La Fille Mal Gardée
Encyclopedia
Pierre-Antoine Baudouin
Pierre-Antoine Baudouin, the son of Michel Baudouin, an engraver of little note , was born in Paris in 1723. He was a pupil and imitator of Boucher, whose younger daughter he married in 1758, and through whose influence he was elected an Academician in 1763, as a miniature painter, on which...
's 1789 painting, La réprimande/Une jeune fille querellée par sa mère. The ballet was originally produced and choreographed by the Ballet Master
Ballet Master
Ballet Master is the term used for an employee of a ballet company who is responsible for the level of competence of the dancers in their company...
, Jean Dauberval
Jean Dauberval
Jean Dauberval, a.k.a Jean D’Auberval, , was a French dancer and ballet master...
, to a musical pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
adapted from fifty-five popular French airs by an unknown hand. The ballet was first presented under the title Le ballet de la paille, ou Il n’est qu’un pas du mal au bien (The Ballet of Straw, or There is Only One Step from Bad to Good) at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux
Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux
Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, is a Theatre in Bordeaux, France, first inaugurated on 17 April 1780. It was in this theatre that the ballet La Fille Mal Gardée premiered in 1789, and where a young Marius Petipa staged some of his first ballets....
, in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, France on Wednesday, 1 July, 1789.
One of the oldest and most important works in the modern ballet repertory, La Fille mal gardée has been kept alive, throughout its long and complex performance history, by way of many revivals, for well over two centuries. The work has undergone many changes of title and no fewer than six scores, many of which were adaptations of older music.
Today La Fille mal gardée is normally presented as one of two different versions: many ballet companies in Russia, Europe, the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, and South America retain productions of the ballet which stem from the 1903 revival by Alexander Gorsky, based on the score of Peter Ludwig Hertel. Gorsky's version was derived from the late-nineteenth-century revivals of Marius Petipa
Marius Petipa
Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa was a French ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. Petipa is considered to be the most influential ballet master and choreographer of ballet that has ever lived....
and Lev Ivanov
Lev Ivanov
Lev Ivanovich Ivanov was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer and later, Second Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet....
, which was, itself, a revival of Paul Taglioni's version staged in 1864 for the Court Opera Ballet of the Königliches Opernhaus
Berlin State Opera
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...
in Berlin. It is from this version of the ballet that the so-called La Fille mal gardée pas de deux is extracted.
Modern audiences are perhaps most familiar with the production staged by Sir Frederick Ashton
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
for the Royal Ballet in 1960, set to music adapted by John Lanchbery
John Lanchbery
John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English, later Australian, composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.-Life:...
from the 1828 score of Ferdinand Hérold and the original pastiche used for the 1789 premiere.
The appealing simplicity and the naïve familiarity of the action of La Fille mal gardée have lent it a popularity that has established it in the repertory of many ballet companies all over the world.
The origins of La Fille mal gardée
Jean Dauberval
Jean Dauberval, a.k.a Jean D’Auberval, , was a French dancer and ballet master...
, one of the greatest choreographers of his day. He was trained under the influential teacher 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...
, and is further distinguished as the teacher of Charles Didelot
Charles Didelot
Charles-Louis Didelot was a French dancer and choreographer. The son of Charles Didelot, the dance mastor of the King of Sweden, he studied dance with his father, who was an instructor in dance at the Swedish Opera, and debuted as dancer in the theatre of Bollhuset in Stockholm 1786.He then...
, known today as "The Father of Russian Ballet". Legend has it that Dauberval found his inspiration for La Fille mal gardée while in a Bordeaux print shop, where he viewed an engraving of Pierre-Antoine Baudouin's painting Le reprimande/Une jeune fille querellée par sa mère. The painting showed a girl in tears with her clothes disarrayed being berated by an old woman (presumably her mother) in a hay barn, while her lover can be seen in the background scurrying up the stairs to the safety of the loft. Allegedly this quaint work of art amused the ballet master so much that he immediately set out to craft a suitable scenario for a ballet.
The ballet was first presented at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux
Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux
Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, is a Theatre in Bordeaux, France, first inaugurated on 17 April 1780. It was in this theatre that the ballet La Fille Mal Gardée premiered in 1789, and where a young Marius Petipa staged some of his first ballets....
in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, France
Early Modern France
Kingdom of France is the early modern period of French history from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century...
on 1 July 1789. Dauberval's wife, the danseuse Marie-Madeleine Crespé (known to history as Mme. Théodore) created the role of Lison (known as Lise in modern versions), the danseur Eugène Hus
Eugène Hus
Pierre-Louis Stapleton was a Franco-Belgian ballet dancer and choreographer. He was also known from around 1759 by the pseudonym Eugène Hus, after his stepfather Jean-Baptiste Hus.-Life:...
created the role of Colin (Colas in modern versions), and Francois Le Riche created the role of the Widow Ragotte (known as Simone in modern versions).
The ballet's original title was Le ballet de la paille, ou Il n’est qu’un pas du mal au bien ("The Ballet of the Straw, or There is Only One Step from Bad to Good"). The work met with public success, and proved to be Dauberval's most popular and enduring work.
The music
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, scores for ballets were often patchworks (or a pastichePastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
) of popular airs derived from well-known dances, songs and/or operas. These scores were often arranged and adapted by either the theatre's director of music, or by the lead violinist of the opera house's orchestra, who at the time also served as conductor (the separate role of orchestral conductor was not then established).
The 1789 score for La Fille mal gardée was itself an arrangement of 55 popular French airs and has survived to the present day in the form of fifteen orchestral parts at the Bordeaux Municipal Library. The surviving manuscript of the 1789 score does not list a composer/arranger, and no extant contemporary account of the original production mentions a composer. It is possible that Dauberval himself arranged the score, for he certainly devised the ballet's scenario, and was a competent violinist. If it was not his work, than it may have been one of the musicians employed by the theatre. A likely candidate would have been Franz Beck, who at the time was Maître de musique en chef to the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux
Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux
Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, is a Theatre in Bordeaux, France, first inaugurated on 17 April 1780. It was in this theatre that the ballet La Fille Mal Gardée premiered in 1789, and where a young Marius Petipa staged some of his first ballets....
. The other possibility is a violinist from the Grand Théâtre's orchestra, known only today as Lempereur, who had recently composed the music for a play titled Mareie Mile Héroïne villageoise, which premiered in March 1789.
