Kabannik T.
Dragomanov National Pedagogical University
Institute of Arts
Scientific
supervisor – Pet’ko L.,
Ph.D., Associate Professor,
Dragomanov National Pedagogical University, Kyiv
Marius PETIPA and his life in Ballet
We know Marius
Petipa as the father of modern Classical Ballet. His career, mostly spent in
the Russian Imperial Ballet, that lasted nearly sixty years. Marius Petipa was
both a dancer and later a choreographer. He is the best remembered for
masterpieces which are still mainstays of ballet such as «The
Nutcracker», «Sleeping
Beauty», «Swan Lake» and «Don Quixote». His contributions to modern classical ballet have been vast and
this is in part due not only to his long career but to his experience with all
elements of production. From dancing to designing as well as researching,
Marius Petipa was able to revolutionize ballet, especially in Russia where
he served as ballet master for the Imperial Ballet.
Although the
career of Marius Petipa ended without a great deal of fanfare after an
unsuccessful production, his legacy remains. While no one will remember that
last failed ballet, history will remember his enormous contribution to
choreography and dance through the many other pieces he worked. In total,
Marius Petipa produced over 50 ballets, reworked over 20 old pieces, and
arranged the dancing in over 35 operas [2].
The aim of our article is to investigate
theoretical material and to analyze literary works on this theme.
To achieve the aim we have defined such tasks:
1. To learn a biography of the famous choreographer
M.Petipa.
2. To describe his life in ballet.
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. The word
choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words
"χορεία" (circular dance, see choreia) and "γραφή" (writing). A choreographer is one who creates choreographies by
practicing the art of choreography [3].
Making visions of dance come alive requires
inspiration, determination and refined craft. A choreographer may have vivid
ideas for a new work. However, translating this imagination into dancers'
bodies and shaping it into a dance that is ready to be performed is a very
challenging, yet equally rewarding, process.
For most
choreographers, making dance is a passion. The poetry and excitement of
movement motivates their creativity and they find their greatest potential for
expression through the unique elements of dance. The one of the most popular
and famous choreographer is Marius Petipa. He said: «I can state that I created
a ballet company of which everyone said: ‘St. Petersburg has the greatest
ballet in all Europe [4]».
Petipa will be
forever associated with lavish productions, character and classical dances, big
ensemble and dramatic scenes in mime or in pas d’action (mime with dance). His dances combine the technical purity of the French school with the
virtuosity of the Italian school. He was very involved in the creation of
his ballets, researching subject matter extensively and working close with the
composer and designer. He created choreography before going to the studio and
teaching it to his dancers. He produced more than 46 original works and revised
many more (e.g. Giselle), of which a large share is still being
performed today.
Petipa’s ballets
have survived more of less intact thanks to the availability of the Stepanov
Method of notation from 1891 onwards. The method combines the
encoding of dance movements with musical notes, in two steps: first, the breaking
down of a complex movement and second, the translation of the broken down/basic
movement into a musical symbol. The project was taken over by Alexander Gorsky
and eventually by Nicholas Sergeyev,
a former Imperial dancer, who later brought Giselle to the Paris
Opéra Ballet and The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Coppélia
and The Nutcracker into The Royal Ballet. These notated versions
became the standard choreographic text and have been adopted by nearly every
major ballet company in the world [4].
Marius Petipa
(born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa) was the inventor of modern classical
ballet. During the latter half of the 19th century Petipa elevated Russian
ballet to international acclaim and recognition; the Frenchman who came to be
known as «the father of Russian
ballet», left a legacy that
continues to this day. He greatly expanded the role of male dancers and we have
him to thank for the leaping, twirling, breathtaking men's choreography we now
see in ballets.
His renown is undisputed and his
work lives not only in the pages of dance history but in the ballet repertoire
of most current Companies.
Petipa rose to
fame in St. Petersburg, where he produced more than 60 major ballets and
numerous shorter ones over his almost 60-year career. In total, he also reworked
over 20 old pieces and arranged the dancing in over 35 operas. His fantasy was
absolutely amazing, fueling such all time European classics as «Don Quixote»,
«The Pharaoh’s Daughter», «The Corsair», «The Bayadere» and «Giselle». Still,
Petipa owed his biggest triumphs to his majestic staging of Russian ballets set
to music by P.Tchaikovsky [8].
Nitpicking and
demanding, the ever-tasteful perfectionist Petipa seemed to some an absolutely
unbearable person; but it was under his watch that the Mariinsky Ballet
(Russia’s Imperial Theater, St. Petersburg) made a quantum leap forward to
become one of the very best in Europe and the world. Over the course of his
career in St. Petersburg as chief ballet master of Russia’s Imperial Theater he
raised technical standards for dancing and set new ones for choreographing
evening-length ballets [1].
M.Petipa wrote his memoirs, which were published in 1906. His highly
entertaining remembrances had never before been translated from French into
English before their first publication in 1958. Petipa's memoirs reveal many
interesting details of his career and the people he worked with, including
Tchaikovsky and the young Pavlova, and provide an insight into his character
and genius that it is not possible to gain from any other source [1]. The
future ballet star was a slender girl with an «airy» constitution, while at that
time a strong build was considered necessary for a dancer in order to perform
complicated movements and figures.
