PANTOMIME AT SCEAUX: AND MLLE. PRÉVÔT
The mention of Subligny recalls the interesting fact that during the
reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV of France there was a considerable
importation of French and Italian actors, singers, dancers, and
musicians into England.
We all know the complaints in _The Spectator_ and other journals of
the period against the craze for Italian opera.
A little earlier than that Cambert, who had been Director of the
King’s Music to the Court of Louis-Quatorze and organist at the
Church of St. Honoré in Paris, and who, after breaking fresh ground
in French opera, was also one of the first to experiment with Ballet,
became attached to the Court of our own Charles II in 1677. He died
in London, whence he had withdrawn out of jealousy towards his
pushing young rival Lulli.
Desmarets, Campra, Destouches, Rebel, Bourgeois, Mouret and
Monteclair are also names of French composers of opera and ballet,
from about 1693 to 1716, well known to students of musical history,
perhaps their only successor worthy of mention being Quinault, until
all, from Lulli onwards, were to be eclipsed by the greater Rameau,
who was composer of nearly a score of notable ballets, and who
made his appearance on the musical horizon in the ’thirties of the
eighteenth century.
To return, however, to the dancers. Nivelon was one of the more
famous French dancers who visited London towards the end of the
seventeenth century, and had considerable success; as did another
of the early _danseuses_, Mlle. Subligny, who came to London with
influential introductions to John Locke, of all people in the
world, author of the famous but soporific _Essay on the Human
Understanding_, which, however, omits any reference to that of the
charming dancer.
It can readily be imagined that the introduction of women to the
French stage made for improvement in many directions besides access
of grace. The little rivalries and successes of women dancers induced
a general spirit of emulation that had its effect on technique.
Now, following on the introduction of women dancers to the stage,
we come to another interesting point in the history of the dance
and ballet; for, once again, it was due to a woman that we had the
invention--or rather the revival--for it had not been seen since the
days of Bathyllus and Pylades in Augustan Rome--of ballet-pantomime,
a ballet acted entirely pantomimically, or in dumb-show.
It was the happy idea of the learned and extravagant Duchesse
du Maine, whose _Nuits de Sceaux_ have been chronicled by that
fascinating bluestocking, Mlle. Delaunay, who was later to become
famous as Madame de Staël.
Among the endless round of fêtes and entertainments at Sceaux,
at the little theatre in which she took such prominent part, the
ever-restless Duchess never presented her guests with a greater
novelty. Day and night--and especially night--they had all been
requisitioned to invent ingenious amusements. Sleep had been banished
from the exigent little Court. Dialogues, “proverbs,” “literary
lotteries,” songs and comedies had been turned out without cessation
as from a literary factory. Always it had been “words, words, words,”
and play on words. Now, for the first time for centuries--as it
_was_, in fact, and must certainly have _seemed_ to the Duchess’s
house-parties!--there was to be silence on the stage at Sceaux.
[Illustration: The Duchesse du Maine]
Having chosen the last scene of the fourth act of Corneille’s
“Horace,” the Duchess commanded the composer Mouret to set it to
music as if it were to be sung. The words were then ignored, the
music was played by an orchestra, and the two well-known dancers,
M. Ballon and Mlle. Prévôt, of the Royal Academy, mutely mimed the
actions and emotions of the leading characters, so dramatically and
with such intensity of feeling that, it is said, both they and their
audience were moved at times to tears!
Françoise Prévôt, or Prévost, was born about 1680, made her _début_
at the age of eighteen, and when Subligny retired in 1705, took her
place as _première danseuse_. For some twenty odd years she was the
joy of all frequenters of the Opera, for her grace and lightness
of style. She retired in 1730, and died eleven years after. Among
the more famous of her pupils were Marie Sallé and Marie-Anne de
Cupis de Camargo, of both of whom there will be more to say in due
course. Meanwhile, among the dances mainly in vogue during Prévôt’s
earlier period were the _Courantes_, _Allemandes_, _Gigues_,
_Contredanses_; and in her later years, _Chaconnes_, _Passacailles_,
and _Passepieds_. For the dancing of the last Prévôt was especially
famed.
