthoinette_”;
another, with the charming title “_Baisons nous belle_”; another,
“_Si j’ayme ou non_.”
Capriol, by the way, remarks _apropos_ after the second-named, that
“At Orleans when we give _Aubades_ we always play on our lutes and
_guiternes_ a _gaillarde_ called ‘_La Romanesque_,’” but that it
seemed so hackneyed and trivial that he and his companions took to
“_Anthoinette_” as being livelier and having a better rhythm.
The _Gaillarde_ was in triple time, and was made up of five steps
(or four steps and a leap) and one “position”; the term _cinq pas_
also being alternatively applied to it, hence the Shakespearean
“cinque-pace” and “sink-a-pace.”
The _Volte_, from which is derived the modern valse, was described
by Arbeau as “a species of _gaillarde_ familiar to the Provençals,”
danced, like the _tordion_, in triple time, and consisting of two
steps and a leap. The _Volte_, or _Volta_, as it was as often called,
was popular in England, as was the _Gaillarde_, and references to
it are found in Shakespeare (_Troilus and Cressida_) and in the one
really great work on the Dance in English literature, namely, Sir
John Davies’ richly imaginative and finely musical poem, _Orchestra,
or a Poeme on Daunciny_, which was published in 1596, only eight
years after Arbeau’s _Orchésographie_.
The _Courante_, Arbeau describes as very different from the _Volte_.
It is also (in contrast to the _Pavanes_ and _Basse-dances_) a _danse
sautée_, but in twelve time, with running steps, requiring from time
to time not the quick, light leaping of a _volte_, but the sort of
slow soaring for which Vestris was famous in the eighteenth century
and Volinin and Bohn can perform so superbly to-day.
Arbeau says that in his youth the dance was given as a kind of
“ballet,” by three young men and three girls, with grace and dignity
and he bewails its subsequent decadence. The old English term was
“current traverse.” In Sir John Davies’ _Orchestra_ one finds the
following reference:
“What shall I name those currant travases
That on a triple _dactyl_ foot do run
Close by the ground in sliding passages?”
In Shakespeare’s _Henry the Fifth_, too, is the following:
“_Bourbon_: They bid us to the English dancing-schools
And teach _lavoltas_ high and swift _corantos_;”
and Sir Toby Belch, it will be recalled, asks: “Why dost thou go to
church in a _galliard_ and come home in a _coranto_? My very walk
should be a jig ... sink-a-pace.”
There seems, however, considerable ground for question as to what the
_courante_, or _coranto_, really was, whether a slow or quick dance.
Arbeau’s directions are, for once, not quite clear. He speaks of it
being a more graceful affair in his younger days; and he was an old
man at the time his _Orchésographie_ was published. In England it
certainly seems to have become a fairly lively dance, of which the
main feature was its “running” steps.
In France that characteristic seems to have been the same though the
_tempo_ may have been slower. Certainly it became slower there, for
the _courante_ under Louis Quatorze was considered a dull dance,
disappearing in favour of newer types requiring a more developed and
quicker technique.
However, dances alter in character, like everything else, in the
course of time. The _waltz_ or _valse_ has considerably altered since
it was first introduced into London drawing-rooms--and considered
shocking!--in the first decade of the nineteenth century; and even
to-day there is considerable difference between the _valse_ as danced
by Swiss or German peasants, and as seen in the London ball-room.
It is probable that the _courante_ of Arbeau’s day was as varied in
performance as the tango of our later time.
Let us return, however, to his description of other dances of the
period. The _Allemande_, he explains, “_est une dance plaine de
mediocre gravité, familiere aux Allemâds, et croy qu’elle soit de noz
plus anciennes car nous sommes desendus des Allemandes_.” But his
authority for the latter statement he does _not_ give! It was danced
by two or more people, in twelve time, and later was a very popular
dance with Louis the Thirteenth.
A lengthy description follows of the _Branle_, which is also
sometimes spelt _Bransle_, and from which comes our English word
Brawl, the meaning of which has sadly degenerated from its original
significance.
Saying that, “since you know how to dance the _Pavane_ and the
_Basse-dance_, it will be easy for you to dance the _branles_,” he
then proceeds to give account of over a score, including two which
seem later to have assumed a right to be considered as separate
dances, namely, the _Triory de Bretagne_ (or simply, the Triory) and
the _Branle de la Haye_, sometimes called merely the Haye, Hay, or
Hey, which was an interlacing chain-dance.
Among the examples he gives is a _Branle d’Escosse_, of which he
says: “_Les branles d’Escosse estoient en vogue y a environ vingt
ans_,” and it is much like the customary Scotch reel. The _Branles
des Lavandières_, he explains, is so-called because the dancers
make a noise by clapping their hands to represent that made by
the washerwomen who wash their clothes on the banks of the Seine.
Another, the _Branle du Chandelier_, was danced with lighted candles.
A description of the _Gavotte_ follows, and it is interesting to note
that this dance which is still seen on the stage sometimes to-day,
was an established favourite as far back as 1588. Then comes an
account of the “Morisque” dance, the origin of which Arbeau places
in the Saturnalia of the ancient world, not without reason, one
fancies; and then he gives account of the _Canaries_, which, he says,
_some_ say takes its name from the Canary Isles, while others derive
it “from a ballet composed for a masquerade in which the dancers
were dressed as kings and queens of Mauretania, or even as savages
therefrom, with headdress of varied plumage.” The last chapter is
devoted to the dance of Bouffons, a dance with sword and buckler
supposedly derived from ancient Rome and a never-failing source of
delight to French playgoers and opera-lovers of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
Before the “Dialogue” actually closes, young Capriol politely
thanks Monsieur Arbeau for the trouble he has taken to teach him
dancing, and Arbeau responds by promising a second volume (alas!
never written) dealing with the ballets of the masquerades “made”
at Lengres. He urges him meanwhile to practise “_les dances
honnestement_,” and so become a worthy comrade of the planets “_qui
dancent naturellement_”: and he closes his discourse very prettily
with the words, “_Je prie Dieu vous en donne la grace_.”
We have lingered somewhat over this old manual of dancing, but there
are some half-dozen points in the history of ballet that it is of
vital importance to emphasise, and Arbeau’s book is one of them.
Dancing itself of course had continued to exist through all time.
But from the decadence of Rome until fairly late in the fifteenth
century, ballet had only a precarious sporadic existence; and the
production of Beaujoyeux’s volume of the _Ballet Comique de la Royne_
in 1582, and Arbeau’s _Orchésographie_ in 1588, made a turning-point
in the history of ballet--the _point where a popular amusement was
once again taken up by men of intellect and given a new form and
a new spirit_. Beaujoyeux created an interest in ballet, Arbeau
assisted an advance in the technique of one of the chief elements of
the art, namely, dancing; and there can be little doubt that both men
were largely instrumental in forwarding that movement towards popular
delight in the theatrical masque and ballet which were to become an
outstanding feature of the next two centuries, the seventeenth and
the eighteenth.
CHAPTER VIII
SCENIC EFFECT: THE ENGLISH MASQUE AS BALLET
In considering di Botta’s elaborate feast, and Beaujoyeux’s “ballet,”
one is struck by their similarity to the English “disguisings” and
masques, which, first introduced to the Court of Henry the Eighth in
1512 as a novelty from Italy, only began to assume definite literary
form about a century later. That century contributed towards the
development of scenic effect.