Revivals of Dauberval's original staging
Pantheon, London
The Pantheon, was a place of public entertainment on the south side of Oxford Street, London, England. It was designed by James Wyatt and opened in 1772. The main rotunda was one of the largest rooms built in England up to that time and had a central dome somewhat reminiscent of the celebrated...
, and for the occasion Dauberval changed the title of the ballet to La Fille mal gardée, which remains the title of the work today. For the first performance, which took place on 30 April 1791, Dauberval's wife Mme. Théodore reprised her role as Lise, while Dauberval's student, Charles Didelot
Charles Didelot
Charles-Louis Didelot was a French dancer and choreographer. The son of Charles Didelot, the dance mastor of the King of Sweden, he studied dance with his father, who was an instructor in dance at the Swedish Opera, and debuted as dancer in the theatre of Bollhuset in Stockholm 1786.He then...
danced Colas.
The 1789 score was loathed by the musicians of the Pantheon Theatre Orchestra. When the orchestral parts were rediscovered in 1959 by the ballet historian and musicologist Ivor Guest
Ivor Forbes Guest
Ivor Forbes Guest DUniv MA FRAD worked professionally as a lawyer, but is best known as a historian for his study of ballet. He was chairman of the Royal Academy of Dance for thirty years and has been a Vice President since 1993 and Secretary then Trustee of the Radcliffe Trust...
and the conductor John Lanchbery
John Lanchbery
John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English, later Australian, composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.-Life:...
, they were found to be covered with comments ranging from the witty to the crude. In the original manuscript the title of the ballet was sprawled atop the pages. The lead violinist (then the conductor) of the first London performance, crossed out the title, and in its place wrote "Filly-Me-Gardy".
Eugène Hus
Eugène Hus
Pierre-Louis Stapleton was a Franco-Belgian ballet dancer and choreographer. He was also known from around 1759 by the pseudonym Eugène Hus, after his stepfather Jean-Baptiste Hus.-Life:...
, creator of the role of Colas, staged Dauberval's La Fille mal gardée in 1803 at the old Paris Opéra, the Salle de la rue de Richelieu, predecessor of the Salle Le Peletier. Prior to this production, Hus utilized the ballet's libretto in 1796 for a comic opera titled Lise et Colin, which was set to the music of Pierre Gaveaux
Pierre Gaveaux
Pierre Gaveaux was a French operatic tenor and composer, notable for creating the role of Jason in Cherubini's Médée and for composing the first operatic version of the story that later found fame as Fidelio....
.
Jean-Pierre Aumer's new version to the music of Hérold
Jean-Pierre Aumer
Jean-Louis Aumer was a French danseur and choreographer, who was born in Strasbourg on 21 April 1774, and who died in Saint-Martin-de-Boscherville in July 1833. Educated at the school of the Paris Opera Ballet, he joined the company in 1801 after an initial engagement with Jean Dauberval in Bordeaux...
, a student of Dauberval, continuously revised Hus's 1803 production throughout his career as ballet master at the Paris Opéra. He then traveled to 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...
in 1809 to mount the work for the Ballett des imperialen Hoftheater nächst der Burg
Burgtheater
The Burgtheater , originally known as K.K. Theater an der Burg, then until 1918 as the K.K. Hofburgtheater, is the Austrian National Theatre in Vienna and one of the most important German language theatres in the world.The Burgtheater was created in 1741 and has become known as "die Burg" by the...
.
On 17 November 1828, Aumer presented a completely new version of La Fille mal gardée at the Paris Opéra especially for the Ballerina Pauline Montessu. For this revival the composer Ferdinand Hérold created an adaptation of the original score of 1789. Hérold also "borrowed" many themes from the operas of such composers as Jean Paul Egide Martini
Jean Paul Egide Martini
Jean Paul Egide Martini, was a composer of classical music. Sometimes known as Martini Il Tedesco, he is best known today for the vocal romance "Plaisir d'Amour," on which the 1961 Elvis Presley standard "Can't Help Falling in Love" is based...
and Gaetano Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
.
The Fanny Elssler pas de deux
In 1837, the great Austrian Ballerina Fanny ElsslerFanny Elssler
Fanny Elssler - 27 November 1884), born Franziska Elßler, was an Austrian ballerina of the 'Romantic Period'.- Life :Daughter of Johann Florian Elssler, a second generation employee of Prince Esterhazy in Eisenstadt. Both Johann and his brother Josef were employed as copyists to the Prince's...
made her debut at the Paris Opéra in Aumer's production of La Fille mal gardée. As was the custom of the time, Ballerinas often commissioned new Pas and variations to be interpolated into already existing ballets for their own performances. Making use of the extensive archives in the Paris Opéra's library, the Ballerina selected her favorite airs from Donizetti's extremely popular score for the opera L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
. The library's copyist Aimé-Ambroise-Simon Leborne assembled and orchestrated the music for her.
Elssler's Grand pas was resurrected by the musicologist and historian Ivor Guest
Ivor Forbes Guest
Ivor Forbes Guest DUniv MA FRAD worked professionally as a lawyer, but is best known as a historian for his study of ballet. He was chairman of the Royal Academy of Dance for thirty years and has been a Vice President since 1993 and Secretary then Trustee of the Radcliffe Trust...
for Sir Frederick Ashton's 1960 revival of La Fille mal gardée for the Royal Ballet.
Paul Taglioni's new version to the music of Hertel
The Italian choreographer Paul Taglioni, uncle of the legendary MarieMarie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni was a famous Italian/Swedish ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.-Biography:...
, was engaged as ballet master to the Court Opera Ballet of the Königliches Opernhaus
Berlin State Opera
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...
in Berlin from 1852–1866. On 7 November 1864, Taglioni presented his own completely new staging of La Fille mal gardée under the title Das schlecht bewachte Mädchen (The Badly Guarded Girl). For this production Taglioni commissioned an entirely new score from the Königliches Opernhaus's resident composer of ballet music Peter Ludwig Hertel. This production premiered to a resounding success, and was retained in the repertory of the ballet in Berlin for many years.
