Daphnis et Chloé is a ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 with music by Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

. Ravel described it as a "symphonie choréographique" (choreographic symphony). The scenario was adapted by Michel Fokine

Michel Fokine

Michel Fokine was a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer.-Biography:...

 from an eponymous romance

Daphnis and Chloe

Daphnis and Chloe is the only known work of the 2nd century AD Greek novelist and romancer Longus.-Setting and style:It is set on the isle of Lesbos during the 2nd century AD, which is also assumed to be the author's home. Its style is rhetorical and pastoral; its shepherds and shepherdesses are...

 by the Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 writer Longus

Longus

Longus, sometimes Longos , was the author of an ancient Greek novel or romance, Daphnis and Chloe. Very little is known of his life, and it is assumed that he lived on the isle of Lesbos during the 2nd century AD...

 thought to date from around the 2nd century AD. Scott Goddard published a contemporary commentary that discussed the changes to the story that Fokine made to prepare a workable ballet scenario. The story concerns the love between the goatherd

Goatherd

A goatherd or goatherder is a person who herds goats as a vocational activity. Similar to a fisherman who catches fish for a living, the drover here herds goats. Goatherds are popular in countries where goat populations are significant; for instance, in Africa and South Asia...

 Daphnis and the shepherdess Chloé. The ballet is in one act and three scenes.

Ravel began work on the score in 1909 after a commission from Sergei Diaghilev

Sergei Diaghilev

Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...

. It was premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet

Théâtre du Châtelet

The Théâtre du Châtelet is a theatre and opera house, located in the place du Châtelet in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France.One of two theatres built on the site of a châtelet, a small castle or fortress, it was designed by Gabriel Davioud at the request of Baron Haussmann between 1860 and...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 by his Ballets Russes

Ballets Russes

The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...

 on June 8, 1912. The orchestra was conducted

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 by Pierre Monteux

Pierre Monteux

Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, Monteux later became an American citizen.-Life and career:Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. He studied violin from an early age,...

, the choreography

Choreography

Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...

 was by Michel Fokine

Michel Fokine

Michel Fokine was a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer.-Biography:...

, and Vaslav Nijinsky

Vaslav Nijinsky

Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent, cited as the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. He grew to be celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations...

 and Tamara Karsavina

Tamara Karsavina

Tamara Platonovna Karsavina was a famous Russian ballerina, renowned for her beauty, who was most noted as a Principal Artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and later the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev...

 danced the parts of Daphnis and Chloe. Léon Bakst

Léon Bakst

Léon Samoilovitch Bakst was a Russian painter and scene- and costume designer. He was a member of the Sergei Diaghilev circle and the Ballets Russes, for which he designed exotic, richly coloured sets and costumes...

 designed the original sets.

The work is written for a large orchestra consisting of piccolo

Piccolo

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...

, 2 flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s (2nd flute also doubling piccolo), alto flute

Alto flute

The alto flute is a type of Western concert flute, a musical instrument in the woodwind family. It is the next extension downward of the C flute after the flûte d'amour. It is characterized by its distinct, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range...

, 2 oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, English horn, E-flat clarinet

E-flat clarinet

The E-flat clarinet is a member of the clarinet family. It is usually classed as a soprano clarinet, although some authors describe it as a "sopranino" or even "piccolo" clarinet. Smaller in size and higher in pitch than the more common B clarinet, it is a transposing instrument in E, sounding a...

, 2 clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s, bass clarinet

Bass clarinet

The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...

, 3 bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s, contrabassoon

Contrabassoon

The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...

, 4 horns

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

, 4 trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s, 3 trombone

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

s, tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

, timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

, tam-tam, wind machine

Wind machine

The wind machine is a specialist musical instrument used to produce the sound of wind. One type uses an electric fan with wooden slats added to produce the required sound...

, triangle

Triangle

A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....

, bass drum

Bass drum

Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...

, field drum, castanets, tambourine

Tambourine

The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....

, celesta

Celesta

The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...