In studying Arbeau’s manual of contemporary dance and music, one is
struck by another thing: he is dealing with a social amusement of
the upper classes. The dances he describes were mainly the proper
accomplishment of the well born, or were such of lower origin as
might with adaptation become worthy of performance by more courtly
dancers. It is certain he does not describe all the types of dance
known to his period. The old Provençal “_Rigaudon_” which was later
to come into such favour owing to Camargo, is not referred to by
Arbeau; nor the languorous “_Sarabande_,” which was probably of
Moorish origin derived through Spain--or possibly earlier through
Augustan Rome; the lively “_Chaconne_” is another omission; the
“_Tresca_” yet another. These, and perhaps others, must have existed
in Arbeau’s time and long before; but would be among the traditional
amusements of the people, and were not yet elected to the company of
courtly dances.
It is needful to linger over these points here, for they account for
much that we find in the subsequent development of theatrical ballets
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Speaking of Beaujoyeux’s “_Ballet Comique_,” Castil Blaze, the
scholarly historian of the Paris opera, remarks that it “became the
model on which were composed a number of _ballets_, sung and danced,
a kind of piece which held the place of Opera among the French
and English for about a century.” That century was, roughly, from
about 1500 to 1600. And he adds: “The English gave them the name of
_masque_.”
In the few years after Henry VIII came to be crowned the young
monarch spent considerable time and spared no expense in entertaining
himself and his Queen with “disguisings,” “revels” and masqued balls.
On Twelfth Night, 1511, before the banquet in the Hall at Richmond,
so records the contemporary chronicler, Edward Hall, there “was
a pageant devised like a mountain, glistering by night as though
it had been all of gold and set with stones; on the top of which
mountain was a tree of gold, the branches and boughs frysed with
gold, spreading on every side over the mountain with roses and
pomegranates; the which mountain was with (de) vices brought up
towards the King, and out of the same came a lady apparelled in cloth
of gold, and the children of honour, called the henchmen, which were
freshly disguised and danced a Morris before the King, and that done
re-entered the mountain: and then was the wassail brought in and so
brake up Christmas.”
The next year the King himself took part in a similar pageant; and
in the next, _i.e._ in 1513, so Hall tells us, “the King with eleven
others were disguised after the manner of Italy, called a Mask, a
_thing not seen before in England_. They were apparelled in garments
long and broad, wrought with gold, with visors and caps of gold; and
after the banquet these masquers came in with six gentlemen disguised
in silk, bearing staff-torches, and desired the ladies to dance.”
A little later came the introduction of singing, and dialogue as well
as dancing, some allegorical story forming the basis of the masque.
In Beaujoyeux’s “ballet” of 1582, we have all this. Up to then in
England the masque made no great advance beyond those of Henry VIII’s
early years. In Beaujoyeux’s “ballet,” however, we have all that
_had_ been, and more. We have dancing, singing, dialogue, elaborate
scenic effect, all in illustration of a mythic and allegorical
story; and achieving a definiteness and grandeur of form hitherto
unequalled, as well as publicity which made it famous throughout
Europe. In some ways it was as much masque as “ballet,” and as much
opera as masque. Actually it did stimulate the development of the
Masque in England; and Opera in France.
At the English Courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, the masque
developed in the direction of scenic elaboration and splendour (with
_music_) that made up for its literary shortcomings, at least in its
earlier period.
At the French Courts of Henry IV and Louis XIII, what were known as
Opera-ballets (later to be separated as opera and ballet) developed
a musical richness (_with_ scenic effect) that made up for similar
literary shortcomings. Yet again came another form in the _Comedie
Ballet_ of Molière.
With the accession of James I of England came the real efflorescence
of the English masque, which under the hands of Ben Jonson was to
become a fairly balanced harmony of the three arts--the poet’s, the
musician’s, and the painter-designer’s.
It must of course be understood that in both the masque and ballet
there was dancing; but at the period with which we are now dealing,
namely the last decade of the sixteenth and first few decades of
the seventeenth centuries, the technique of that art was--for
stage purposes--comparatively so primitive as to make it almost a
negligible quantity. There was dancing of course--that of “henchmen”
and men and boys who performed a Morris, or _bouffon-dances_;
and that of courtier, Court-lady, or even, it might be, a Royal
personage, who would take part in the stately _Pavane_ or _Almain_,
now and then unbending sufficiently to dance a _Trenchmore_ (once
Queen Elizabeth’s favourite) or _Canary_.
But it was all either an intrusion, alien to the general purport of
the production, or else vastly overshadowed by the chief design,
which was to present, with the aid of “disguisings” and elaborate
“machines,” a sort of living picture or series of living pictures,
expressing some mythological, allegorical episodes or complimentary
idea.
The chief aim was splendid pageantry; something mainly to please
the eye; and secondarily to charm the ear; without making too great
claims upon the intellect.
Among the leading English masque writers during the period we are
considering were George Gascoigne, Campion, Samuel Daniel, Dekker,
Chapman, William Browne, Beaumont and Fletcher and Jonson.
In France, at the Court of Henri Quatre, and under the direction of
his famous minister, the great and grave Sully--who himself took part
in them--some eighty ballets were given between 1589 and 1610, apart
from state balls and _bals masqués_.
In England among the more notable masques produced during about the
same period were the following:--
1585. The Masque of “Lovely London,” performed before the Lord
Mayor.
1589. A Masque planned by order of Queen Elizabeth in honour of
the wedding of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of
Denmark.
1594. A Masque before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall.
1604. A Masque by Samuel Daniel, “The Twelve Goddesses,” arranged
by Queen Anne, Consort of James I, in honour of the Spanish
Ambassador, at Hampton Court.
1605. “The Masque of Blackness,” by Ben Jonson (his first real
masque) given on Twelfth Night at Whitehall.
1606. Ben Jonson’s “Masque of Hymen,” for the marriage of Robert
Devereux, third Earl of Essex, with the Earl of Suffolk’s
younger daughter, Frances Howard.
1608. Ben Jonson’s “Masque of Beauty”--a sequel to the “Masque
of Blackness” at the request of the Queen Consort, who, with
the Ladies of the Court, took part in the performance. This
was followed in the same year by his “Hue and Cry after
Cupid,” given at Court on Shrove Tuesday, in celebration of
Lord Viscount Haddington’s marriage.
1609. Ben Jonson’s “Masque of Queens” at Whitehall on Twelfth
Night.
All these were elaborate productions; those of Jonson being indeed
beautiful. Their literary value has long been realised, and one sees
in them some of his finest work. The introductory descriptions and
the stage-directions are singularly minute and careful, and, in their
way, are quite as well worth study as the beauties of his strong and
noble verse.
He writes of scenes and costumes as if he loved them: as when, in
“The Masque of Blackness,” he describes the Moon, “triumphant in a
silver throne.... Her garments white and silver, the dressing of her
head antique, and crowned with a luminary or sphere of light; which,
striking on the clouds, and brightened with silver, reflected, as
natural clouds do, the splendour of the moon. The heaven about her
was vaulted with blue silk, and set with stars of silver, which had
in them their several lights burning.”
And again: “The attire of the masquers was alike in all, without
difference: the colours azure and silver; but returned on the
top with a scroll and antique dressings of feathers, and jewels
interlaced with ropes of pearl. And for the front, ear, neck, and
wrists the ornament was of the most choice and Orient pearl: best
setting off from the Black.”
For the scenery and mechanical effects or “machines” as they were
called--there was Inigo Jones, the travelled artist-architect who
had seen many a masking in Italy; for the music there was Alfonso
Ferrabosco, son of the Italian composer, appointed music-master at
the Court of James I; and for _Maître de danse_, there were Thomas
Giles and Hieronimus Herne.
