JEAN GEORGES NOVERRE
Supreme above all other writers on the dance and ballet is Jean
Georges Noverre, whose genius has been praised by Diderot, Voltaire,
by D’Alembert, Dorat, and by David Garrick, the last of whom
described him as “the Shakespeare” of the dance.
Born at Paris in April, 1727, he was the son of a distinguished Swiss
soldier, who had served as an adjutant in the army of Charles XII,
and intended his son for a military career.
Jean, however, early developed a passion for the stage, and
especially for dancing, so was apprenticed by his father to the
famous Parisian dancer and _maître de ballet_, Dupré.
In August, 1743, young Noverre made his _début_ at the Court of
Louis-Quinze in a fête at Fontainebleau, but with only moderate
success. Not discouraged, however, he went a little later to the
Court of Berlin, where he became a favourite with Frederick the Great
and his brother, Prince Henry of Prussia.
He returned to France in 1747, and two years later obtained the
post of _maître de ballet_ at the Opéra Comique, where the success
of his “Ballet Chinois” aroused considerable jealousy among his
colleagues and brought him some distinction in the art world. But
the success was not great enough for his ambitious spirit, and he
again travelled, and did not return to Paris for nearly twenty
years. Noverre and such are seldom recognised as prophets in their
own country, until their genius has received recognition abroad. As
Castil-Blaze, the historian of opera in France, has neatly expressed
it: “Noverre and the two Gardels effected in the dance the same
revolution that Gluck and Sacchini achieved some years later in
French music.” But Noverre was unable to do this as a young man
in Paris fighting against the sheer dead weight of convention and
hide-bound authority. He was unable to do it until he had won his
laurels abroad.
Sallé, one of the most exquisite and “intellectual” of _danseuses_,
had left Paris for a more appreciative audience in London because
the Paris Opera disliked her attempts to discard the ridiculous
conventions of stage costumes then ruling and to “reform it
altogether” in favour of something more congruous.
Noverre visioned to himself a theatre devoted to a kind of ballet as
different from that he saw in Paris, as the Russian ballet we have
seen to-day differs from that which London had seen in the ’thirties
of last century; a ballet that should be informed by a technique
so perfect as to be unobtrusive, and combining the arts of dance,
pantomime, music and poesy into a new, subtle, resourceful and
comprehensive means of artistic expression.
He wanted to see swept away all the mechanical rules of ballet
composition, the stereotyped and unimaginative story, the
conventional arrangement of stage groups, the stilted “heroic” style
of the dancers, the formal sequence of their _entrées_, and above
all, the _bizarrerie_ of their masks, their panniers and helmets with
waving, funereal plumes. He wanted to infuse a new spirit of art and
efficiency into what he found about him and--he had to go elsewhere!
An invitation from the Duke of Würtemberg to become _maître de
ballet_ at the luxurious Court of Stuttgart gave him his chance, and
he founded here the school which was to influence European Ballet in
that and the successive generation, as the school of Petrograd seemed
like to do to-day.
The publication of his _Lettres sur la Danse et sur les Ballets_, in
1760, dedicated by permission to this same Duke of Würtemberg and
Teck, caused a sensation among dancers in Paris and other capitals,
and having produced ballets in Berlin, London (1755), Lyons (1758),
and Stuttgart, he was reintroduced to Paris by Vestris (who had been
in the habit of visiting Stuttgart every year to dance during his
vacations) in 1765, when he achieved a success with his tragic ballet
of “Medea.”
Later he was to visit Vienna, to superintend the fêtes on the
occasion of the marriage of the Archduchess Caroline (Queen of
Naples), produce there a dozen ballets, and become appointed Director
of Court fêtes and _Maître de Danse_ to the Empress Maria Theresa and
Imperial Family, the Empress heaping favours upon him and granting a
lieutenancy to his son.
