Tag Archives: Louis XIV

A DANCE FROM THE LAST BALL AT MARLY: LA ROYALLE

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In his Nouveau Recüeil de dance de bal et celle de ballet, a collection of dances by Guillaume-Louis Pecour, Gaudrau included nine ball dances. In his Preface, Gaudrau declared that they had been performed at the last ball given at Louis XIV’s favourite retreat Marly. The Nouveau Recüeil received permission to be printed in October 1712 and is generally agreed to have appeared in 1713.

The last ball at Marly must have taken place in the early months of 1711. Such entertainments were not given regularly there and the death of Louis XIV’s son Monseigneur, in April 1711, would have severely curtailed all court amusements for the rest of that year and beyond. In February 1712, the King suffered the double blow of the deaths of Monseigneur’s eldest son, then the Dauphin, and his Dauphine. These sad losses brought an end to all festivities for some time. Gaudrau would have been vividly aware of all of these unhappy events as he prepared the Nouveau Recüeil for publication, although there is no reference to them either in his preface or Pecour’s dedication of the collection to Louis XIV.

The Dauphine, Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, had been a great favourite of the King from her first arrival at the French court in 1696. She revitalized the court with her high spirits and became well-known for her love of dancing.

Marie-Adelaide de Savoie

Pierre Gobert, Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, Duchesse de Bourgogne, 1710

Were the nine ball dances (with which the collection begins) intended as a tribute to her? Several ball dances published in notation in the early 1700s were either named in her honour or dedicated to her. Among them is La Royalle, the very first choreography in the Nouveau Recüeil. Around 1725, when the dancing master Pierre Rameau included the dance in his Abbrégé de la nouvelle méthode dans l’art d’écrire ou de traçer toutes sortes de danses de ville, he revealed that La Royalle had been created for Marie-Adélaïde. We may guess that she had actually danced it at that last ball given at Marly in 1711.

There may be another tribute enfolded within this choreography. The music for La Royalle, a saraband followed by a bourrée, is taken from Colasse’s Ballet des Saisons. Both pieces were originally by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The saraband comes from the 1665 Ballet de la Naissance de Vénus. This ballet de cour had first been performed in the apartments of Henriette d’Angleterre, known simply as Madame, the first wife of Louis’s brother Philippe. She had not only appeared in the ballet’s title role but had also danced in its final entrée as Roxane to Louis’s Alexander the Great. She and the King had enjoyed a notable dance partnership. Some years earlier, in 1661, Madame had appeared as Diana in Lully’s Ballet des Saisons. She had died, unexpectedly and aged only twenty-six, in 1671.

Henrietta Anne

Sir Peter Lely, Henriette Anne, Duchesse d’Orléans, 1662

Surely La Royalle was intended to honour both Madame and Marie-Adélaïde, who was her granddaughter and like Henriette Anne was greatly beloved for her beauty and charm.

La Royalle 1

Guillaume-Louis Pecour, La Royalle (Paris, c1713), first plate

We still have much to learn about the subtle allusions that lie within the elegant and sophisticated ball dances created for the court of Louis XIV and that of his successor Louis XV, Marie-Adélaïde’s son.

 

A Year of Dance: 1666

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England continued to be involved in the second Anglo-Dutch War, with sea battles in June and July and a raid on Holland in August 1666, but the most significant event of the year (as destructive of property as the plague of the previous year had been of life) was the great fire of London in early September.

Great Fire of London

Anon. The Great Fire of London. Ludgate in flames with St Paul’s Cathedral (in the background) catching Fire (c1670)

The blaze left much of the city in ruins and it would take some years before life returned to normal. London’s theatres, in what was becoming the ‘West End’ were too far from the city itself to be directly affected. They reopened in December 1666 following their 18-month closure because of the plague. With so few performances in 1666, it is hardly surprising that there was no mention of dancing.