, crotales

Crotales

thumb|right|Crotales are often used with other mallet percussionCrotales , sometimes called antique cymbals, are percussion instruments consisting of small, tuned bronze or brass disks. Each is about 4 inches in diameter with a flat top surface and a nipple on the base. They are commonly...

, glockenspiel

Glockenspiel

A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...

, 2 harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

s, wordless choir

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

 and strings in eight parts. When Diaghilev took the ballet to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1914, he omitted the chorus, which prompted Ravel to send an angry letter to The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

newspaper (see editions of June 9, 10 and 17).

At almost an hour long, Daphnis et Chloé is Ravel's longest work. In spite of the ballet's time length, a small number of musical leitmotifs gives musical unity to the score. The music, some of the composer's most passionate, is widely regarded as some of Ravel's best, with extraordinarily lush harmonies typical of the impressionist

Impressionist music

Impressionism in music was a tendency in European classical music, mainly in France, which appeared in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Similarly to its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere...

 movement in music. Even during the composer's lifetime, contemporary commentators described this ballet as his masterpiece for orchestra. He extracted music from the ballet to make two orchestral suites, which can be performed with or without the chorus. The second of the suites, which includes much of the last part of the ballet and concludes with the "Danse generale", is particularly popular. When the complete work is itself performed live, it is more often in concerts than in staged productions.

Scenario

Part I

A meadow at the edge of a sacred wood. In the background, hills. To the right, a grotto, at the entrance of which, hewn out of the rock, is an antique sculpture of three Nymphs. Somewhat toward the background, to the left, a large rock vaguely resembles the form of the god Pan. In the background sheep are grazing. A bright spring afternoon. When the curtain rises, the stage is empty. Introduction and religious dance. Youths and girls enter, carrying gifts for the Nymphs in baskets. Gradually the stage fills. The group bows before the altar of the Nymphs. The girls drape the pedestals with garlands. In the far background, Daphnis is seen following his flock. Chloe joins him. They proceed toward the altar and disappear at a bend. Daphnis and Chloe enter at the foreground and bow before the Nymphs. The dance ceases. Tender emotion on seeing the couple. The girls entice Daphnis and dance around him. Chloe feels the first twinges of jealousy. At that moment she is swept into the dance of the youths. The cowherd Dorcon proves to be especially bold. Daphnis in turn seems upset. General dance. At the end of the dance, Dorcon tries to kiss Chloe. She innocently offers her cheek. But with an abrupt motion Daphnis pushes aside the cowherd and approaches Chloe affectionately. The youths intervene. They position themselves in front of Chloe and gently lead Daphnis away. One of them proposes a dance contest between Daphnis and Dorcon. A kiss from Chloe will be the victor’s prize. Dorcon's grotesque dance. The group sarcastically imitates the clumsy movements of the cowherd, who ends his dance in the midst of general laughter. Daphnis's light and graceful dance. Everyone invites Daphnis to accept his reward. Dorcon comes forward as well, but he is chased off by the group, accompanied by loud laughter. The laughter ceases at the sight of the radiant group formed by the embracing Daphnis and Chloe. The group withdraws, taking along Chloe. Daphnis remains, immobile, as if in ecstasy. Then he lies facedown in the grass, his face in his hands. Lyceion enters. She notices the young shepherd, approaches, and raises his head, placing her hands over his eyes. Daphnis thinks this is a game of Chloe’s. But he recognizes Lyceion and tries to pull away. Lyceion dances. As though inadvertently, she drops one of her veils. Daphnis picks it up and places it back on her shoulders. She ironically resumes her dance, which, at first more languorous, becomes steadily more animated until the end. Another veil slips to the ground, and is again retrieved by Daphnis. Vexed, she runs off mocking him, leaving the young shepherd very disturbed. Warlike sounds and war cries are heard, coming nearer. In the middleground, women run across the stage, pursued by pirates. Daphnis thinks of Chloe, perhaps in danger, and runs off to save her. Chloe hastens on in panic, seeking shelter. She throws herself before the altar of the Nymphs, beseeching their protection. A group of brigands burst onstage, see the girls, and carry her off. Daphnis enters looking for Chloe. He discovers on the ground a sandal that she lost in the struggle. Mad with despair, he curses the deities who were unable to protect the girl, and falls swooning at the entrance of the grotto. An unnatural light suffuses the landscape. A little flow shines suddenly from the head of one of the statues. The Nymph comes to life and descends from her pedestal. The second Nymph. The third Nymph. They consult together and begin a slow and mysterious dance. They notice Daphnis. They bend down and dry his tears. They revive him and lead him toward the large rock. They invoke the god Pan. Gradually the form of the god is outlined. Daphnis prostrates himself in supplication. The stage goes dark.