From Vienna he went to the Court of Milan, where he was created
Chevalier of the Order of the Cross; then to the Courts of Naples and
Lisbon; then to London, and finally again to Paris, in 1775, on the
invitation of his old pupil, Marie Antoinette, who made him _Maître
des Ballets en Chef_ at the Imperial Academy of Music, and Director
of the fêtes at the Petit Trianon; finally retiring at the outbreak
of the French Revolution, to London, where it is possible--or, at any
rate, in England--some of his descendants may yet be living.
A translation of these wonderful _Lettres sur la Danse et sur les
Ballets_ was published in London in 1780, and was dedicated to the
then Prince of Wales, later George IV. In the preface the anonymous
translator says: “The works of Monsieur Noverre, especially the
following letters, have been translated into most of the European
languages and thought worthy of a distinguished place in the
libraries of the literati.” To which, let me add, they should be so
thought to-day, at least in their original French form, for they are
of uncommon interest and literary charm.
In the somewhat stiff manner of the English of the late Georgian
period, his translator remarks of Noverre’s work in the original:
“His manner of writing is chaste, correct and elegant; perfectly
master of his subjects, he treats of them with the utmost
perspicuity; and by the connection which he proves to exist between
the other arts, and that of dancing, the author lays down rules and
precepts for them all; so that the poet, the painter and the musician
may be greatly benefited by the perusal of his works.”
The translator follows with a short history of dancing, and three
extremely interesting epistles to Noverre from the great Voltaire, in
the first of which, apropos the publication of Noverre’s _Lettres_,
he says: “I have read, sir, your work of genius: my gratitude equals
my esteem. You promise only to treat of dancing, and you shed a
light on all the arts. Your style is as eloquent as your ballet is
imaginative.” In another he remarks: “I have for admiring you, a
reason personal to myself; it is that your works abound with poetical
images. Poets and painters shall vie with each other to have you
ranked with them.” Again he says: “I am surprised that you have not
been offered such advantages as might have kept you in France; but
that time is no more when France sets the example to all Europe”; but
elsewhere remarks, curiously enough: “I believe that your merit will
be fully recognised in England, for there they love Nature.”
[Illustration: Jean Georges Noverre]
It was just this love of Nature and “natural” acting which brought
Noverre and Garrick together in mutual admiration and friendship, to
the latter of whom, by the way, the French _maître_ pays the highest
tribute in his tenth letter. To turn, however, to the first:
“Poetry, painting and dancing are, or ought to be, the faithful copy
of Nature ... a ballet is a piece of painting, the scene is the
canvas; in the mechanical motions of the figures we find the colours
... the composer himself is the painter.
“Ballets have hitherto been the faint sketch only of what they might
one day be. An art entirely subservient, as this is, to taste and
genius, may receive daily variations and improvements. History,
painting, mythology, poetry, all join to raise it from that obscurity
in which it lies buried; and it is truly surprising that composers
have hitherto disdained so many valuable resources.... If ballets
are for the most part uninteresting and uniformly dull, if they fail
in their characteristic _expression_ which constitutes their very
essence, the defect does not originate from the art itself, but
should be ascribed to the artists. Are then the latter to be told
that dancing is an imitative art? I am indeed inclined to think that
they know it not, since we daily see the generality of composers
sacrifice the beauties of the dance and forego the graceful _naïveté_
of sentiment, to become servile copyists of a certain number of
figures known and hackneyed for a century or more.... It is uncommon
and next to impossible now to find invention in ballets, elegance in
the forms, neatness in the groups, or the requisite precision in the
means of introducing the various figures.”
“Ballet masters should consult the productions of the most eminent
painters. This would bring them nearer to Nature and induce them
to avoid as often as possible that symmetry of figures which, by
repeating the object, presents two separate pictures on one and the
same canvas. A ballet, perfect in all its parts, is a picture drawn
from life, of the manners, dresses, ceremonies and customs of the
various nations. It must be a complete _panto-mime_ and through
the eyes speak, as it were, to the very soul of the spectator. If
it wants expression, if it be deficient in point of situation and
scenery, it degenerates into a mere _spectacle_, flat and monotonous.