In France, the Queen Mother Anne of Austria died on 20 January 1666 (N.S.). Louise de la Vallière gave birth to Louis XIV’s daughter on 2 October (N.S.). She was known as Marie Anne de Bourbon and then, after she was legitimised, as Mlle de Blois. The first danced entertainment of the year preceded the death of the Queen Mother. The mascarade Le Triomphe de Bacchus was performed at the Palais Royal on 9 January 1666 (N.S.) with a cast entirely of male professional dancers. Pierre Beauchamps danced Bacchus. That year’s ballet de cour was delayed until mourning for the Queen Mother was over. The Ballet des Muses was first given at St Germain-en-Laye on 2 December 1666 (N.S.) and continued to be performed until February 1667. Louis XIV renewed his dance partnership with his sister-in-law Madame, who was indisputably the ballet’s leading female dancer. They appeared together in the 4th Entrée as a Berger and Bergère, in the 6th Entrée as an Espagnol and Espagnolle and in the 14th and final Entrée as a Maure and Mauresque. In addition, Madame appeared among the ladies of the court as the leading Pieride in the 11th Entrée. The King also danced as Cyrus in the 8th Entrée and as a Nymphe in the 12th Entrée. The latter marked his last appearance in a female role.

A Year of Dance: 1665

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In 1665 the most significant event by far for England was the great plague of London, which took hold during the summer months and lasted until early 1666. The court moved to Salisbury in July 1665 and only returned to London the following February. The country was in the midst of the second Anglo-Dutch War, which began in March. (The first Anglo-Dutch War had been as long ago as 1652-1654, under the Commonwealth). An equally important event was the birth of a second daughter to the Duke and Duchess of York – Princess Anne would become Queen in 1702. Charles II’s third illegitimate son George Fitzroy, by Barbara Villiers Countess of Castlemaine, was born on 25 December 1665. He would later become Duke of Northumberland.

The diarist John Evelyn recorded a masque at court on 2 February. Samuel Pepys provided some additional details in his diary entry for the following day:

‘Then Mrs Pickering … did, at my Lady’s command, tell me the manner of the masquerade before the King and court the other day. Where six women (my Lady Castelmayne and Duchess of Monmouth being two of them) and six men (the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Arran and Monsieur Blancfort being three of them) in vizards, but most rich and antique dresses, did dance admirably, and most gloriously.’

There are no mentions of dancing in the theatres up to their closure, because of the plague, on 5 June 1665. They did not reopen until the autumn of 1666.

In France, Louis XIV’s mistress gave birth to two sons during 1665, one on 7 January (N.S.) and the other on 27 December (N.S.). Both babies died during 1666. The ballet de cour for 1665 was the Ballet de la Naissance de Vénus, in which the King’s sister-in-law Madame appeared as the goddess in the first Entrée with her husband as the Morning Star. She made her second appearance in the final Entrée as Roxane, with Louis XIV as Alexander the Great. The professional ballerina Mlle de Verpré appeared in the second Entrée of Part 2 as Daphne with a noble dancer, the Marquis de Beringuen, as Apollo. Another comédie-ballet by Molière and Lully, L’Amour Medecin, was given at Versailles on 15 September (N.S.) as an entertainment for a hunting party. It was later performed before the public at the Palais Royal in Paris.

 

 

A Year of Dance: 1664

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Socially and politically, 1664 seems to have been a quiet year with no events of importance in either France or England.

In London, there are two tantalising references to dance performances. In January 1664, the play Pompey the Great was given at court. ‘After which a grand Masque is Danc’d before Caesar and Cleopatra, made (as well as the other Dances and the Tunes to them) by Mr John Ogilby’ (quotation from The London Stage, Part 1, which provides no source). The lack of further information is frustrating. Ogilby is now more widely known as a cartographer, but in his early years he had been a dancer and a dancing master and he seems to have plied his old trade alongside newer ones as a translator and a publisher. Pepys continued to be on the lookout for dancing actresses. On 10 September 1664, he saw Davenant’s The Rivals at Lincoln’s Inn Fields ‘which is no excellent play, but good acting in it; especially Gosnell comes and sings and dances finely’ adding (as an admirer of good music) ‘but for all that, fell out of the key, so that the musique could not play to her afterwards, and so did Harris [Henry Harris the actor, who took a leading role in the play] also go out of the tune to agree with her’. Was her dancing better controlled than her singing (and would Pepys have known whether it was or not)?