It was the great ballet master Marius Petipa who recognized her talent,
and Anna Pavlova was finally accepted as a student in 1891. Studying at the
Imperial Ballet School with its iron discipline was very hard. The students had
to get up early in the morning, take a cold shower, eat breakfast and after
that started lessons which would last until evening, being interrupted only by
dinner, performances, and brief walks in the fresh air [5].
And so, Frenchman
Marius Petipa became ballet master of the Russian Imperial Ballet, a
choreographer who had perhaps the biggest impact on the formation of Russian
ballet. Petipa's choreography was simple and clean with the same combinations
repeated and molded into intricacy with less narration. M.Petipa was able to
identify with the idea of Russian ballet being very expressive – despite his
being French – and worked to incorporate Russian folk dance into ballet as well
as other dances inspired by fairytales.
Petipa produced a
classic, Giselle, and is responsible
for its revival in 1884, as well as the restagings of Coppélia in 1884 and Esmeralda
in 1886.
In Petipa’s
performances, the dancers were seen as a hierarchy to match court society,
starting with the prima ballerina down through the corps de ballet. During his
«reign» as a ballet master, a decrease in male dancers was seen, as he focused
mostly on female dancers and their role onstage. The function of the male
dancer was transformed to that of a supporter for the ballerina in lifts and
pirouettes; this stability and permanence was due to the court’s requests and
contrasted the previous «pursuit of attainable dream [9]».
Petipa worked
together with composer P.Tchaikovsky, they produced The Sleeping Beauty, considered Petipa’s greatest success, along
with The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, which was revived in 1894.
Second ballet master Lev Ivanov also assisted. Historians agree that «both
musically and choreographically The
Sleeping Beauty is the crowning glory of Russian nineteenth century ballet
and includes some of Petipa’s finest works». Below is the waltz from The Sleeping Beauty, as performed by the
Kirov Ballet [10].
To sum up, we
would like to introduce a selection of ballets choreographed by Petipa in
Russia: La Fille du Pharaon (1862), Floride (1866), Le Roi Candaule (1868), Don
Quixote (1869), Trilby (1870), La Camargo (1872), Le Papillon (1874), Les
Bandits (1875), La Bayadère (1877),
The Magic Pills (1886), The Talisman (1889), The Sleeping Beauty (1890), Kalkabrino (1891), Cinderella (music by Baron Shell, 1893), Swan Lake (with Ivanov, 1895), Halte
de Cavalerie (1896), Raymonda
(1898), Ruses d’Amour (1900), Les Saisons (1900), Les Millions d’Arlequin (1900), The
Magic Mirror (1903) [7].
Petipa’s «ballet à grand spectacle» called for massive forces, luxurious productions and predictable
choreographic components. In constructing the acts of a ballet he selected from
a variety of elements: massed scenes, character dances which provided a sense
of local color, classical dances (which normally called for a suspension of the
narrative) and dramatic encounters between the principal characters, set either
as pure mime or in «pas
d’action», a mixture of mime and
dancing [6].
Speaking about
M.Petipa old-timers will never forget this small, old man. After all those
years of living in St. Petersburg he left behind the great Russian school of
ballet dancing. His productions are all classics now gracing the programs of
the world’s finest theaters.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.
Ïåòèïà Ì. Ìåìóàðû Ìàðèóñà Ïåòèïà. – Èçä-âî: Ïðåäïðèÿòèå Ñàíêò-Ïåòåðáóðãñêîãî Ñîþçà õóäîæíèêîâ, 1996.
2. Biography of Marius Petipa : His
Life and Work [Web site]. – Access mode : http://www.articlemyriad.com/biography-marius-petipa-life-work/
3. Choreography [Web site]. – Access mode : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choreography
4. Golden Years [Web site]. – Access
mode : http://www.theballetbag.com/2009/12/13/marius_petipa/
6. Marius Petipa, choreographer [Web site]. – Access mode : https://www.balletmet.org/backstage/ballet-notes/155
7. Prominent Russians: Marius Petipa
[Web site]. – Access mode : http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/opera-and-ballet/marius-petipa/
8. Tchaikovsky's: Swan Lake (Ëåáåäèíîå îçåðî), 1989. – Ðîññèÿ. Àêòåðû: Àëåêñàíäð
Áîãàòûðåâ, Ëþáîâü Êóíàêîâà, Íàäåæäà
Ïàâëîâà. Êîìïîçèòîð:
Ïåòð Èëüè÷ ×àéêîâñêèé. Õîðåîãðàôèÿ: Ìàðèóñ Ïåòèïà, Ëåâ Èâàíîâ. Øåäåâð ðóññêîé
õîðåîãðàôèè â èñïîëíåíèè ëåãåíäàðíûõ çâåçä Áîëüøîãî è Êèðîâñêîãî òåàòðîâ [Web
site]. – Accesses mode
: http://www.inoekino.ru/genre.php?id=433,478
9. Twentieth Century Ballet. Marius Petipa [Web site].
– Access mode :
http://emilyerinblair.weebly.com/marius-petipa.html
10.
Òîï – 10 ëó÷øèõ áàëåòíûõ ïîñòàíîâîê [Web site].
– Access mode :http://www.rate1.com.ua/issledovanija-rate1/2285/