In May 1876, the great Italian Ballerina Virginia Zucchi
Virginia Zucchi
Virginia Zucchi was an Italian dancer. Her career as a ballerina spanned from 1864 to 1898, and she was known as "the Divine Virginia" for her artistry, expressiveness, and virtuosity....
made her debut in Taglioni's production in Berlin. The celebrated Ballerina triumphed in the role of Lise, revitalizing the work with her expressive portrayal.
La Fille mal gardée in Russia
La Fille mal gardée was staged for the first time in Russia by the Ballet Master Giuseppe Solomoni in 1800 for the Bolshoi TheatreBolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
(No! The Michael Maddox
Michael Maddox
Michael Maddox was an English entrepreneur and theatre manager active in Imperial Russia...
’s Petrovskiy theatre! The Bolshoi Theatre was built in 1824 to replace the Petrovskiy theatre) in Moscow, a production that was later revised by Solomoni's successor Jean Lamiral in 1808. Both productions utilized the original pastiche score of 1789, likely in adaptations prepared for each respective staging.
The first production of La Fille mal gardée to be performed by the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet was staged by Jean Dauberval's student Charles Didelot
Charles Didelot
Charles-Louis Didelot was a French dancer and choreographer. The son of Charles Didelot, the dance mastor of the King of Sweden, he studied dance with his father, who was an instructor in dance at the Swedish Opera, and debuted as dancer in the theatre of Bollhuset in Stockholm 1786.He then...
, who performed the role of Colas in the London revival of 1791. Didelot—who served as Maître de ballet to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres from 1801–1811 and 1816–1837—presented his version of La Fille mal gardée on at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, under the title La Précaution inutile, ou Lise et Colin (Vain Precaution, or Lise and Colin). The work was set to music by the composer Catterino Cavos
Catterino Cavos
Catterino Albertovich Cavos , born Catarino Camillo Cavos, was an Italian composer, organist and conductor settled in Russia...
.
A production of Jean-Pierre Aumer's 1828 version of La Fille mal gardée, set to the music of Hérold, was first staged in Russia at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre in 1845 by the Balletmaster Irakly Nikitin. The great choreographer Jules Perrot
Jules Perrot
Jules-Joseph Perrot was a dancer and choreographer who later became Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia...
—Premier Maître de ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres from 1850–1859—staged his own version of Aumer's production for the company in 1854, and for this production added new music to the ballet by the composer Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre...
. Perrot's staging was given for the last time in 1880 for a benefit performance for the Imperial Ballet's Premier danseur Pavel Gerdt
Pavel Gerdt
Pavel Andreyevich Gerdt, also known as Paul Gerdt , was the Premier Danseur Noble of the Imperial Ballet, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, and the Mariinsky Theatre for 56 years, making his debut in 1860, and retiring in 1916...
.
Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov's revival
Virginia Zucchi
Virginia Zucchi was an Italian dancer. Her career as a ballerina spanned from 1864 to 1898, and she was known as "the Divine Virginia" for her artistry, expressiveness, and virtuosity....
toured St. Petersburg in 1885, performing successfully in various theatres throughout the Imperial capital. In August of that year, the ballerina was invited by Tsar Alexander III
Alexander III of Russia
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov , historically remembered as Alexander III or Alexander the Peacemaker reigned as Emperor of Russia from until his death on .-Disposition:...
to perform with the Imperial Ballet
Mariinsky Ballet
The Mariinsky Ballet is a classical ballet company based at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in the 18th century and originally known as the Imperial Russian Ballet, the Mariinsky Ballet is one of the world's leading ballet companies...
. It was decided that Paul Taglioni's 1864 version of La Fille mal gardée to the music of Hertel would be revived especially for her début by the choreographer Marius Petipa
Marius Petipa
Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa was a French ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. Petipa is considered to be the most influential ballet master and choreographer of ballet that has ever lived....
and the Imperial Theatre's Deuxieme Maître de Ballet Lev Ivanov
Lev Ivanov
Lev Ivanovich Ivanov was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer and later, Second Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet....
, while Zucchi herself would assist in the staging of some of the dances she had known from the Berlin staging. For the occasion the composer Ludwig Minkus
Ludwig Minkus
Ludwig Minkus a.k.a. Léon Fyodorovich Minkus was an Austrian composer of ballet music, a violin virtuoso and teacher.Minkus is most noted for the music he composed while serving as Ballet Composer of the St...
composed two additional variations for Zucchi, with choreography by Petipa. The ballet was staged under the title La Précaution inutile (Vain Precaution).
The Petipa/Ivanov revival premiered on . Zucchi's performance as Lise instantly became a legend in Russia, where she was soon known as "The Divine Virginia". During the famous mimed scene known as When I'm Married, it was said that Zucchi's charming and emotional performance made such an impression that it brought many in the audience to tears. The ballerina was much celebrated for the famous Pas de ruban, for which Lise and Colas dance a pas elaborated by the use of ribbons, with Colas pretending to be a horse and Lise running along.
After Zucchi left the Imperial stage, Lev Ivanov mounted an abridged version of La Fille mal gardée for performances at the Imperial Theatre of Krasnoe Selo in the summer of 1888. The role of Lise was performed by the ballerina Alexandra Vinogradova, who reprised the role in October of that same year on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre
Mariinsky Theatre
The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. The...
(principal theatre of the Imperial Ballet and Opera from 1886). This was the last performance of the ballet until 1894, when Ivanov again revived the ballet for the visiting German ballerina Hedwige Hantenbürg. Thereafter the work found a permanent place in the Imperial Ballet's repertory.
La Fille mal gardée proved to be a useful vehicle for the great ballerinas of the old Imperial stage, most notably Olga Preobrajenskaya, Anna Pavlova 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...
. For some time the renowned ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya did not allow any other danseuse to perform the role of Lise.
A feature of the Ivanov production was the use of live chickens on stage. One evening when Preobrajenskaya danced the role of Lise, her rival, Kschessinskaya, let all of the chickens out of their coops during her variation, with many of them landing in the orchestra pit and even on the laps of many of the musicians. Preobrajenskaya kept on dancing as if nothing happened.
By the turn of the 20th century, the St. Petersburg edition of Hertel's score for La Fille mal gardée had acquired musical interpolations from many different composers – Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre...
, Ludwig Minkus
Ludwig Minkus
Ludwig Minkus a.k.a. Léon Fyodorovich Minkus was an Austrian composer of ballet music, a violin virtuoso and teacher.Minkus is most noted for the music he composed while serving as Ballet Composer of the St...
