Jason et Médée is a ballet d'action

Ballet d'action

Ballet d'action is a ballet movement started by French choreographer Jean Georges Noverre in 1760. It involves expression of character and emotion through dancers' bodies and faces, rather than through elaborate costumes and props...

choreographed by Jean-Georges Noverre

Jean-Georges Noverre

Jean-Georges Noverre was a French dancer and balletmaster, and is generally considered the creator of ballet d'action, a precursor of the narrative ballets of the 19th century...

 to music by Jean-Joseph Rodolphe

Jean-Joseph Rodolphe

Jean-Joseph Rodolphe was an Alsatian horn player, violinist and composer.A pupil of Jean-Marie Leclair in Paris, he travelled to Parma in 1754, to Stuttgart in 1761, where he played in the ducal court orchestra and studied with Niccolò Jommelli There he provided the music for Jean-Georges...

. The ballet was first staged in the Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 Opera House on Friday, 11 February 1763, in celebration of the Duke of Württemberg's birthday. The plot follows the myth of Jason

Jason

Jason was a late ancient Greek mythological hero from the late 10th Century BC, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus...

 and the Golden Fleece

Golden Fleece

In Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece is the fleece of the gold-haired winged ram, which can be procured in Colchis. It figures in the tale of Jason and his band of Argonauts, who set out on a quest by order of King Pelias for the fleece in order to place Jason rightfully on the throne of Iolcus...

, and Medea

Medea

Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...

's murder of her children. Jason et Médée was one of Noverre's greatest successes, with unauthorized productions and adaptations mounted for decades across Europe following its premiere.

Background

In 1760, Jean-Georges Noverre recorded his thoughts on dance in Lettres sur la danse, et les ballets with both French and German editions published in Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 and Stuttgart the same year. He borrowed ideas explored in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 by the dancer-choreographer Franz Hilverding

Franz Hilverding

Franz Anton Christoph Hilverding , aka Hilferding, was an Austrian choreographer and dancer who first adapted Miguel Cervantes's novel Don Quixote for ballet. It was first staged in Vienna, Austria in 1740....

, the writer of reform operas Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

 and the librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi

Ranieri de' Calzabigi

Ranieri de' Calzabigi was an Italian poet and librettist, most famous for his collaboration with the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck on his "reform" operas....

 who, like Noverre, were seeking a deeper definition of, and credibility for, ballet and opera. Noverre's ideas on dance and performance were well-suited to the new culture in Germany based on the doctrine of emotions and "sensibility

Sensibility

Sensibility refers to an acute perception of or responsiveness toward something, such as the emotions of another. This concept emerged in eighteenth-century Britain, and was closely associated with studies of sense perception as the means through which knowledge is gathered...

" known as Affektenlehre (Doctrine of the affections

Doctrine of the affections

The doctrine of the affections, also known as the doctrine of affects, doctrine of the passions, theory of the affects, or by the German term Affektenlehre was a theory in musical aesthetics popular in the Baroque era...

), and, when an invitation to serve the Duke of Württemberg's court was extended him, Noverre accepted.

The divorced and theatre-loving Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg had at his disposal not only the taxes of his 600,000 subjects but some of the most talented theatre artists of the day: the Neapolitan composer and conductor Niccolò Jommelli

Niccolò Jommelli

Niccolò Jommelli was an Italian composer. He was born in Aversa and died in Naples. Along with other composers mainly in the Holy Roman Empire and France, he made important changes to opera and reduced the importance of star singers.-Early life:Jommelli was born to Francesco Antonio Jommelli and...

; the engineer and scenic artist, Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni

Giovanni Niccolo Servandoni

Jean-Nicolas Servan, also known as Giovanni Niccolò Servando or Servandoni was a French decorator, architect, scene-painter and trompe-l'œil specialist.He was the son of a carriage-builder at Lyon....

; the costume designer Louis-René Boquet; and the dancers Jean Dauberval

Jean Dauberval

Jean Dauberval, a.k.a Jean D’Auberval, , was a French dancer and ballet master...

, Charles le Picq

Charles le Picq

Charles Le Picq was an influential French dancer and choreographer.Le Picq was a pupil of Jean Georges Noverre , one of the creators of modern ballet . He was called the Apollo of the dance and performed in many countries, such as France, Austria, Russia and Spain...

, and the brothers Gaetano and Angiolo Vestris

Angiolo Vestris

Angiolo Maria Gasparo Vestris was a Franco-Italian ballet dancer.The younger brother of Gaëtan Vestris, he studied dance with Louis Dupré and became a soloist of the Opéra de Paris in 1753...

. By 1764, Noverre was directing a company of fifteen principal dancers, and a corps of twenty-three men and twenty-one women, mostly trained by himself.

Composition

For the 1763 celebrations of the Duke's birthday, Noverre choreographed Jason et Médée to music composed by Jean-Joseph Rodolphe as an interlude following the first act of Didone Abbandonate, a twenty-act opera by Jomelli based on the tale of Dido and Aeneas

Dido and Aeneas

Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...