It was a noble company who took part in the performances. In “The
Masque of Blackness,” though there were only three speaking parts,
Oceanus, Niger and Æthiopia--the impersonators of which are not
recorded--there was no less a personage than Queen Anne herself,
Consort of King James, who appeared as Euphoris, supported by the
Countess of Bedford (Aglaia), Lady Herbert (Diaphane), the Countess
of Derby (Eucampse), Lady Rich (Ocyte), Countess of Suffolk (Kathare)
and other fair ladies of title.
The “Masque of Beauty,” a superb spectacle given at the Court some
three years later by express command of Her Majesty, had for speaking
parts only three, namely those of Boreas--“_in a robe of russet and
white mixed, full and bagged; his hair and beard rough and horrid;
his wings grey, and full of snow and icicles; his mantle borne from
him with wires and in several puffs_”; Januarius--“_in a throne of
silver; his robe of ash colour, long, fringed with silver; a white
mantle; his wings white and his buskins_”; and Vulturnus--“_in a blue
coloured robe and mantle, puft as the former, but somewhat sweeter;
his face black, and on his head a red sun, showing he came from the
East_.”
Following the entrance of Vulturnus, bringing--in reference to the
former “Masque of Blackness”--the good news of his discovery of a
lost isle whereon the black but lovely daughters of Niger had been
languishing in obscurity, there came a fine pageant.
“Here,” as Jonson’s stage directions describe it, “a curtain was
drawn in which the night was painted, and the scene was discovered
which (because the former was marine, and these, yet of necessity, to
come from the sea) I devised should be an island floating on a calm
water. In the midst thereof was a Seat of State, called the Throne
of Beauty, erected; divided into eight squares, and distinguished
by so many Ionic pilasters. In these squares, the sixteen masquers
were placed by couples; behind them in the centre of the throne
was a tralucent pillar, shining with several coloured lights, that
reflected on their backs. From the top of which pillar went several
arches to the pilasters, in front, little Cupids in flying posture,
waving of wreaths and lights, bore up the cornice; over which were
eight figures, representing the elements of Beauty, which advanced
upon the Ionic, and, being females, had the Corinthian order.”
They were: Splendour, Serenitas, Germinatio, Lætitia, Temperies,
Venustas, Dignitas, and Perfectio. Minute description is given of
their garments, but is too lengthy for inclusion here. The stage
directions then proceed:
“On the top of all the throne (as being made out of all these)
stood HARMONIA, a personage whose dressing had something of all
the others, and had her robe painted full of figures. Her head was
compassed with a crown of gold, having in it seven jewels equally
set. In her hand a lyra, whereon she rested.
“This was the ornament of the throne. The ascent to which,
consisting of six steps, was covered with a multitude of Cupids
(chosen out of the best and most ingenious youth in the kingdom,
noble and others) that were torch-bearers; and all armed with bows,
quivers, wings, and other ensigns of love. On the sides of the
throne were curious and elegant arbours appointed; and behind, in
the back part of the isle, a grove of grown trees laden with golden
fruit, which other little Cupids plucked, and threw at each other,
whilst on the ground, leverets picked up the bruised apples and
left them half eaten. The ground-plat of the whole was a subtle
indented maze; and in the two foremost angles were two fountains
that ran continually, the one Hebe’s and the other Hedone’s; in the
arbours were placed the musicians, who represented the shades of
the old poets, and were attired in a priest-like habit of crimson
and purple, with laurel garlands.
“The colours of the masques were varied; the one half in orange
tawny and silver; the other in sea-green and silver. The bodies of
short skirts on white and gold to both.
“The habit and dressing for the fashion was most curious, and so
exceeding in riches, as the throne whereon they lay seemed to be a
mine of light, struck from their jewels and their garments.
“This throne, as the whole island moved forward on the water,
had a circular motion of its own, imitating that which we call
_motum mundi_, from the east to the west, or the right to the left
side.... The steps whereon the Cupids sat had a motion contrary,
with analogy _ad motum planetarum_, from the west to the east;
both which turned with their several lights. And with these three
varied motions, at once, the whole scene shot itself to the land.”
After a chorus with echoing refrain, “Vulturnus the wind spake to the
river Thamesis, that lay along between the shores, leaning upon his
urn, that flowed with water, and crowned with flowers; with a blue
cloth of silver robe about him; and was personated by Master Thomas
Giles, who made the dances.
“_Vul._ Rise, Aged Thames, and by the hand
Receive the nymphs, within the land,
And in those curious squares and rounds
Wherewith thou flow’st betwixt the grounds
Of fruitful Kent and Essex fair
That lends the garlands for thy hair;
Instruct their silver feet to tread,
Whilst we, again, to sea are fled.
“With which the Winds departed; and the river received them into
the land, by couples and fours, their Cupids coming before them.
“These dancing forth a most curious dance, full of excellent device
and change, ended it in the figure of a diamond, and so, standing
still, were by the musicians with a second SONG, sung by a loud
tenor, celebrated.
“So Beauty on the waters stood,
When Love had severed earth from flood!
So when he parted air from fire,
He did with concord all inspire!
And then a motion he them taught,
The elder than himself was thought.
Which thought was, yet, the child of earth,
For Love is elder than his birth.
“_The song ended; they danced forth their second dance, more subtle
and full of change than the former; and so exquisitely performed,
as the king’s majesty (incited first by his own liking to that
which all others there present wished) required them both again
after some time of dancing with the lords. Which time, to give them
respite, was intermitted with a song._
“This song was followed by others.
“_After which songs they danced galliards and corantos; and with
those excellent graces, that the music appointed to celebrate them,
showed it could be silent no longer; but, by the first tenor,
admired them thus_:
“SONG.
“Had those that dwelt in error foul,
And held that women have no soul,
But seen these move; they would have then
Said, women were the souls of men;
So they do move each heart and eye
With the world’s soul, true harmony.
“_Here they danced a third most elegant and curious dance, and not
to be described again by any art but that of their own footing,
which ending in the figure that was to produce the fourth_, JANUARY
_from his state saluted them thus_:
“_Janu._ Your Grace is great, as is your Beauty, dames;
Enough my feasts have proved your thankful flames
Now use your seat; that seat which was, before,
Though straying, uncertain, floating to each shore,
And to whose having every clime laid claim,
Each land and nation urgéd as the aim
Of their ambition, Beauty’s perfect throne,
Now made peculiar to this place alone;
And that by impulsion of your destinies,
And his attractive beams that lights these skies;
Who, though with ocean compassed, never wets
His hair therein, nor wears a beam that sets.
Long may his light adorn these happy rites,
As I renew them; and your gracious sights
Enjoy that happiness, even to envy, as when
Beauty, at large, brake forth and conquered men!
“_At which they danced their last dance into their throne again._”
These quotations, though necessarily brief, illustrate the
characteristic elements in the construction of the masque--dancing,
music, song, spoken verse and _elaborate scenic effect_.
The reference to Thomas Giles, “who made the dances,” to the dances
themselves, “_galliards and corantos_,” and that charming admission
as to “a third most elegant and curious dance” not to be described
again “by any art but that of their own footing”; the reference to
the arbours in which “were placed the musicians, who represented
the shades of the old poets, and were attired in a priest-like
habit of crimson and purple, with laurel garlands”; the song of
the “first tenor”--“Had those that dwelt ...” and January’s speech
apostrophising women’s beauty; above all the loving descriptions of
the scenery and mechanical effects, must all be of uncommon interest
to those who know anything of the history of the French ballet,
because it is so closely paralleled in the descriptions given some
seventy years later by the Abbé Menestrier of the entertainments
at the Court of Louis XIV. The English “masques” of the early
seventeenth were, in effect, the French “ballets” of the early
eighteenth century. To return, however, to the English Court of James
I.