, Léo Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
, Riccardo Drigo
Riccardo Drigo
Riccardo Eugenio Drigo , a.k.a. Richard Drigo was an Italian composer of ballet music and Italian Opera, a theatrical conductor, and a pianist....
and Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
.
The difficulties brought upon the Russian ballet as a result of the 1917 revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
caused a substantial number of works in the Imperial Ballet's repertory to become lost. The Imperial Ballet's production of La Fille mal gardée was performed for the last time on , only one month prior to the October revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, with the Ballerina Elsa Vill as Lise.
The notation of the Imperial Ballet's production
As with many of the works that comprised the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet's repertory at the turn of the 20th century, the Petipa/Ivanov/Hertel production of La Fille mal gardée was notated in the Stepanov method of choreographic notation by the company's régisseur Nicholas Sergeyev and his team of notatorsSergeyev Collection
The Sergeyev Collection is a collection of choreographic notation, music, photos, décor and costume designs, theatre programs and various other materials relating to the repertory of the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia at the turn of the 20th century...
. Sergeyev brought these notations with him when he left Russia in 1917, and utilized them to mount such ballets as the Petipa/Ivanov Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
, Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty
The Sleeping Beauty Ballet
The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet in a prologue and three acts, first performed in 1890. The music was by Pyotr Tchaikovsky . The score was completed in 1889, and is the second of his three ballets. The original scenario was conceived by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, and is based on Charles Perrault's La...
, the Imperial Ballet's original 1892 The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...
, the Petipa/Ivanov/Cecchetti
Enrico Cecchetti
Enrico Cecchetti was an Italian ballet dancer, mime, and founder of the Cecchetti method. The son of two dancers from Civitanova Marche, he was born in the costuming room of the Teatro Tordinona in Rome. After an illustrious career as a dancer in Europe, he went to dance for the Imperial Ballet in...
Coppélia
Coppélia
Coppélia is a sentimental comic ballet with original choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon to a ballet libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter and music by Léo Delibes. It was based upon two macabre stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann , and Die Puppe...
, and Petipa's definitive Giselle
Giselle
Giselle is a ballet in two acts with a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier, music by Adolphe Adam, and choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. The librettist took his inspiration from a poem by Heinrich Heine...
for the first time outside of Russia, primarily for the Royal Ballet.
Today all of these notations, including those for the Imperial Ballet's production of La Fille mal gardée, are part of a collection known as the Sergeyev Collection
Sergeyev Collection
The Sergeyev Collection is a collection of choreographic notation, music, photos, décor and costume designs, theatre programs and various other materials relating to the repertory of the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia at the turn of the 20th century...
which is today housed in the theatre collection of the Harvard University Library
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. To date, no ballet company has utilized the notations and the accompanying piano reduction of Hertel's score for La Fille mal gardée to reconstruct the choreography.
Alexander Gorsky's revival
On , an important revival of La Fille mal gardée premiered at the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. This version was staged by Alexander Gorsky, a former danseur of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres who had had recently been appointed Premier maître de ballet of the Moscow troupe. Gorsky's 1903 version was based on the Petipa/Ivanov production he had learned during his career in St. Petersburg. It is this version that would eventually serve as the basis for nearly every production mounted in Russia, Europe and the Americas for many decades. Gorsky's version of the Grand pas de deux of the second act would go on to become a famous repertory excerpt on the gala and competition circuit.La Fille mal gardée in the 20th century
The first performances of the Russian La Fille mal gardée (i.e. derived from Petipa and Ivanov's revivals) in the west were presented by the touring company of the legendary Ballerina Anna Pavlova, one of the most celebrated interpreters of the role of Lise, who while touring London in 1912 performed in an abriged version of the ballet.In 1930 the choreographers Asaf Messerer
Asaf Messerer
Asaf Mikhailovich Messerer was a Russian Jewish ballet dancer and ballet teacher. He was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. From 1919 until 1921 he trained as a dancer at the Bolshoi Ballet School under Mikhail Mordkin...
and Igor Moiseyev
Igor Moiseyev
Igor Alexandrovich Moiseyev has been widely acclaimed as the greatest 20th-century choreographer of character dance, a dance style similar to folk dance but with more professionalism and theatrics....
mounted a new version La Fille mal gardée for the Bolshoi Ballet, which was based on the 1903 edition by Gorsky. For this production Messerer and Moiseyev added a new act to the ballet titled The Wedding of Lise and Colas, set to an arrangement of music taken from Glinka's
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka , was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music...
Orpheus
Orpheus
Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...
. Messerer and Moiseyev's version remained in the Bolshoi Theatre's repertory for only two years, and was then revived under the title The Rivals in 1935, with the Hertel/Glinka music revised by the conductor Alexander Mosolov
Alexander Mosolov
Alexander Vasilyevich MosolovMosolov's name is transliterated variously and inconsistently between sources. Alternative spellings of Alexander include Alexandr, Aleksandr, Aleksander, and Alexandre; variations on Mosolov include Mossolov and Mossolow...
. This version was given only eighteen performances and then dropped from the repertory altogether.
Pavel Feldt
Pavel Emilyevich Feldt was a Russian conductor and composer. Working for the Kirov Theater he conducted several ballet premieres including Shostakovich's The Limpid Stream and Khachaturian's Gayane....
to create a new score based on the traditional music of Hertel, which included all of the interpolated music the score acquired during the late 19th century. After eleven performances Lavrovsky's production was taken out of the Bolshoi Theatre's regular repertory, and was presented on occasion until the early 1970s. From then on the production was relegated only to occasional performances given by the top graduates of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy.
In 1989 the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet's director Oleg Vinogradov mounted a new version of the ballet for the Kirov Ballet, largely based on the traditional Petipa/Ivanov/Gorsky productions from the turn of the 20th century. In spite of being a great success, Vinogradov's production was taken out of the repertory after his infamous departure as director of the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet in 1995, and to date, the company have no production of the work in their repertory.
