Jean-Georges Noverre (29 April 1727 19 October 1810) was a French dancer and ballet master, and is generally considered the creator of ballet d'action, a precursor of the narrative ballets of the 19th century. His birthday is now observed as International Dance Day.
His first professional appearances occurred as a youth in Paris at the Opéra-Comique, at Fontainebleau, in Berlin before Frederick II and his brother Prince Henry of Prussia, in Dresden and Strasburg. In 1747 he moved to Strasbourg, where he remained until 1750 before moving to Lyon. In 1751, he composed his first great work, Les Fêtes Chinoises for Marseilles. The work was revived in Paris in 1754 to great acclaim. In 1755, he was invited by Garrick to London, where he remained for two years.
Between 1758 and 1760 he produced several ballets at Lyon, and published his . It is from this period that the revolution in the art of the ballet for which Noverre was responsible can be dated. Prior to Noverre, ballets were large spectacles that focused mainly on elaborate costumes and scenery and not on the physical and emotional expression of the dancers. He was next engaged by Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg, and later Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, until 1774. In 1776, he was appointed maître des ballets of the Paris Opera at the request of Queen Marie Antoinette. He returned to Vienna in Spring of 1776 to stage ballets there, but in June 1776 he returned again to Paris. He regained this post until the French Revolution reduced him to poverty. He died on 19 October 1810 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Noverre's friends included Voltaire, Mozart, Frederick the Great and David Garrick (who called him "the Shakespeare of the dance"). The ballets of which he was most proud were his La Toilette de Vénus, Les Jalousies du sérail, L'Amour corsaire and Le Jaloux sans rival. Besides the Lettres sur la danse, Noverre wrote Observations sur la construction d'une nouvelle salle de l'Opéra (1781); Lettres sur Garrick écrites à Voltaire (1801); and Lettre à un artiste sur les fêtes publiques (1801).
Early life and career
In 1774 King Louis XV died and Noverre's dear friend Marie-Antoinette became the Queen of France. Marie-Antoinette did not forget about her dear Dance Master, and appointed Noverre to the Paris Opera. This was Noverre's shining moment, but the loyalty and backing of Marie-Antoinette could switch. In 1779 Noverre was unseated from his position because Dauberval, Maximilien Gardel and Mlle Guimard gathered prominent people and poisoned them against Noverre. However, Noverre didn't leave the Opera until 1781. Noverre's fitting effect on the Paris ballet world would be preserved by the production of his tragic ballet Jason et Médée in 1763. In 1787, Pierre Gardel inherited the throne and Paris Opera, and carried out Noverre's ideas on costume and thoughts on ballet pantomime. (Chazin-Bennhaum) He composed Les Caprices de Galathée, for example, and garbed his dancers in tiger skins and shoes made of tree bark. His naturalist attitude towards costume placed him in the front rank of the French Enlightenment.
Les Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballets
Context
Noverre's treatise on dancing and theater expressed his aesthetic theories on the production of ballets and his method of teaching ballet. Noverre wrote this text in London in 1756 and published it in 1760 in Lyon, France. He began his research for his essays in Drury Lane, London, where he choreographed for his own troupe of dancers at the Theatre Royal under the direction of David Garrick. It was in David Garrick's library that Noverre read modern French literature and ancient Latin treatises on pantomime. Noverre was inspired by the pantomimes that he thought stirred up the audience's emotions by the use of expressive movement. He proclaimed in his text that ballet should unfold through dramatic movement, and the movement should express the relationship between the characters. Noverre named this type of ballet, ballet d’action or pantomime ballet (International Dictionary of Ballet 1032). From 1757 to 1760, he produced thirteen new works with composer François Granier at the Lyon Opera. His lighter, colorful pantomime ballets like Les Caprices de Galathée, La Toilette de Vénus, and Les Jalousies du sérail, received great success.