The Queen and Ladies of her Court once again took part in the
entertainment of His Majesty as representatives of the various types
of Beauty introduced in the course of the masque, and yet again were
they found in the noble “Masque of Queens,” celebrated from the House
of Fame, by the Queen of Great Britain with her Ladies, at Whitehall,
February 2nd, 1609, which was dedicated to the young Prince Henry, as
to the origin of which Ben gives the following interesting note: “It
increasing,” he says, “to the third time of my being used in these
services to Her Majesty’s personal presentations, with the ladies
whom she pleaseth to honour; it was my first and special regard, to
see to the dignity of their persons. For which reason I chose the
argument to be _A celebration of honourable and true Fame bred out of
Virtue_.”
All of which in a sense foreshadowed the various symbolic ballets
later at the Court of France, such as _La Verité, ennemie des
apparences_, which we shall come to consider in due course. The thing
to realise now is that these masques of Ben Jonson and of other men
of his period were the finest flowering of a form of entertainment
which had been struggling for definite shape throughout the previous
century, indeed from the days of di Botta’s fête in 1489, and had
received its most recent and most effective stimulus from France
in the production of Beaujoyeux’s wondrous symbolic and mythologic
“ballet” some twenty odd years before Ben Jonson’s first “masque”
was produced. The English masque--partly dramatic “interlude” with
song, music and dance introduced, was in effect a ballet, and was a
direct influence in the formation of the “opera-ballets” which were
subsequently to be the delight of the French Court for a century or
more.
CHAPTER IX
BALLET ON THE MOVE
If the masque was a kind of ballet that did not move from its
appointed place within sight of the Royal and Courtly audience, by
whom it was commanded as a spectacle for private entertainment, there
was a “ballet” which did, and became, like the “carrousels” and
“triumphs,” a very public spectacle, namely the _ballet-ambulatoire_,
or peripatetic “ballet,” said to have originated among the
Portuguese, and much encouraged by the Church.
The Beatification of Ignatius Loyola in 1609 is an instance of
peripatetic “ballet” famous in the history of the dance.
Interesting account of it is given by the invaluable Menestrier, who
writes:
“As the Jesuits had a war-like character, they chose the Siege of
Troy for the subject of their ballet. The first act took place
before the church of Notre Dame de Lorette. It was there they stood
the wooden horse. Full of Jesuits, the machine began to move, while
numerous dancers acted the most remarkable feats of arms of Achilles,
Ajax, Hector and Æneas. The monstrous horse and its retinue advanced,
preceded by a brilliant orchestra. They arrived at the Place St.
Roch, where the Jesuits had their church. The city of Troy, or
at least a part of its towers and ramparts, constructed of wood,
occupied a third of this place. A piece of wall was broken down, to
give entrance to the horse, the Greeks descended from the machine and
the Trojans attacked them with guns. The enemy defended with the
same arms, and the two sides fought--while dancing! Eighteen great
staves filled with fireworks caused the burning and the ruin of Troy!”
One might be puzzled to know how the author of such a drama would
introduce Saint Ignatius Loyola on the scene. The maker of the
“book,” however, had no qualms, and, leaving the Greeks and Trojans
buried beneath the ruins of Ilium, on the following day, he led
the spectators to the seashore. “Four brigantines,” the chronicler
proceeds, “richly decorated and fenced, painted and gilded, covered
with dancers and ‘choirs of music,’ present themselves at the Port.
They bring four ambassadors, who, in the name of the four quarters
of the globe, come to swear homage and fidelity, to offer presents
to the newly beatified, to thank him for his benefits and to beg his
protection for the future. All the artillery of the Forts and of the
vessels salute the brigantines on their entrance. The ambassadors
then mount the cars in waiting and advance towards the College of
the reverend fathers, with an escort of three hundred Jesuits on
horseback, dressed as Greeks! Four troops of inhabitants of the four
quarters of the world, dressed in national costumes, dance round
the cars. The realms, the provinces, represented by their _genii
loci_, march before their ambassador. The troop from America is the
first, and among the dancers are many children disguised as monkeys
and parrots, and twelve dwarfs, mounted on little nags. The car of
Asia is drawn by two elephants. Six superb horses form the team of
the others.” The diversity, the richness of the costumes was not the
least ornament of this singular ballet, for it is said that several
of the actors had on their garments precious stones of great value.
It is the Portuguese who claim to have invented the true ambulatory
ballets, which--designed in imitation of the Thyrennian “pomp”
described by Appius Alexander--were danced in the streets of a town
proceeding from place to place, with movable stages and properties.
The performances were given on saints’ days and with the greatest
solemnity.
In the year 1610 Pope Paul V. canonised Cardinal St. Charles
Borromée, who, under the pontificate of Pius IV., his uncle, was
patron of the kingdom of Portugal, and that grateful nation wished to
honour him publicly.
In order that it should be done with the greater solemnity, they put
his image on board a ship, as if he were coming back once more to
assume the protection of the kingdom of Portugal.
“A richly decorated vessel with flying sails of divers colours and
silk cordage of magnificent hues, carried the image of the saint
under a canopy of gold brocade. On its appearance in the roads all
the vessels in port, superbly arrayed, advanced to meet it, and
rendering military honours, brought it back with great pomp, and
a salute from the guns of Lisbon and all the vessels in Port. The
reliquaries of the patron Saints of Portugal, carried by the nobles
of state and followed by the religious, civil and military bodies,
received the new Saint on disembarcation.”
As soon as the image was landed, it was received by all the monks
and the whole of the ecclesiastical body, who went to meet it in
procession with four large chariots containing different tableaux.
The first car represented Fame, the second the town of Milan, the
third Portugal, and the fourth the Church. Besides the chariots, each
company of monks and each Brotherhood carried its own particular
Saint on rich litters, called by the Portuguese “andarillas.” The
image of St. Charles was ornamented with precious stones to the value
of twenty-six to twenty-seven thousand crowns; several others to the
value of sixty, seventy and eighty thousand crowns, and the jewels
that were displayed at this fête were estimated at more than four
millions.
Between each chariot were troops of dancers, who represented,
in dancing, the more notable of the acts of the Saints. Octavio
Accoromboni, Bishop of Fossombrone, who obtained these honours
for St. Charles, was at this time in the town of Lisbon, where he
had gone to collect certain monies that Portugal was giving to
the Pope. He has left us a description of this fête, in which he
remarks that “the Italians and more especially the Romans, should
not be surprised to read that dances and ballets formed a part of so
sacred a ceremony, because in Portugal processions and fêtes would
not seem elevated nor serious enough unless accompanied by these
manifestations of joy.”
In order to prepare for these fêtes, dances, ballets and processions,
the Lisbon folk had decorated, several days beforehand, big masts
erected at the doors of the churches where the service was to be
held, and at different places on the roads where the processions and
performances would pass. “These masts were of pine, gilded and decked
with crowns, streamers and banners of different colours, similar to
the masts put up in France at the doors of the magistrates’ houses on
the first of May in several towns of the kingdom, a custom which has
given to these masts the name of ‘Maypole.’ The Spaniards call them
‘Mayos,’ or ‘_Arboles de Enamorados_’ (Lovers’ trees) because young
men plant them on the first of May at the door of their mistresses’
houses.” The procession passed through triumphant arches, and the
streets were hung with tapestries and strewn with flowers.
Three masts were planted at the places of the actual performance, one
at the spot at the port where the procession was to start after the
landing of the image of St. Charles, another in the middle of the
route, and the third at the door of the church where the procession
was to end, and where the image of the saint was to be placed. These
masts marked the places for the performances, for it was there the
procession stopped, and the dancers made their chief entrances in the
“ballet.” Needless to say immense sums were spent on the fête.