La Fille mal gardée in the west
Bronislava NijinskaBronislava Nijinska
Bronislava Nijinska - February 22, 1972)) was a Russian dancer, choreographer, and teacher of Polish descent.Nijinska was born in Minsk, the third child of the Polish dancers Tomasz and Eleonora Nijinska . Her brother was Vaslav Nijinsky...
staged the first production of La Fille mal gardée in the United States for American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
(then known as the Ballet Theatre) in 1940, a version based on the Petipa/Ivanov/Gorsky version to the music of Hertel. Nijinska's version was revived in 1941 under the title The Wayward Daughter, and in 1942 under the title Naughty Lisette. The 1942 production was revised by Dimitri Romanoff in 1949, and was retained in the repertory of the company for many years. Romanoff returned to stage a new version of the ballet for the company in 1972, with the great Ballerina Natalia Makarova
Natalia Makarova
Nataliya Romanovna Makarova is the legendary Soviet-Russian-born prima ballerina. The History of Dance, published in 1981, notes that “Her performances set standards of artistry and aristocracy of dance which mark her as the finest ballerina of her generation.” She has also won awards as an...
as Lise. The Romanoff production proved to be a popular piece in the repertory of American Ballet Theatre, who retained the production until 1984. Many famous dancers, such as Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
, Gelsey Kirkland
Gelsey Kirkland
Gelsey Kirkland is an American ballerina. Kirkland joined the New York City Ballet in 1968 at age fifteen, at the invitation of George Balanchine. She was promoted to soloist in 1969 and principal in 1972...
, Susan Jaffe, Cynthia Gregory
Cynthia Gregory
Cynthia Kathleen Gregory is an American ballerina.-Career:Born in Los Angeles, Gregory’s parents encouraged her to take up dancing when she was five, hoping exercise would stem a history of childhood illnesses. By age six, she was en pointe...
, Fernando Bujones
Fernando Bujones
Fernando Bujones was an American ballet dancer.Born in Miami, Florida to Cuban parents, Bujones is regarded as one of the finest male dancers of the 20th century and hailed as one of the greatest American male dancers of his generation.Bujones' first formal ballet classes were in Alicia Alonso's...
and Marianna Tcherkassky to name but a small few, triumphed in the lead roles of the ballet. Today the company includes Sir Frederick Ashton's version in their active repertory (originally staged for the Royal Ballet in 1960), though the La Fille mal gardée pas de deux is often performed during gala performances.
In 1942 the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was a ballet company created by members of the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo in 1938 after Léonide Massine and René Blum had a falling-out with the co-founder Wassily de Basil...
presented their first production of La Fille mal gardée, staged by the former ballerina of the Imperial Ballet Alexandra Balachova in a version largely based on Alexander Gorsky's production derived from the Petipa/Ivanov staging of the late 19th century.
Many of the dancers who worked with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo went on to have successful careers as choreographers, teachers, and balletmasters abroad, and would use Balachova's version as a basis for many revivals throughout the world. The celebrated ballerina Alicia Alonso
Alicia Alonso
Alicia Alonso Martínez is the Cuban prima ballerina assoluta and choreographer. Her company became the Ballet de Cuba in 1955....
danced Balachova's staging of La Fille mal gardée throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and she would go on to stage her own version of the work for the Cuban Ballet in 1964. As a result the majority of ballet companies in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
and South America regularly perform productions derived from Alonso's staging to the music of Hertel.
In 1985 Claude Bessy
Claude Bessy
Claude Bessy , also known as "Kickboy Face," was an iconic founder of the Los Angeles punk scene in the late 1970s.-Biography:...
staged her version of La Fille mal gardée for the Ballet School of the Paris Opéra
Paris Opera Ballet
The Paris Opera Ballet is the oldest national ballet company in the world, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it...
, a production inspired by the 1972 version of Dimitri Romanoff for American Ballet Theatre. For this production Bessy used Hertel's 1864 score in an orchestration by the Paris Opéra's conductor Jean-Michel Damase
Jean-Michel Damase
Jean-Michel Damase is a French pianist, conductor and composer of classical music.Damase was studying with Marcel Samuel-Rousseau at age five and composing by age nine...
.
Sir Frederick Ashton's production for the Royal Ballet
In 1959, the choreographer Frederick AshtonFrederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
began creating a completely new version of La Fille mal gardée for the Royal Ballet of London. This production premiered on 28 January 1960, with the ballerina Nadia Nerina
Nadia Nerina
Nadia Nerina was a South African ballerina. She moved to England and joined the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, where she became a prima ballerina at the age of 25. She was one of the first western dancers to appear with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow during the Cold War...
as Lise and David Blair
David Blair (dancer)
David Blair was a renowned British ballet dancer and a leading star of the Royal Ballet company in London during the 1950s and 1960s....
as Colas. Ashton's production was a resounding success that was hailed unanimously as the definitive version of La Fille mal gardée. Since its inception Ashton's staging has become a much celebrated classic of the ballet repertory.
Ivor Forbes Guest
Ivor Forbes Guest DUniv MA FRAD worked professionally as a lawyer, but is best known as a historian for his study of ballet. He was chairman of the Royal Academy of Dance for thirty years and has been a Vice President since 1993 and Secretary then Trustee of the Radcliffe Trust...
, Ashton studied the 1828 score by Ferdinand Hérold, and found the light, simple music more suitable for his conception.
Ashton then commissioned the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
's composer and conductor John Lanchbery
John Lanchbery
John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English, later Australian, composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.-Life:...
to orchestrate and edit Hérold's score. After becoming frustrated with the under-developed nature of this music, Ashton and Lanchbery decided that Hérold's music would be better used as a foundation for an entirely new score, for which Lanchbery would compose a few new numbers. They went even further by incorporating passages of the original pastiche music from the premiere of 1789 into the score, as well as one number from Hertel's score which was utilized for the famous Clog Dance.
Ashton was disappointed that Hérold's score contained no suitable Grand pas, and for a while considered using the well-known La Fille mal gardée pas de deux. Ivor Guest found a violin reduction of the pas de deux that Fanny Elssler had arranged for her performance in the ballet in 1837, tucked away in an old box of music at the Paris Opéra. This number is now known as The Fanny Elssler pas de deux.