In Paris, one cultural event was the first performance of Le Mariage forcé a comédie-ballet by Molière and Lully given in the apartments of the Queen Mother at the Louvre on 29 January 1664 (N.S.) and then in the public theatre at the Palais Royal a couple of weeks later. The production featured Mlle Du Parc, a dancing actress, as Dorimène a young coquette. In the Ballet du Roy, which was scattered throughout the play, Louis XIV danced in the third Entrée as an Egyptien (a Gipsy). On 13 February 1664 (N.S.) the Ballet des Amours Deguisés was given at the Palais Royal. Louis XIV danced as Regnaut in the seventh Entrée, and the ballet included not only the Queen as Proserpine in the fourth Entrée but also Mlle de Verpré as Gouvernante d’Egypte in the second Entrée. The presence of the Queen in the cast presumably precluded Mlle de Verpré from dancing alongside the King.

The event of the year was the fête Les Plaisirs de l’Ile Enchantée given at Versailles over several days in May 1664. The entertainments included the Ballet du Palais d’Alcine with Mlle Du Parc as the sorceress Alcine. The King did not take part, so Mlle Du Parc danced the final Entrée with Pierre Beauchamps as Roger. The performance ended with a spectacular firework display depicting the destruction of Alcine’s palace.

Alcine's Palace

Les Plaisirs de l’Ile Enchantée (1664), Plate 9

 

A Year of Dance: 1663

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The most significant event of 1663, so far as the London stage was concerned, was the opening of the new Theatre Royal in Bridges Street (just off Drury Lane) on 7 May. The playhouse, built for Thomas Killigrew and his King’s Company, occupied the site which is still home to today’s Drury Lane Theatre.

So far as dancing in London’s theatres is concerned, we still know very little, although Pepys did record seeing ‘the little girl’ (Moll Davis) dance in ‘boy’s apparel’ at Lincoln’s Inn Fields on 23 July 1663. There was also a ‘greate Masque’ at court on 2 July, mentioned by John Evelyn in his diary, but nothing is known about it.

In France, the Ballet des Arts was given at the Palais Royal in Paris on 8 January 1663 (N.S.). The King danced with his sister-in-law Madame, in the first Entrée, as a Berger to her Bergère. That was his only appearance in the ballet. Madame returned to dance Pallas Athene, surrounded by court ladies as Amazones, in the final Entrée. Later in the year, on 3 October 1663 (N.S.), Louis XIV appeared as a Fille du Village and a Bohemien (Gypsy) in the mascarade Les Noces de Village performed at the château de Vincennes. The cast of this comic piece (which cannot be classed as a ballet de cour, despite its text by Benserade and performances by the king, his courtiers and professional dancers) was entirely male.

Louis XIV had begun a liaison with Louise de la Vallière in 1661. Their first child together, named Charles de la Baume le Blanc, was born on 19 December 1663 (N.S.). He lived for only 18 months. In England, Charles II’s mistress Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, gave birth to his son on 28 September 1663. The boy was named Henry FitzRoy and would later become Duke of Grafton.

A Year of Dance: 1662

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The diary kept by Samuel Pepys is one of the most important sources of information about the public theatres in London during the 1660s. His testimony reveals that by 1662 dancing had become part of the entertainments offered on the newly revived stage. Although it seems to have been little more than an occasional light interlude within or alongside plays.

On 18 February 1662, Pepys went to see The Law Against Lovers (Sir William Davenant’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure with additions from Much Ado About Nothing) at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre. He commended ‘the little girl’s (whom I never saw act before) dancing and singing’. She may well have been Moll Davis, who played the role of Viola in the play. She would later become one of Charles II’s many mistresses. Pepys records seeing dancing in other plays during the first months of the 1662-1663 theatrical season, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream on 29 September 1662. He thought it an ‘insipid ridiculous play’ but there was ‘some good dancing’.