In the preface to his “_Maître à Danser_,” published four years
after the dancer’s retirement, Rameau describes her in the following
terms: “_Dans une seule de ses danses sont renfermées toutes les
règles qu’après de longues méditations nous pouvons donner sur
notre art, et elle les met en pratique, avec tant de grâce, tant
de justesse, tant de légèreté, tant de précision qu’elle peut être
regardée comme un prodige dans ce genre._”
Again, Noverre, in his _Lettres sur la Danse_, published later, makes
graceful reference to Prévôt in recalling his impressions of famous
dancers whom he had seen in earlier years, and gives us, too, an
interesting criticism of the methods of the composers of ballet in
the mid-eighteenth century. “_La plupart des compositeurs_,” he says,
“_suivent les vieilles rubriques de l’opéra. Ils font des passe-pieds
parceque Mdlle. Prévôt les courait avec elegance; des musettes
parceque Mdlle. Sallé et M. Dumoulin les dansaient avec autant de
grace que de volupté; des tambourins parceque c’était le genre où
Mdlle. de Camargo excellait; des chaconnes et des passacailles
parceque le célèbre Dupré s’était comme fixé à ces mouvements; qu’ils
s’ajoustaient à son goût, à son genre et à la noblesse de sa taille.
Mais tous ces excellents Sujets n’y sont plus; ils ont été remplacés
et au-delà, dans des parties et ne le seront peut être jamais dans
les autres...._”
Though Noverre was writing this about 1760, we have to remember
that he cannot actually have seen Prévôt, since he was only born
1727, and _she_ retired in 1730. But he records an interesting
tradition in complaining that the greater number of the composers of
his time still followed the older canon of the opera, and composed
_passepieds_ because “Mdlle. Prévôt _les courait_”; for it shows
that the technique of the dance had already begun to outgrow that
of the composer. Musicians were following in their forerunner’s
tracks; dancers were advancing on the road of invention. Indeed, we
shall see that this was so when we come to consider the differences
between the styles of Prévôt and her later successors. For the moment
it suffices to record that Prévôt, star of the French opera from
about 1700 to 1730, was famous for her elegance, for her “grace,”
“lightness,” “precision,” as revealed in the comparatively slow
dances of her period, when the technique was obviously not immature
(or Rameau could not have noted such qualities in her dancing), but
evidently had not yet developed in the direction of speed, or of
_tours de force_ such as some of the later dancers were to exhibit.
The _passepied_, of which an old French dancer-poet wrote:
“_Le léger passe-pied doit voler terre à terre_,”
was a dance in three-four time, a species of minuet, performed, as
the poet records, “_terre à terre_,” hence Noverre’s description:
“Mdlle. Prévôt les _courait_ avec elegance.”
A modern versifier has--perhaps presumptuously--put the following
lines into the dancer’s mouth:
PRÉVÔT SPEAKS
“Though others by Courante may swear
Or some the grave Allemande prefer,
Or vow for Gigues alone they care,
Or Contredanse’s vulgar stir:
For me--who am no villager!--
I love not dances rough and free,
Nor yet too slow! Without demur
The Passepied’s the dance for me.
“Hark to its gentle, plaintive air!
Was music ever mellower,
More full of grace, more sweetly fair?
No dancer, sure, could wish to err
From the staid rhythms that recur--
As softly as a breath may be--
With base like a pleased kitten’s purr:
The Passepied’s the dance for me!
“No other music now may share,
With this my favour, or could spur
My feet new measures now to dare.
What of Camargo? As for her--
(Of passing fancies harbinger!)
Quickness, but naught of grace has she.
_She_ dance? That plain, fast foreigner?
The Passepied’s the dance for _me_!”
ENVOI
“_Lovers of dance, let naught deter_
_Your love from graces all can see_
_In Passepied! And all aver_
_The Passepied’s the dance for me!_”
Of the jealousy which might have impelled Mlle. Prévôt to speak thus
of her young rival Camargo and her quicker style there will be more
to say presently. It is necessary for a while to turn aside (even
to hark back a little, perhaps, since in dealing with a period of
transition there must be several threads to trace back and gather
up), and to glance at another phase of theatrical history than that
of the _première danseuse_ and the august Royal Opera, namely, the
less exalted--and more popular--theatre; one which proved often
the antechamber to the greater stage and Royal favour, to wit--the
Italian Comedy and the Theatres of the Fair.