Ashton created what is considered to he among his most masterful choreography for his new version of La Fille mal gardée. He resurrected the Pas de ruban for Lise and Colas, in which the lovers perform a charming pas with intricate tricks using a pink satin ribbon. Ashton took this idea to an entirely new level with the Fanny Elssler pas de deux, devising a spectacular Grand adage for Lise, Colas and eight women with eight ribbons. Ashton also included Petipa's original mimed sequence known as When I'm Married, a passage that was performed by all of the great ballerinas of old when they danced the role of Lise. He was taught this passage by 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...
, former Ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres and the original Ballet Russe. She had in turn learned it from her teacher Pavel Gerdt
Pavel Gerdt
Pavel Andreyevich Gerdt, also known as Paul Gerdt , was the Premier Danseur Noble of the Imperial Ballet, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, and the Mariinsky Theatre for 56 years, making his debut in 1860, and retiring in 1916...
, once the Imperial Ballet's leading male dancer who partnered all of the great ballerinas of the late 19th century and early 20th century in the role of Lise, including Virginia Zucchi
Virginia Zucchi
Virginia Zucchi was an Italian dancer. Her career as a ballerina spanned from 1864 to 1898, and she was known as "the Divine Virginia" for her artistry, expressiveness, and virtuosity....
.
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
clog
Clog
Clog may refer to:* clog , a shoe with a rigid, often wooden, sole* A blockage in plumbing* A British brand of rock-climbing equipment owned by Wild Country * Clogging, a traditional type of percussive folk dance...
dancers. The dance is performed in the ballet by Lise's mother, the Widow Simone. Lanchbery decided to use the leitmotiv for the Widow Simone from Hertel's score, the only music by Hertel that Lanchbery's score contains. Ashton fashioned a humorous number from this music for Simone and four ballerinas, at the beginning of which Lise tempts her mother with a pair of clogs, which she cannot resist. She puts them on and whirls into one of Ashton's most celebrated numbers, which also features the dancers using the clogs to perform sur la pointe (on their toes).
Ashton's 1960 version of La Fille mal gardée has been staged for many companies throughout the world. For many companies the Ashton version has become the more or less "traditional" version, replacing the productions derived from the Petipa/Ivanov/Gorsky versions danced in Russia to the music of Hertel. Among such companies are the Bolshoi Ballet (2002), and American Ballet Theatre (2004). In spite of this, the famous La Fille mal gardée pas de deux, which is taken from the Petipa/Ivanov/Gorsky versions of the ballet, is still performed with regularity as a gala excerpt, and is often used by various young dancer on the ballet competition circuit.
In 2007 the Paris Opéra Ballet
Paris Opera Ballet
The Paris Opera Ballet is the oldest national ballet company in the world, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it...
invited Alexander Grant
Alexander Grant
Alexander Grant was a Royal Navy officer, businessman, and politician in Upper Canada. During his service with the Royal Navy Grant saw action in the Seven Years' War before becoming a naval superintendent. He then embarked on a career in the ship building industry before losing much of his wealth...
to supervise a staging of Ashton's version, which premiered at the Palais Garnier
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
on 22 July 2007 with Dorothée Gilbert as Lise, Nicolas LeRiche as Colas, Simon Valastro as Alain, Stephane Phavorin as the Widow Simone and Gil Isoart as the Piper.
In 1984, Ashton's production was filmed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Lesley Collier as Lise, and Michael Coleman
Michael Coleman
Michael Coleman may refer to:*Michael Coleman , Canadian performer, voice of numerous anime characters*Michael Coleman , English writer of books for children and young adults; candidate for the 1996 Carnegie Medal...
as Colas, and is available on DVD and video.
In 1962, Lanchbery recorded excerpts of music from his adaptation of Hérold's score, and in 1983 he recorded the complete work, which was not released on CD until 1991 (both recordings were released on the label Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
).
The Ballet du Rhin's revival of the 1789 original
The performance history of La Fille mal gardée came full circle in 1993, when the Ballet du Rhin of MulhouseMulhouse
Mulhouse |mill]] hamlet) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514 and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin département, and the second largest in the Alsace region after...
, France presented a revival of Dauberval's original production of 1789. The production was staged by Ivo Cramer, an expert in late 18th century and early 19th century dance theatre, and the Ballet du Rhin's artistic director, Jean Paul Gravier. They painstakingly researched the original production, locating a copy of the original score in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, which describes the 1789 production, including details of the original mime passages. The original score was restored and orchestrated by the conductor Charles Farncombe
Charles Farncombe
Charles Frederick Farncombe was an English conductor.For London audiences, the conductor Charles Farncombe was primarily associated with the productions of the Handel Opera Society, which he helped found and of which he was musical director for the whole of its 30-year existence, from 1955 onwards...
. The designer Dominique Delouche created sets and costumes inspired by the designs used in the original. Though Dauberval's original choreography is lost, Cramer crafted dances in the style of the period, with heavy influence from folk dancing, as in the original. Cramer also restored the original scheme for the ballet's finale, in which the dancers, singing along with the music, shout out the refrain Il n'est qu'un pas du mal au bien ("There is Only One Step from Bad to Good"). The production was presented under the original title, Le ballet de la paille ("The Ballet of Straw").
Characters
- Lise – (the badly guarded daughter)
- Colas – (Lise's beloved)
- Widow Simone – (Lise's mother, traditionally danced by a man)
- Alain – (Lise's rich dimwitted suitor)
- Thomas – (Alain's father)
- Notary
- Farm workers – friends of Lise and Colas
- Rooster and 3 hens
Synopsis
Lise and Colas are in love and want to marry. However, the Widow Simone wants Lise to marry the dimwitted, but extremely rich, Alain, and has arranged (with Alain's father Thomas) for a marriage contract between Lise and Alain. The Widow Simone does her best to keep Lise and Colas apart, but is unsuccessful in her attempts to do so.At harvest time the Widow Simone and Lise are taken to the field for a picnic lunch by Thomas and Alain. The farm workers join in a ribbon dance around a maypole
Maypole
A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European folk festivals, particularly on May Day, or Pentecost although in some countries it is instead erected at Midsummer...
, and the girls also join in a clog
Clog
Clog may refer to:* clog , a shoe with a rigid, often wooden, sole* A blockage in plumbing* A British brand of rock-climbing equipment owned by Wild Country * Clogging, a traditional type of percussive folk dance...
dance with the Widow Simone. There is a thunderstorm and everyone rushes for shelter. Alain is carried away on the wind by his open umbrella.