These are but two instances of the _ballet-ambulatoire_. More might
be given, but these will suffice to afford some idea of a type of
spectacle which the older historians speak of as a “ballet,” but
which is of special interest to us by reason of the contrast it forms
to the masque, which was the reverse of “ambulatory,” and from the
fact that though in direct contrast on another score, namely, that it
was not a private but a public spectacle, it was under the “immediate
patronage” of the Church!
Neither the masque nor the _ballet-ambulatoire_, was yet a theatrical
entertainment; but it is curious, is it not, to note that they had
a certain kinship with theatrical tradition, for these magnificent
peripatetic “ballets” of the ecclesiastics had had a primitive
forerunner in the performance of Thespis with his travelling car in
Grecian towns and villages some six centuries before the Christian
era! Even as, later, we in fourteenth-century England had our Mystery
and Miracle plays travelling from “station” to “station” in similar
fashion, and our “mummers” or mimers; while, on the other hand, the
masque itself, as a private entertainment of the English Court, with
its stage, and “machines,” scenery, dancing, music and song, not to
mention its Royal and Courtly audience, was forerunner of similar
entertainments which a century later were to become the features of
the Courts of Louis XIV and XV, and from that to develop under Royal
Patronage into the Ballet of the Theatre.
CHAPTER X
COURT BALLETS ABROAD: 1609-1650
While the English Court was enjoying its masques, during the reigns
of Henry VIII, Elizabeth and James, and the French were labouring
forth their heroic ballets under Henri Quatre--more than eighty
having been given from 1589 to 1610, without counting insignificant
balls and masquerades--Italy was similarly keeping up in the movement
which her example had originally inspired.
It was the custom there to celebrate the birthday of the Princess by
an annual public fête. As one old historian records, the more usual
spectacles of these celebrations were in the form of “Carrousels,
Tournois, des Comedies, des Actions en Musique, des Festins, des Feux
d’Artifice, des Mascarades quand ces Fêtes se trouvent au temps du
Carnaval, des Presens, des Illuminations, des Chasses, des Courses
sur la Neige et sur la Glace suivant la saison, des Promenades et des
Jeux sur les Eaux.”
The Court of Savoy was particularly devoted to such entertainments.
In 1609 there was a _ballet d’armes_, entitled, “_Il Sol nascente
nell’ oscurità dell Tile_,” danced by the “Serene” Princes of Savoy,
the occasion being the anniversary of the birth of their Royal
father, the Duke Charles Emannuel.
Again, in 1611, the Prince of Piedmont gave a fête in honour to his
father’s birthday, representing “The Taking of the Isle of Cyprus.”
[Illustration: Stage Effect in the 17th Century
(_From a coloured engraving of a scene from “Circe_,” 1694).]
In the year 1615 was produced a mounted ballet at this same Court
(Savoy) for the arrival of the Prince d’Urbin. This was an attack
and a combat to music against three hundred men on foot, who formed
different companies of various shapes, lunated, oval, square and
triangular. They had drilled their horses so well that they were
never out of step with the rhythm of the music. There were numerous
cars drawn by lions, stags, elephants, rhinoceroses, etc., and as
they represented the triumph of Love over War, the Four Quarters
of the World followed the cars of the victors mounted in as many
chariots. The Car of Europe was drawn by horses, that of Africa by
elephants, that of Asia by camels, that of America by “unicorns”! The
cars of this festival had engraved work on them by Callot.
In 1618, “The Elements,” a grand ballet and tourney was represented
by the Duke of Savoy and his son, the Prince of Piedmont, on the
former’s birthday.
“The Temples of Peace and War on Mount Parnassus,” a ballet and
tourney “avec un Festin à la Chinoise,” formed the entertainment of
the following year.
“The Judgment of Flora on the Dispute of the Nymphs over the Crown of
Flowers presented to Mme. Royale on her Birthday,” is the long and
stately title of a fête given at Turin in 1620.
“The Tribute of the Divinities of the Sky, Air, Sea and Infernal
regions,” was a grand ballet and tourney of 1621. “The Ballet of the
Seven Kings of China” was another.
“The Joy of Heaven and Earth,” a fête in honour of the Duke’s
birthday in 1624, was followed by “Bacchus triomphant des Indes, avec
une Action en Musique et une Chasse Pastorale,” in the same year.
This was a fête in honour of the Duke Charles Emmanuel’s birthday,
and was performed by the pages of the Prince Cardinal Maurice of
Savoy, at Rome on January 22nd, 1624.
“Mount Parnassus and the Muses,” “The Quarrel of the Defenders and
the Enemies of the Muses,” took place in February, 1624. “Cadmus,
victorieux du Serpent,” and “Prometheus” were notable ballets in 1627.
One of the most remarkable, and, according to contemporaries,
beautiful mounted ballets ever composed was that of “Æolus, King
of the Winds,” which Alfonso Ruggieri Sansoverino presented at the
wedding of the Prince of Tuscany in the year 1628 in the St. Croix
Square, in Florence. On one of the sides of this square was a large
reef with a cave hollowed out of its rock and closed by a great door
secured with padlocks.
Don Anthony de Medici, who took the part of master of the combat,
having reconnoitred the course, Æolus, King of the Winds, entered,
accompanied by twelve watermen to whom he “had taught the use of
sails and the nature of the winds.” Twelve Tritons walked before him
blowing their trumpets. Eight Sirens replied on other instruments,
accompanied by Hoar-frost. Eight pages represented the many effects
of the Winds, causing cold, hot, damp, dry, clear, dull, serene or
cloudy weather.
The two sponsors walked behind their pages. The chariot of the Ocean
followed, drawn by two big whales. It represented a rock covered
with seaweed, coral and different kinds of shells. Nymphs of the
sea, rivers and springs were seated on this rock, and gave a musical
concert with wind instruments presided over by Dolopea, wife of
Æolus. Æolus, having passed in his chariot and arrived in front of
the Prince’s box, saluted the bride, and after offering her his
kingdom and all his troops, took a lance in his hand; then, suddenly
departing, went and thrust against the door of the Cave of the Winds.
The padlocks broke, and the door being opened, thirty-two mounted men
and a hundred and twenty-eight on foot were set at liberty. The men,
rushing like the winds they represented, ran to the other side of
the square. Here Æolus stopped them and gave them orders to arrange
themselves into a triangular figure. He led them in this order to
salute the Princess for whom the fête was arranged. After having
taken their places, they began to manœuvre their horses in a ring on
the right; they went in single file to make a chain, and sixteen of
them having broken it, they formed a smaller one, from which eight
more detached themselves, making a still smaller one. The first
horsemen, curveting, manœuvred their horses to perform voltes and
half-voltes, joining again without a halt, and, forming twos, fours
and eights, “they mingled capers at the galop, with caracolling in
figures, performing a marvellous labyrinth with their intertwinings
and evolutions.”
In the year 1628, the students of the College at Rheims danced a
ballet in joyful commemoration of the taking of La Rochelle, the
design of which, after ancient Roman models, was “The Conquest of the
Car of Glory by the great Theander.”
Unlike modern musical comedy, or “revue,” there purported to be a
plot. The Giants of the Black Tower, trusting in the might of their
magic, published a challenge “full of empty pride,” by which they
summoned all Knights-errant to the conquest of the Car of Glory.
Lindamor, wishing to chastise the insolence of these fiends, arranges
with three of his friends to go and fight them. The Black Tower is
full of sorceries, and there was no means of opening it, except by
the sounding of an enchanted horn which the Giants had fastened to
the Gate. Lindamor sounds it; the Giants issue forth upon him and his
comrades, and the contest being unequal, Lindamor is compelled to
withdraw and to leave his comrades in the hands of the Giants, who
load them with chains, and fasten them to the Castle Gate to serve as
a trophy to their vanity.