“This kind of composition will not admit of mediocrity; like the art
of painting it requires a degree of perfection the more difficult
to attain in that it is subordinate to a true imitation of Nature,
and that it is next to an impossibility to achieve that all-subduing
truth which conceals the illusion from the spectator, carries him, as
it were, to the very spot where the scene lies; and inspires him with
the same sentiments as he must experience, were he present at the
events which the artist only represents.
“Ballets, being regular representations, ought to unite the various
parts of the drama. Most of the subjects, adapted to the dancer,
are devoid of sense, and exhibit only a confused jumble of scenes,
equally unmeaning and unconnected; yet it is in general absolutely
necessary to confine oneself within certain rules. The historical
part of a ballet must have its exposition, its incidents, its
_dénouement_. The success of this kind of entertainment chiefly
depends on choosing good subjects, and dealing with them in a proper
manner.”
The above brief quotations are all of interest as bearing on
particular points in dancing and ballet-composition, but I cannot
refrain from giving one more and a lengthier excerpt, the sound
common sense of which applies to-day and will appeal to all modern
dancers who realise that the finest opportunities of displaying their
skill are, and can only be, found in ballets worthy of their art.
“Every ballet,” he says, “complicated and extensive in its subject,
which does not point out, with clearness and perspicuity, the action
it is intended to represent, the intrigue of which is unintelligible,
without a program or printed explanation: a ballet, in fine, whose
plan is not felt, and appears deficient in point of exposition,
incident and _dénouement_; such a ballet, I say, will never rise, in
my opinion, above a mere _divertissement_ of dancing, more or less
commendable from the manner in which it is performed. But it cannot
affect me much, since it bears no particular character, and is devoid
of expression.
“It may be objected that dancing is now in so improved a state
that it may please, nay, enchant without the accessory ornaments
of expression and sentiment.... I readily acknowledge that, as to
mechanical execution, the art has attained the highest degree of
perfection: I shall even confess that it sometimes is graceful: but
gracefulness is but a small portion of the qualities it requires.
“What I call the mechanical parts of dancing are the steps linked
to each other with ease and brilliancy, the aplomb, steadiness,
activity, liveliness, and a well-directed opposition between the
arms and legs. When all these parts are managed without genius, when
the latter does not direct these different motions, and animate them
by the fire of sentiment and expression; I feel neither emotion nor
concern. The dexterity of the dancer obtains my applause; I admire
the automaton, but I experience no further sensation. It has upon
me the same effect as the most beautiful line, whose words are
uncouthly set asunder, producing sound, not sense. As for instance,
what would a reader feel at hearing the following detached words:
_Fame-lives-in-dies-he-cause-who-in-virtue’s?_ Yet these very words
aptly joined by the man of genius, by Shakespeare, express the
noblest sentiment:
‘He lives in Fame who dies in Virtue’s cause.’
“From the above comparison we may fairly conclude that the art
of Dancing has in itself all that is necessary to speak the best
language, but that it is not enough to be acquainted only with its
alphabet. Let the man of genius put the letters together, form
the words, and from these produce regular sentences; the art shall
no longer be mute, but speak with true energy, and the ballets
will share with the best dramatic pieces the peculiar advantage of
exciting the tenderest feelings; nay, of receiving the tribute of a
tear; while, in a less serious style, this art will please, entertain
and charm the spectators. Dancing thus ennobled by the expression of
sentiment, and under the direction of a man of true genius, will,
in time, obtain the praises which the enlightened world bestows on
poetry and painting, and become entitled to the rewards with which
the latter are daily honoured.”
The closing lines of the above are so curiously prophetic one
questions whether we have not already reached the period when an
“enlightened world” bestows on dancing--at any rate on dancers--the
“rewards” with which poetry and painting have been (or ought to have
been) hitherto honoured.