The Widow Simone and Lise return to their home. The widow wants Lise to sit down at the spinning wheel and spin, but Lise spins while she is up dancing, nearly strangling the widow. After a while, the widow wants Lise to dance, and Lise shows signs of unhappiness, but obliges. The widow takes a tambourine to play in time with Lise's dancing. When the widow is asleep, Lise tries to steal the key from the widow's pocket, to prevent the widow from locking her in, but is unsuccessful. The crops are brought in by the farm workers, and the widow then leaves the house (after locking the door behind her to prevent Lise from leaving the house). Lise thinks about Colas and mimes
Mime artist
A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer was referred to as a mummer...
being the mother of a large number of children. To her embarrassment, Colas suddenly rises from the stacked crops. At the sound of the Widow Simone's returning to the house, Lise and Colas look around desperately for a place where he can hide. Not finding anywhere suitable in the living room, Lise takes Colas to her room, and she returns to the living room just before Widow Simone enters the house. The Widow Simone orders Lise to go to her room and put on her wedding dress for her forthcoming marriage to Alain. The horrified Lise tries to remain where she is, but the Widow Simone pushes Lise into her room and locks the door.
Thomas arrives with his son Alain (who is still clutching his umbrella). They are accompanied by a notary
Notary public
A notary public in the common law world is a public officer constituted by law to serve the public in non-contentious matters usually concerned with estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney, and foreign and international business...
who is to act as witness to the marriage. The farm workers (friends of both Lise and Colas) also arrive. The Widow Simone gives Alain the key to Lise's room. When Alain unlocks the door to Lise's room, Lise appears in her wedding dress, accompanied by Colas. Thomas and Alain take offence, and the enraged Thomas tears up the marriage contract. Thomas, Alain and the notary leave the house in dudgeon. Lise and Colas then beg the Widow Simone to look favourably upon their suit. Love conquers all and the widow relents. Joyfully celebrating the happy outcome for Lise and Colas, everyone leaves, and the house is left quiet and empty, until Alain returns for his umbrella which he had accidentally left behind. So Alain is also happy with the love of his life – his umbrella.
The score for La Fille mal gardée as adapted by John Lanchbery
NOTE – For Sir Frederick Ashton's 1960 revival John Lanchbery utilized Hérold's 1828 music as well as passages from the original Bordeaux score of 1789 as "raw material". The listing below details all of the dances and scenes of Lanchbery's 1960 score. Except where noted, all of the themes are by Hérold in Lanchbery's adaptation.Act 1
- No.1 Introduction (taken by Hérold from the Overture of Martini'sJean Paul Egide MartiniJean Paul Egide Martini, was a composer of classical music. Sometimes known as Martini Il Tedesco, he is best known today for the vocal romance "Plaisir d'Amour," on which the 1961 Elvis Presley standard "Can't Help Falling in Love" is based...
opera Le Droit du Seigneur) - No.2 Dance of the Cock and Hens
- No.3 Lise and the Ribbon {Pas de Ruban} (taken by Hérold from the Introduction, Pianissimo from Rossini's opera The Barber of SevilleThe Barber of SevilleThe Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
) - No.4 Colas
- No.4a Colas' Solo
- No.5 Colas and Simone
- No.6 Villagers
- No.7 Simone and Lise
- No.8 Lise and Colas {Pas de Ruban} (consisting of themes from Martini's opera Le Droit du Seigneur)
- No.9 Village Girls
- No.10 Thomas and Alain (this number includes the comic solo for Alain, which was composed by Lanchbery)
- No.11 Off to the Harvest (composed by Lanchbery, and consisting of re-stated themes)
- No.12 Colas (re-statement of No.4)
- No.13 Picnic (taken from the original 1789 score – Pas de M. Albert, adapted by Lanchbery). The comic Pas de Trois for Lise, Colas, and Alain was composed by Lanchbery)
- No.14 Flute Dance (taken from the original 1789 score – Pas des Moissonneurs, adapted by Lanchbery)
- No.15 Quarrel (composed by Lanchbery, based on No.14)
- No.16 The Fanny Elssler Pas de deux (themes taken from Donizetti's opera L'elisir d'amoreL'elisir d'amoreL'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
, adapted for the Ballerina Fanny ElsslerFanny ElsslerFanny Elssler - 27 November 1884), born Franziska Elßler, was an Austrian ballerina of the 'Romantic Period'.- Life :Daughter of Johann Florian Elssler, a second generation employee of Prince Esterhazy in Eisenstadt. Both Johann and his brother Josef were employed as copyists to the Prince's...
's 1837 appearance in La Fille mal gardée at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique by the theatre's copyist Aimé-Ambroise-Simon Leborne. Orchestrated by Lanchbery) - No.17 Simone (introduction composed by Lanchbery for the following number)
- No.17a Clog Dance (the only music taken by Lanchbery from Peter Ludwig Hertel's 1864 score. The theme from this number served as a leitmotiv for the Widow Simone in Hertel's 1864 score)
- No.18 Maypole Dance (taken from the original 1789 score – Pas de M. Albert, adapted by Lanchbery)
- No.19 Storm and Finale (though rescored by Lanchbery, this is the almost totally un-altered storm music from Rossini's opera La CenerentolaLa CenerentolaLa Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
)
Act 2
- No.20 Overture
- No.21 Lise and Simone
- No.22 Spinning (taken from the original 1789 score, including re-stated themes, and further adapted by Lanchbery)
- No.23 Tambourine Dance {Aria con variazioni} (taken from the original 1789 score, and further adapted by Lanchbery)
- No.24 Harvesters
- No.25 When I'm Married (taken from the aria Bell'alme generose from Gioacchino RossiniGioacchino RossiniGioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
's opera Elisabetta, regina d'InghilterraElisabetta, regina d'InghilterraElisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, is a dramma per musica or opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, from the play The Page of Leicester by Carlo Federici...
. This is the only number from Hérold's 1828 score that Lanchbery did not re-orchestrate). The central 'linking' section of this number is the main theme of the slow movement of Symphony No 85Symphony No. 85 (Haydn)The Symphony No. 85 in B flat major, Hoboken 1/85, is the fourth of the six "Paris" symphonies written by Joseph Haydn. It is popularly known as La Reine .- Background :...
by Haydn, described by H C Robbins Landon as "variations on the old French folk-song La gentille et jeune Lisette". - No.26 Simone's Return
- No.27 Thomas, Alain and the Notaries
- No.28 Consternation and Forgiveness
- No.29 Pas de deux (a re-scored/adapted version of No.25)
- No.30 Finale (composed by Lanchbery)
Recordings of the music
To date, there have only been recordings of John LanchberyJohn Lanchbery
John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English, later Australian, composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.-Life:...