Part II

Voices are heard from offstage, at first very distant. Distant trumpet calls. The voices come nearer. A dull glimmer. We are in the pirate camp. Very rugged seacoast. In the background, the sea. To the right and left, a view of large crags. A trireme is seen near the shore. Cypresses here and there. Pirates are seen running to and fro carrying plunder. More and more torches are brought, which finally illuminate the scene violently. Bryaxis commands that the captive be brought. Chloe, her hands tied, is led in by two pirates. Bryaxis orders her to dance. Chloe’s dance of supplication. She tries to flee. She is brought back violently. Despairing, she resumes her dance. Again she tries to escape. She is again brought back. She abandons herself to despair, thinking of Daphnis. Bryaxis tries to carry her off. She beseeches. The leader carries her off triumphantly. Suddenly the atmosphere seems charged with strange elements. In various places, lit by invisible hands, little flames flare up. Fantastic beings crawl or leap here and there. Satyrs appear from every side and surround the brigands. The earth opens. The fearsome shadow of Pan is outlined on the hills in the background, making a threatening gesture. Everyone flees in horror.

Part III

The scene seems to dissolve. It is replaced by the landscape of the first part at the end of the night. No sound but the murmur of rivulets produced by the dew that trickles from the rocks. Daphnis is still stretched out before the grotto of the Nymphs. Gradually the day breaks. The songs of birds are heard. Far off, a shepherd passes with his flock. Another shepherd cross in the background. A group of herdsmen enters looking for Daphnis and Chloe. They discover Daphnis and wake him. Anxiously he looks around for Chloe. She appears at last, surrounded by shepherdesses. They throw themselves into each other’s arms. Daphnis notices Chloe’s wreath. His dream was a prophetic vision. The intervention of Pan is manifest. The old shepherd Lammon explains that, if Pan has saved Chloe, it is in memory of the nymph Syrinx, whom the god once loved. Daphnis and Chloe mime the tale of Pan and Syrinx. Chloe plays the young nymph wandering in the meadow. Daphnis as Pan appears and declares his love. The nymph rebuffs him. The god becomes more insistent. She disappears into the reeds. In despair, he picks several stalks to form a flute and plays a melancholy air. Chloe reappears and interprets in her dance the accents of the flute. The dance becomes more and more animated and, in a mad whirling, Chloe falls into Daphnis’s arms. Before the altar of the Nymphs, he pledges his love, offering two sheep. A group of girls enters dressed as bacchantes, shaking tambourines. Daphnis and Chloe embrace tenderly. A group of youths rushes onstage. Joyful commotion.

Structure

Part I

Introduction et Danse religieuse

Danse générale

Danse grotesque de Dorcon

Danse légère et gracieuse de Daphnis

Danse de Lycéion

Danse lente et mystérieuse des Nymphes

Part II

Introduction

Danse guerrière

Danse suppliante de Chloé

Part III

Lever du jour

Pantomime (Les amours de Pan et Syrinx)

Danse générale (Bacchanale)

Sports

• American Figure Skater, Sarah Hughes
  Sarah Hughes
  Sarah Elizabeth Hughes is an American figure skater. She is the 2002 Olympic gold medalist and 2001 World bronze medalist in ladies singles.-Personal life:...
  
  , won her Olympic gold medal skating to selections from Daphnis et Chloé at the XIX Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City in 2002.