Some country shepherds who had seen the adventure of Lindamor and
the Giants, persuade Caspis to take a part in favour of these
unhappy knights. This shepherd, who was above the power of all
magic, presents himself before the captives, and first of all breaks
their chains and sets them at liberty. Lindamor, well pleased at the
courtesy of Caspis, discusses with him the means of avenging himself
on the Giants of the Black Tower. He learns from this shepherd that
the sword of Cloridan is necessary for this enterprise, and that, in
order to get it, it is necessary to put to sleep the Dragon to whom
the Giants have given the charge of it. The shepherd offers, himself,
to do this and succeeds. But to get the sword of Cloridan something
more was wanted than to put the Dragon to sleep. The shepherd evokes
the shade of Cloridan to find out from him what must be done to make
use of this sword successfully.
The shade when called forth, informs him that Theander alone is
capable of using it. The rumour of this oracular response having got
abroad, Vulcan with his Cyclops prepares arms for Theander, who being
preceded by Renown and followed by Lindamor, reaches the place where
the sword of Cloridan is guarded, seizes the sword, after having
chained the Dragon, presents himself with it at the gate of the Black
Tower, causes the gate to open at the sound of the horn, defeats the
Giants, draws from the Tower the Car of Glory, harnesses the Giants
to it and triumphs finally over the arms and the enchantments of his
enemies.
The story, which smacks of some mediæval romance of Chivalry, was
really allegorical of the capture of La Rochelle. The late king was
Theander; the shepherd Caspis was the Cardinal Richelieu, his prime
minister; Lindamor, the King, Henry III, who, being as yet only Duc
d’Anjou, had attempted this siege in vain. The sword of Cloridan was
that of Clovis; the Black Tower was La Rochelle; and the magic charms
were Heresy and Rebellion.
Again, in the year 1628, a ballet of “The Court of the Sun,” by an
Abbé Scotto, was danced at the Court of Savoy. Night played the
overture, and at her command spirits and goblins made a “pleasing”
entrance, coming on from different directions. Night, however,
warning them to be careful that Day did not surprise them, they
retired into their caves, when the Morning Star introduced visions
of the Morning, bright Dreams issuing from the ivory gate. The Star
of Venus rose from the sea to announce the arrival of the loveliest
Aurora ever seen, and ordered the Zephyrs to rise and to strew
flowers, the Dew to sprinkle perfumed water and the sweetest and most
healthful influences.
Aurora followed them, and having descended from Heaven, suddenly
caused the Palace of the Sun (in Ionic architecture) to appear; the
seven Planets and the twelve Hours were seen in niches, from which
they emerged to dance; the Muses in other niches performed concerted
movements, Time, the Year, the Seasons, the Months and the Weeks
providing the music in the boxes of this palace.
From the last examples, it is seen that philosophic, poetical and
classic allegories were often used as the basis of ballets. The
philosophic were “those in which causes and effects, peculiar
qualities and the origin of things, were expressed in a suitable
story by the devices of the ballet.” Several ballets of this kind
were seen at the theatre of the College of Clermont, principally,
those of “Curiosity,” “Dreams,” “Comets,” “Illusion,” “The Empire of
the Sun,” “Fashion.” In that of “Curiosity” it was desired to show
that the good or bad use made of it contributes to the perfecting or
spoiling of the mind. Curiosity was represented by four characters,
each forming a part of the ballet. The first of these was Useless
Curiosity, which occupies itself only with trifles; the second,
Dangerous Curiosity, which seeks forbidden and harmful things, and it
was shown that these are the two kinds of curiosity to be avoided!
Among Useless Curiosities, was seen Idleness, with a troop of
loiterers who ran about hunting for gossip and false rumours, merely
to pass the time and “to find out what was going on in the world”;
others who consulted almanacks to discover what the weather would be;
and also sleepers, who, awakening, entertained each other with their
dreams, from which they foretold what was about to happen! Mistakes,
New Opinions, Alchemy, Sorcery, Magic and Superstition were some of
the “characters” in the scene showing Dangerous Curiosity.
The third and fourth parts showed Useful and Necessary Curiosity,
respectively. Useful Curiosity was represented by travellers whose
desire to learn all about the manners and customs of different
nations drove them into foreign countries; also “by physicians who
work to gain experience.” In Necessary Curiosity was introduced the
art of navigation, instanced by sailors, who, under the guidance of
Tiphys, helmsman of the _Argo_, set out “to discover new worlds”;
another example of “necessary curiosity” being the fire brought
from Heaven by Prometheus for people eager to discover its use. The
poetical allegories were not less ingenious than the philosophic,
although “they did not pretend,” as one old chronicler informs us,
“to so much precision.”
In the same year at the Savoy Court, “_Alcée_,” a ballet of
fishermen, with _intermezzi_ and some superb presents brought to Mme.
Royale for her birthday by the Prince of Piedmont and his Cavaliers,
was a grand water entertainment in which appeared, to quote an old
historian, “Le Vaisseau de la Felicité accompagné de toutes les
Deitez (sic) avec les Concerts de Musique, des quatres Elemens avec
leur machines; de la Representation en Music (sic), d’Arion, du
Temps avec les années heureuses, des quatres parties du monde avec
des Entrées de Ballets, des quatres Saisons avec le tribut de toutes
leurs douceurs pour le Festin.” This was given by the Duke in honour
of Mme. Royale on her birthday, and it was declared that a fête “plus
complette, plus magnifique et plus agréable” had never been seen.
“Eternity” was the title of a ballet given in 1629; “Le Temps
Eternel” following next year; “La Felicité Publique” the next; and in
1632, “La Chasse Theatrale, representée en Ballet,” by the Cardinal
of Savoy at his country mansion was given in honour of his brother,
the Duke’s birthday.
Among the “moral” ballets, there is hardly one more pleasing than
that composed to commemorate the birthday of the Cardinal of Savoy in
1634. The subject of this ballet was “Truth, the Enemy of Appearance,
as proved by Time”--_La Verita Nemica della Apparenza sollevata dal
Tempo_.
This ballet opened with a chorus of False Rumours and Suspicions,
followed by Appearance and Lies! They were curiously represented by
characters dressed as cocks and hens, who sang a dialogue half in
Italian and half in French, mingled with the cluckings of cocks and
hens. The chorus by the latter ran as follows:
“Su gli albori matutini
Cot, cot, cot, cot, cot cantando
Col cucurrii s’inchini
E bisbigli mormorando
Fra i sospetti, e fra i Rumori
Cu, cu, cu, cu, cu, cu, cu,
Salutiam del novo sol gli almi splendori.”
The cocks replied:
“Faisant la guerre au silence
Cot, cot, cot, avec nos chants,
Cette douce violence
Ravit les Cieux et les Champs.
Et notre inconstant hospice
Cot, cot, cot, cot, cot, coné
Couvre d’apparence un subtil artifice.”
After this quaint song, the scene opened, and a large Cloud was seen,
accompanied by the Winds. “Appearance” also made her entrance at this
moment. She had wings and a long peacock’s tail and her dress was
hung with a number of mirrors. She was brooding over some eggs, from
which hatched out--Pernicious Lies, Deceits and Frauds, White-Lies,
Flatteries, Intrigues, Mockeries, Ridiculous Lies and Idle Tales! An
eternal crew!