. Jason is a ballet d'action of the heroic type as distinct from the comic, exotic, or fantastic ballet d'action, and was first staged in the 4000-seat Stuttgart Opera House on 11 February 1763. Noverre's ballet was complete in itself but supported, echoed, and furthered the action, drama, and emotion of Jomelli's opera.

Like other artists of his age, Noverre was probably influenced by Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

's Ars Poetica

Ars Poetica

Ars Poetica is a term meaning "The Art of Poetry" or "On the Nature of Poetry". Early examples of Ars Poetica by Aristotle and Horace have survived and have since spawned many other poems that bear the same name...

, a manual of aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

 referenced in Europe since the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. In his treatise, Horace cautions poets and painters against depicting monstrous or fantastic aberrations of nature such as Medea's slaughter of her children. Noverre was keenly aware of problems of decorum

Decorum

Decorum was a principle of classical rhetoric, poetry and theatrical theory that was about the fitness or otherwise of a style to a theatrical subject...

 and suitability, and, resisting conventional conservatism, pushed his works from their early academic character to one of picturesquely vivid and plastic pantomime

Pantomime

Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...

 with the English actor, David Garrick

David Garrick

David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...

, his stylistic ideal. In spite of working and writing for fifty years, Noverre made little headway against the reigning conservatism of the age, and was castigated for his fussy, over-elaborate pantomime.

Antecedents

The story of Jason and Medea was familiar in many dramatic treatments in France, beginning with Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...

's version of Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

 in 1635. As early as 1454 however, the myth was presented as a dumb show

Dumb Show

Dumb Show is a play by Joe Penhall.The three-character play, directed by Terry Johnson, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre' London, September 4, 2004. It received its American premiere at South Coast Repertory in September, 2006. It was performed at Keswick's Theatre by the Lake from...

 in Lille

Lille

Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...

, and, in 1489, the dancing master Bergonzio di Botta of Tortona adapted the tale of the Argonauts

Argonauts

The Argonauts ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, which was named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts", therefore, literally means...

 to a version that then became a model for subsequent danced entries in a variety of styles and tastes. In 1736, Marie Sallé

Marie Sallé

Marie Sallé was a French dancer and choreographer known for her expressive, dramatic performances rather than a series of "leaps and frolics" typical of ballet of her time...

, a dancer much admired by Noverre, danced the role of Medea in a version called Médée et Jason.

Plot summary

The ballet is based on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, and the hero's encounter with the sorceress Medea. Jason, in order to regain his throne from his usurper-uncle Creon

Creon

Creon is a figure in Greek mythology best known as the ruler of Thebes in the legend of Oedipus. He had two children with his wife, Eurydice: Megareus and Haemon...

, ventures forth with his companion Argonauts to find the Golden Fleece. The precious object becomes his when a powerful sorceress named Medea helps him conquer the dragon guarding it. Jason has two children by Medea, but he abandons her for the nymph Creusa

Creusa

In Greek mythology, four people had the name Creusa ; the name simply means "princess".-Naiad:According to Pindar's 9th Pythian Ode, Creusa was a naiad and daughter of Gaia who bore Hypseus, King of the Lapiths to the river god Peneus. Hypseus had one daughter, Cyrene. When a lion attacked her...

. Medea sends the nymph a poisoned mantle whose fire consumes her, and then, in a jealous rage, kills her own children.

Production details

Medea was portrayed by the English ballerina Mlle. Nency who "apart from her amazing dance talent, succeeded by showing in her acting ability all the soul and expression of that incomparable actor, the celebrated Garrick

David Garrick

David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...

, in England where the dancer, trained by Mr. Noverre, was born." Other terpsichorean

Terpsichore

In Greek mythology, Terpsichore "delight of dancing" was one of the nine Muses, ruling over dance and the dramatic chorus. She lends her name to the word "terpsichorean" which means "of or relating to dance". She is usually depicted sitting down, holding a lyre, accompanying the dancers' choirs...

 roles included Fire (Medea's burning mantle), Steel (Medea's Sword of Vengeance), and Jealousy. Gaetano Vestris (who had travelled from Paris especially for the occasion) and Angiolo Vestris were Jason and Créon respectively.

Reception

When the wild-eyed Furies first appeared on stage in the ballet, some audience members reportedly fainted while others fled the theatre. In 1780, a Paris libretto described the work as a "Ballet Terrible, ornamented by dancing, suspicion, darkness, pleasure, horror, poison, tobacco, dagger, salade ('hodge-podge'), love, death, assassination, and fireworks." The ballet was one of Noverre's greatest success, and was constantly revived across Europe in the decades following the ballet's premiere with or without acknowledgment of Noverre's authorship or his supervision. Gaetano Vestris (Noverre's first Jason) was the dieu de la danse of the period, and freely appropriated and adapted Noverre's Jason all over Europe. As a consequence, Noverre blamed Vestris for the poor reception his five-act version of the ballet received at the Paris Opéra

Paris Opera

The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...

in 1780. In 1781, Vestris appeared in his adaptation of Jason et Médée in London without acknowledging the original author of the work.