's 1960 adaptation of the Ferdinand Hérold score and excerpts from Peter Ludwig Hertel's 1864 score. Not all of these recordings are currently in print.
- Pas de deux – The Ballet Experience: (released in 2002 (CD Capriccio 67 012) Boris Spassov conducting the Sofia National Opera Orchestra. Includes the original music for the so-called La Fille mal gardée pas de deux from Hertel's score.
- Original Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra – Ballet Gala (released 1989; taken from the 10 CD boxed-set Original Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra (CD Pilz 441008-2), Georgi G. Zhemchushin conducting the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. This recording contains the so-called La Fille mal gardée pas de deux in the musical edition used for Aleander Gorsky's production of the full-length ballet, which is the traditional version familiar to modern dancers and audiences. The male variation is by Riccardo DrigoRiccardo DrigoRiccardo Eugenio Drigo , a.k.a. Richard Drigo was an Italian composer of ballet music and Italian Opera, a theatrical conductor, and a pianist....
, being an insertion for the Imperial Ballet's production of La forêt enchantée. The female variation, also by Drigo, is the gallop taken from the composer's Quatre airs de ballet (the gallop also turns up occasionally as a variation for the female in the so-called Harlequinade pas de deuxLes Millions d'ArlequinLes millions d'Arlequin is a ballet in two acts with libretto and choreography by Marius Petipa and music by Riccardo Drigo. First presented at the Imperial Theatre of the Hermitage by the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia on Friday,...
), while the coda is taken from Johann Armsheimer's score for Marius Petipa's 1896 ballet Le halte de cavalerie.
- La Fille mal gardée – excerpts, John Lanchbery conducting the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. This contains excerpts from John Lanchbery's 1960 adaptation of Ferdinand Hérold's 1828 score, recorded in 1962 and issued on LP; re-released in 1993 on CD (Decca 430 196–2). This recording has frequently been praised by various reviewers for its exceptional sound quality. The original LP (Decca SXL 2313) even found its way onto the "Superdisc List" maintained by The Absolute SoundThe Absolute SoundThe Absolute Sound is an American monthly magazine which reviews audiophile-oriented sound-reproduction and recording equipment and recordings, and comments on various music-related subjects. It was founded in 1973 by Harry Pearson, who was the Editor in Chief...
.
- Hérold: La fille mal gardee (highlights) / Messager: The Two Pigeons and Isoline, Barry Wordsworth conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. This recording of La Fille mal gardée was originally released on LP in 1983 and re-released in 1988 on CD (Classics for Pleasure 586 1782). This set contains excerpts from John Lanchbery's 1960 adaptation of Ferdinand Hérold's 1828 score. (The recording also includes Messager's The Two Pigeons and the ballet music from his IsolineIsoline (opera)Isoline is an opera, described as a 'conte de fées' in three acts and ten tableaux, on a text by Catulle Mendès, with music by André Messager.-Background:...
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- Hérold – La Fille mal gardée – complete / Lecocq – Mam'zelle Angot, John Lanchbery conducting the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The recording of La Fille mal gardée was originally released on LP in 1985; the 1991 CD re-release is out-of-print (Decca 430 849–2), but the recording was re-released in 2007 (Decca Eloquence 442 9048). This is the only recording that contains the complete music for La Fille mal gardée in John Lanchbery's 1960 adaptation of Ferdinand Hérold's 1828 score. (The recording also includes conductor Richard BonyngeRichard BonyngeRichard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...
's recording of Gordon JacobGordon JacobGordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...
's arrangement of Charles Lecocq's Mam'zelle Angot, played by the National Philharmonic Orchestra.)
Sources
- Guest, Ivor ForbesIvor Forbes GuestIvor Forbes Guest DUniv MA FRAD worked professionally as a lawyer, but is best known as a historian for his study of ballet. He was chairman of the Royal Academy of Dance for thirty years and has been a Vice President since 1993 and Secretary then Trustee of the Radcliffe Trust...
. La Fille mal gardée: History of the Ballet. - Guest, Ivor ForbesIvor Forbes GuestIvor Forbes Guest DUniv MA FRAD worked professionally as a lawyer, but is best known as a historian for his study of ballet. He was chairman of the Royal Academy of Dance for thirty years and has been a Vice President since 1993 and Secretary then Trustee of the Radcliffe Trust...
and Lanchbery, John. The Score of La Fille mal gardée. Published in Theatre Research, Vol. III, No. 3, 1961. - Guest, Ivor ForbesIvor Forbes GuestIvor Forbes Guest DUniv MA FRAD worked professionally as a lawyer, but is best known as a historian for his study of ballet. He was chairman of the Royal Academy of Dance for thirty years and has been a Vice President since 1993 and Secretary then Trustee of the Radcliffe Trust...
. CD Liner Notes. Ferdinand Hérold. La Fille mal gardée – Excerpts. John Lanchbery Cond. Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. CD Decca 430 196–2 - Guest, Ivor ForbesIvor Forbes GuestIvor Forbes Guest DUniv MA FRAD worked professionally as a lawyer, but is best known as a historian for his study of ballet. He was chairman of the Royal Academy of Dance for thirty years and has been a Vice President since 1993 and Secretary then Trustee of the Radcliffe Trust...
. CD Liner Notes. Ferdinand Hérold/Charles Lecocq. La Fille mal gardée / Mam'zelle Angot . John Lanchbery cond. Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden / Richard Bonynge cond. National Philharmonic Orchestra. 2CD Decca 430 849–2. - Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet / Mariinsky Theatre. Theatre Program for La Fille mal gardée. January 1994.
- Royal Ballet / Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Theatre Program for La Fille mal gardée. February, 1978 and January 1998.
- Wiley, Roland John. The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov.
External links
- La Fille mal Gardée – about the ballet
- La Fille mal gardée – Australia Dancing
- La Fille mal gardée – Pennsylvania Ballet Academy of Music