The Deceits were dressed in dark colours with serpents concealed
among flowers; the Frauds, clothed in hunters’ nets, struck bladders
as they danced; the Flatteries were dressed as monkeys, Intrigues as
lobster-catchers with lanterns in their hands and on their heads;
Ridiculous Lies were represented by beggars who pretended to be
cripples with wooden legs.
Time, having driven away Appearance with all her Lies, opened the
nest on which she had been sitting and there appeared a great
hour-glass from which Time ordered Truth to come forth; the latter
then calling back all the Hours, danced with them the finale of the
“grand ballet.”
Surely, the time is ripe for a revival of such a production!
“Pâris” (1635), “Le Théâtre de la Gloire” (1637) and “La Bataille des
Vents” (1640) were notable productions at the Court of Savoy; but one
of the most interesting of these seventeenth-century entertainments
was that on February 19th, 1640, when at the same Court was given a
“Ballet of Alchemists” in which, under a charming allegory, they made
fun of those seekers of the philosopher’s stone who pretend to make
gold.
Hermes Trismegistus, dressed as a philosopher, with the master’s
ring, introduces some of the most celebrated chemists of different
nations: Morieno, an Italian; Bauzan, a Greek; Körner, a German;
Untser, a Swede; Calid, a Turk; Sandivoge, a Pole; Raymond Lulli
and Hortulaus, Spaniards; Dolcon and Beguin, Frenchmen; Pierre, a
Lorrainer; Rasis, a Jew; and Geber, an Arab.
The Italian and the Greek brought in a furnace of five storeys and
octagonal in shape. The German and the Swede brought in the alembics;
the Turk and the Pole came with flowers for distilling, which they
carried in baskets; the two Spaniards brought charcoal; the French
came with bellows to blow up the fire; the Lorrainer carried sieves
for sifting; the Jew and the Arab had in front of them leathern
aprons with various pockets, where they carried alum, vitriol,
sulphur and ingots of metal.
For the grand ballet they all worked together around the furnace,
whence they drew a thousand pretty novelties to give to the ladies
in the audience--essences, liqueurs, glass jewellery, mirrors,
bracelets, Cyprus powder, paint and other treasures, very much as
presents are given at Cotillons and big fancy dress balls to-day.
Yet another delightful production of this period must be chronicled,
namely, the “Ballet of Tobacco,” danced at Turin, the last day of
Carnival, 1650. The scene represented the Isle of Tobago, “_from
which tobacco took its name, and gave happiness to the nations to
whom the gods had given this plant_. First entered four High Priests
of that country, who drew forth snuff from certain golden boxes
which they carried, and threw this powder in the air to appease
the Winds and Tempests. Then with long pipes they smoked around an
altar, making of their smoking tobacco a sort of sacrifice to their
favourite Deities. For the second entry two Indians were twisting
into a rope tobacco leaves. Two others were pounding it in mortars
to reduce it to powder, and made the third entrance scene. The
fourth was of snuff-takers, who sneezed and presented the snuff to
each other, taking it in pinches with amusing ceremony; while the
fifth was a band of smokers gathered together in an Academy or place
set apart for smoking, wherein Turks, Spaniards, Poles and other
nationalities received the tobacco from the Indians and proceeded to
take it in their different ways.”
Such, in brief, were some of the continental ballets of the first
half of the seventeenth century, a period, it must be admitted, not
lacking in ingenuity, or resource in means of entertainment.
CHAPTER XI
THE TURNING POINT: LE ROI SOLEIL AND HIS ACADEMY OF DANCING, 1651-1675
For some two centuries Italy had amused herself with Ballet as a
courtly entertainment; and so, during one, had England and France.
Now, in 1651, it was France who was to give the lead to Europe, for
in February of that year Louis-Quatorze, then a lad of thirteen,
appeared in a ballet by Benserade, entitled “Cassandra,” and this was
the first of many in which he took part until, at the age of thirty,
he withdrew from the stage and gave his farewell performance in the
ballet of “Flora” in 1669. Strange, is it not, to think of a king as
a ballet-dancer? Yet, had not our own King Henry VIII been among the
joyous masquers?
But Louis XIV was to become more than a mere participant in
Ballet--he was to become the virtual founder of modern Ballet as seen
on the stage; for it was he--universal patron of the arts--who was
to found a Royal Academy of Dance and Music, to the existence and
encouragement of which the modern development of both arts is largely
due.
All these ballets had been either the principal object or the
supplement of superb fêtes given at Versailles or in the other royal
palaces. Historians have described the fêtes which Fouquet, the
Comptroller of Finances, offered to Louis XIV. As a sidelight on the
Comptroller’s magnificence and extravagance, the following is of
interest.
The king left Fontainebleau one evening in September, 1660,
with his entire Court, in order to have supper at the castle of
Vaux-le-Vicomte. The route, five leagues long, was illuminated with
waxen torches; and booths, put up at intervals, were laden with all
kinds of refreshment for the travellers. The castle, blazing with
light, seemed to Louis like some palace of faerie. A magnificently
furnished suite was set apart for His Majesty, and the Court was put
up in the minister’s house. An immense sideboard, laden with gold
and silver plate, was a feature of the room in which the king was
to have supper, with a fountain playing in the middle. A splendid
banquet was served, and a band placed in a gallery discoursed sweet
music. Numerous other tables were set out for the Court; and the
whole of the king’s guard, even to the famous livery servants, were
entertained most sumptuously during the two days that the fête lasted.
After supper the king took a walk by a lake the shores of which were
decorated with orange trees, lemon trees, and pomegranates, planted
in gilded tubs, the fruit being available to all who wanted any.
Thousands of torches diffused a brilliant light. A theatre, built
in the middle of the lake, offered yet further entertainment with a
representation of “The Triumph of Venus,” a ballet of a new kind, in
which Tritons and Nereids, having swum about in the waves, afterwards
proceeded to sing eulogies of King Louis. All the best musicians of
Paris had been added to the king’s orchestra, and they were hidden
behind the scenery of the theatre, and in the neighbouring thickets.
On the following day there was a royal hunt, with tables served at
all the meeting-places. There was fishing in the lake, from which
the net brought in enormous fish; there was a play, then a ball, and
finally fireworks; not to mention the sumptuous and delicate fare;
the exquisite wines and delicious liqueurs which were provided on
the same scale of unlimited extravagance.
On the first day Louis, whilst admiring the gardens and park from his
window, had remarked on its beauty, but said that the view would be
still more lovely if it were not shut in by a wood of tall trees that
he pointed out. Next morning Fouquet drew the king to the same window
and led the conversation in such a way that Louis might repeat the
remark he had made the evening before.
“Sire, since that wood has the misfortune to displease you, it shall
fall immediately.”
Then at a given signal the forest disappeared with a crash as if
by magic, and the royal eye could see to the horizon. Sawn through
during the night and attached to ropes that a hidden army of peasants
pulled all at the same time, the trees fell at the voice of command.
All this magnificence and extravagance astonished the courtiers, but
served also to arouse considerable suspicion. The king’s brother
remarked that the name of the castle should rather be _Vol-le-Roi_
than _Vaux-le-Vicomte_. This fête, an act of homage, as imprudent as
it was ambitious, hastened the downfall of its author, and from that
very day his doom was assured.
Among the many ballets in which Louis XIV himself took part, the more
notable were “Le Triomphe de Bacchus,” “Le Temps,” “Les Plaisirs,”
“L’Amour Malade,” “Alcibiade,” “La Raillerie,” “L’Impatience,”
“Vincennes,” and “Les Amours Déguisés,” as well as some of the
comédie-ballets of Molière.