At court, the most notable event of the year was the marriage of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza. She landed at Portsmouth on 13 May and the wedding took place there on 21 May 1662. Just a few weeks earlier, on 30 April, Anne the wife of James Duke of York had given birth to a daughter Mary (who would later become joint ruler of Britain with her husband William of Orange). On 18 June, Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine gave birth to the king’s illegitimate son – named Charles after his father.  As if that was not enough, in July 1662 the Queen Mother Henrietta Maria visited London, bringing with her Charles II’s 13-year-old illegitimate son James Crofts. He quickly became a favourite at court.

In France, the only ballet de cour of 1662 was the Ballet d’Hercule Amoureux inserted into Cavalli’s opera Ercole amante composed in honour of Louis XIV’s marriage in 1660. The whole entertainment was performed in the new Salle des Machines in the Tuileries Palace in Paris on 7 February 1662 (N.S.). Louis XIV ‘representant la Maison de France’ danced the first Entrée, accompanied by the Comte de St. Aignan as Valour. The King and the Queen (as ‘la Maison d’Austriche’) both danced in the second Entrée, with Louis’s brother Monsieur as Hymen. The king made further appearances as Pluton in the eighth Entrée and Mars in the ninth. One of the handful of female professional dancers at the French court, Mlle Girault, danced as La Lune in the tenth Entrée, while another, Mlle de Verpré, danced as L’Aurore in the sixteenth Entrée. She had the distinction of heralding the final appearance of the king in the eighteenth and penultimate Entrée of the ballet, as Le Soleil. Sadly, no design seems to survive to show how Louis XIV looked as a young adult in his signature role.

At court, Louis XIV’s sister-in-law Madame gave birth to her first child on 26 March 1662 (N.S.), a daughter named Marie Louise. She later became Queen of Spain. On 18 November, the Queen gave birth to her second child and first daughter, named Anne Elisabeth. The baby died before the end of the year. Late in December, Nicolas Fouquet was sentenced to be banished, ensuring that he would never return to power to challenge the French king’s cultural supremacy.

Various Authenticities

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When I first began to study baroque dance, I tried very hard to be authentic – not least because I was so often criticised for my ‘balletic’ approach. It took me some time to realise that such authenticity is impossible. We know a great deal about dancing in the late 17th and early 18th centuries (far more than most people realise), but there is just as much that we don’t and indeed cannot know. My own reconstructions of dances, particularly the solos danced by Mrs Santlow and Mlles Subligny and Guiot, owe as much (if not more) to my personal style and technique as a ballet-trained dancer as they do to the notations and dance manuals of the early 1700s.

The subject of authenticity came into my mind again a week or so ago, when I went to a talk at the Wallace Collection. The speaker was the choreographer and Director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet David Bintley. His new ballet The King Dances is based on Le Ballet de la Nuit, the 1653 ballet de cour in which the fourteen-year-old Louis XIV appeared as the rising sun and became known ever after as the ‘Sun King’. Bintley talked about his forays into history and the world of baroque dance as he developed his choreography. He had gone so far as to have a baroque dance expert give instruction to his dancers – only to find that the unfamiliar style and technique was too difficult to learn in a short period. Although it marked the beginning of ballet, baroque dance was far from the strength and extension now characteristic of its descendant.

At the time of writing, I have not seen Bintley’s The King Dances so I cannot comment on the ballet. However, the photographs of the production are stunning. The young male dancers look as fabulously glamorous as their youthful antecedents at the French court must have done. When they are caught in mid-step the effect is strangely evocative of the ballet de cour, as we glimpse it through the few surviving designs for costumes and scenes. Could Bintley’s work possibly be ‘authentic’ in ways that a production consciously attempting complete ‘authenticity’ could not?

