Ombres et flamboiements du ballet romantique à Paris

In the wake of the ballet revolution ushered in by Marie Taglioni in the late 1820s and early 1830s, the Académie Royale de Musique continued to advance. The great choreographers of the period all produced major works – Saint-Léon, Mazilier, Perrot et Coralli – and ballets choreographed by Marius Petipa saw their first performances there, works like Giselle or Paquita which Petipa went on to revive in Saint Petersburg. In 1841, the last reprise of Les Noces de Gamache was performed, the template for Don Quichotte, with his brother Lucien in the lead role. At the same time, the school initiated by Pierre Gardel, a leading choreographer of the late eighteenth century, went into decline, due to a failure to adapt to the revolutionary introduction of pointe work. The period also saw the acme of the prima ballerina, pushed to its very limits under the aegis of Dr Véron. A wealth of archive information and period press reports shed clear light on the very differing practices separating Paris from Saint Petersburg.