Louis represented only the more exalted characters, such as Jupiter,
Neptune, Apollo; though on occasion, to display the variety of his
talent, he essayed an experiment in _genre bouffonesque_. Among the
_entrées_ in the “Triomphe de Bacchus,” for instance, there was one
for some _filous, traîneurs d’épée, sortant du palais de Silène,
échauffés par le vin_, and the King playing the _rôle_ of one of the
“filous,” sang the following stanza:
“Dans le metier qui nous occupe
Nos sentiments sont assez beaux,
Car nous prisons plus une jupe
Que nous ne ferions vingt manteaux.”
The Duc Mercour, the Marquis de Montglas, the Messieurs Sanguin and
Lachesnaye, garbed as attendants on Bacchus, addressed the following
verses to the ladies of the Court, and the author had carefully
indicated that they were to be spoken to the “demoiselles”:
“Il n’est pas mal aisé d’acquérir nos offices,
Et pour y parvenir le chemin en est doux;
Mais vous ne sauriez mieux vous adresser qu’à nous,
Si vous voulez apprendre à devenir nourrices.”
Copies of the “book” of the ballet are, I believe, extant; and the
designs for the costumes of the actors are still more curious.
The members of His Majesty’s ballet, if they were not expert ballet
dancers, could at least give ample proof of their nobility. Louis
XIV counted marquises and marchionesses, dukes and duchesses, even
princes and princesses and queens among his subjects, that is, his
dancing subjects.
It was in 1661 that the king founded the Dancing Academy. A room in
the Louvre was assigned to this learned society, which, however,
preferred to gilded ceilings the smoky walls of an inn having for
its sign “L’Epée de Bois.” It was in this favourite retreat that
the members of the new Academy met together. It was here that the
interests of the kingdom of the _rigaudon_ and the _minuet_ were
regulated, where elections were held, and, without breaking up the
session, without even leaving their academic chairs, dinner was
served to the members on the table where each had just cast his
vote. A tablecloth covered the green cloth; the bottle followed the
inkhorn; supper replaced the ballot-box; and the assembly drank long
draughts to the health of the new member.
The letters patent for the foundation of the Dancing Academy read
curiously. In the preamble, for instance, the king thus expressed
himself:
“Although the art of dancing has always been recognised as one of
the most honourable, and the most necessary for the training of the
body, to give it the first and most natural foundations for all
kinds of exercises and amongst others to those of arms; and as it
is, consequently, one of the most useful to our nobility and others
who have the honour of approaching us, not only in times of war in
our armies, but also in times of peace, in the performance of our
ballets, nevertheless, during the disorder of the last wars, there
have been introduced into the said art, as in all others, a great
number of abuses likely to bring them to irretrievable ruin.
“Many ignorant people have tried to disfigure the dance and to spoil
it, as exhibited in the personal appearance of the majority of people
of quality: so that we see few among those of our Court and suite who
would be able to take part in our ballets, whatever scheme we drew up
to attract them thereto. It being necessary, therefore, to provide
for this, and wishing to re-establish the said art in its perfection,
and to increase it as much as possible, we deemed it opportune to
establish in our good town of Paris a Royal Academy of Dancing,
comprising thirteen of the most experienced men in the said art, to
wit:
MM. Galant du Désert, dancing-master to the Queen;
Prévôt, dancing-master to the King;
Jean Renaud, dancing-master to His Majesty’s brother;
Guillaume Raynal, dancing-master to the Dauphin;
Nicolas de Lorges;
Guillaume Renaud;
Jean Picquet;
Florent Galant du Désert;
Jean de Grigny.”
These, let us note, are the names of the patriarchs of the French
dance.
In 1669 the Abbé Perrin, who was official introducer of Ambassadors
to Gaston, Duc d’Orléans?, having obtained exclusive rights from the
king, went into theatrical management, taking as his colleagues the
Marquis de Sourdeac to direct the scenic and mechanical effects, and
Cambert to supply the music. A certain Champeron advanced the money,
and on March 28th, 1671, “Pomone,” a pastoral in five acts, words by
Perrin, music by Cambert, dances by Beauchamps, was produced at the
theatre of the Rue Mazarine.
The whole thing was poor, but this did not prevent the house being
crowded for eight months, so that at the end of this time Perrin drew
out thirty thousand francs as his share: but the various members of
the little syndicate disagreed when it came to sharing out. Lulli
profited by their disputes, cleared out Perrin and his partners,
and started again in a disused tennis-court known as the _Bel Air_,
situated in the Rue de Vaugirard, near the Luxembourg. He had as
colleagues Quinault for the poetic libretti, and an Italian named
Vigarani for the mechanical effects, one of the cleverest stage
managers in Europe at the time. They produced there in 1672 the
“Fêtes de Bacchus et de l’Amour.” When Molière died in the following
year, the hall of the Palais-Royal, which he had occupied, was given
to Lulli.
Louis XIV, by letters patent, dated 1672, concerning the
non-forfeiture of nobility of ladies and nobles who were prepared
to figure in the scene at the opera, authorises his “faithful and
well-beloved Jean-Baptiste Lulli to add to the Royal Academy of Music
and Dancing, instituted by these presents, a school suitable to
educate pupils as much for dancing as for singing and also to train
bands of violins and other instruments.”
The Sun-King, in fact, exerted his care to such a point that he
himself superintended and wrote with his own hand the budget of the
_corps de ballet_ at the Opera.
The order is dated January 11th, 1713.
The male dancers were twelve in number.
Their united salaries amounted to 8400 francs.
Two of them had 1000 francs.
Four, 800 francs.
Four, 600 francs.
Two others, 400 francs.
The ten female dancers earned together 5400 francs.
The two principals had 900 francs.
The four seconds had 500 francs.
The four last 400 francs.
There were besides:
A master of the dancing-room, at 500 francs.
A composer of ballets, at 1500 francs.
A designer, at 1200 francs.
And a master-tailor, at 800 francs.
The king busied himself even with the author’s royalties, and it must
be confessed that he showed himself more generous proportionately
towards the authors than towards the artists. According to a rate
fixed by him, a hundred and twenty francs were paid for a ballet
for each of the first ten performances and sixty francs for each
following.
La Bruyère, author of “Les Caractères,” has spoken of the virtuosi of
the dance who shone in his time, and in criticising their methods,
he sheds light on the difficulties which had already been surmounted
in 1675. “Would the dancer Cobus please you, who, throwing up his
feet in front, turns once in the air, before regaining the floor?”
Again, “Do you ignore the fact that he is no longer young?” says La
Bruyère, when speaking to the susceptible ladies of the Court. It was
Beauchamps or Le Basque, dancers at the Opera, that he meant. The
famous Pécourt is also described under the name of Bathyle. “Where
will you find, I do not say in the order of knights which you look
down upon, but among the players in a farce, a young man, who leaps
higher into the air whilst dancing, or who cuts better capers? As for
him, the crowd is too great, he refuses more women than he accepts.”
Pécourt, the adored of the beauties of the time, was the favoured
lover of Ninon de l’Enclos. One day, the Maréchal de Choiseul, his
rival, met, at the house of their common mistress, the popular
dancer, who was dressed in what was apparently a uniform.
“Ah,” said he ironically, “since when have you turned soldier, M.
Pécourt? And in what corps are you serving?”
“Marshal,” was the reply, “I _command_ a _corps_ in which you have
long _served_.”
Blondi, Beauchamps’ nephew; Feuillet, Desaix, Ballon, Baudiery-Laval,
and his son Michel-Jean, a good dancer and an excellent mechanical
contriver; Mesdemoiselles Subligny, Prévôt, Carville, and Le Breton,
were also stars of the period, of some of whom there will be more to
say presently.
BOOK II: THE SECOND ERA