I thought about authenticity again this weekend, while I was taking part in a dance display for a heritage open day which also gave me time to watch. The dances – several cotillons by Dezais and a couple of ballroom duets – were all faithfully reconstructed from 18th-century sources. The costumes were handsome and in good period style, right down to the corsets. However, these were not the essential factors that made the display authentic. There was a range of skills and experience among the dancers and the dances were practised but not perfect. The dances were lively and all the dancers very evidently enjoyed performing them. They took pleasure in dancing with each other and for their audience. I couldn’t help thinking that it must have been very similar at many real balls in the 18th century – except that we may well have danced better than our forebears did.

Authenticity surely resides as much, if not more, in the spirit of the reconstruction as in the letter.

 

A Year of Dance: 1715

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The most significant event of 1715 was the death of Louis XIV on 1 September. He was succeeded by his five year old great-grandson, who became Louis XV. Philippe, duc d’Orléans, the son of Louis XIV’s brother (who had died in 1701) became Regent to the child-king. The new reign would usher in significant cultural as well as political changes.

In Britain, George I was briefly threatened by a Jacobite rising that sought to put the Catholic James Francis Edward Stuart, son of James II, on the throne. The rebellion began in September and was over before Christmas. With the succession assured, at least for the time being, the new Hanoverian dynasty began to settle into English court life.

In Paris, Dezais published the XIII Recüeil de danses pour l’année 1715. This contained only two duets – La Transilvanie by Claude Ballon and Le Menuet d’Espagne by Dezais himself. Another collection, notated and published by Gaudrau, was entitled Danses nouvelles presentées au Roy. Gaudrau had begun to publish dances by Guillaume-Louis Pecour a couple of years earlier, with a Nouveau recüeil de dance de bal et celle de ballet. The Danses nouvelles were two ballroom duets by Pecour, La Venitienne and Le Branle allemand. The former was to a piece of music from Mouret’s Les Fêtes de Thalie.

Pecour. Danses nouvelles (Paris, [1715?]), title page.

Pecour. Danses nouvelles (Paris, [1715?]), title page.

Dezais’s collection was probably published early in the year (perhaps even towards the end of the previous year). Gaudrau’s is undated, but has been ascribed to 1715. The collection must have appeared after the death of Louis XIV, for it is dedicated to his successor. Pecour wrote:

J’ay l’honneur de presenter a Votre Majesté les deux premieres dances que j’ay composées depuis son règne, je souhaitte avec ardeur les voir un jour éxécuter par Votre Majesté, …

Pecour was in his early sixties and had worked for the French court for more than forty years. It seems that he was hoping for further employment.

In London, at least nine dance publications appeared during 1715 as dancing masters vied for the patronage of the new royal family. The first to appear was Siris’s The Princess Anna, advertised towards the end of January. No copy of this dance is known to survive. A new edition of For the Further Improvement of Dancing, John Essex’s translation of Feuillet’s 1706 Recüeil de contredances, probably dates to 1715. Essex dedicated it to ‘Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales’ and the only known copy may well have been the one presented to her. It included some new country dances and ‘a new French Dance, which I presume to call the Princess’s Passpied’. This duet may have been created with an eye to the Princess’s birthday on 1 March.

The dancing master Richard Shirley published his own notated versions of Ballon’s La Silvie (which had appeared in Paris in 1712) and Pecour’s Aimable vainqueur (first published 1701) in mid-March. He, too, may have had an eye on the birthday celebrations for the Princess of Wales.

George I’s birthday on 28 May was marked by the appearance of a duet honouring his eldest granddaughter Princess Anne, aged five. There were two competing editions of L’Abbé’s The Princess Royale. One was notated by Edmund Pemberton, who was to record and publish L’Abbé’s ballroom duets for many years. The other was by the music publisher John Walsh, who seems to have pirated Pemberton’s version.

L’Abbé. The Princess Royale (London, [1715]), title page.

L’Abbé. The Princess Royale (London, [1715]), title page.

Walsh also published Mr Isaac’s new ballroom dance The Friendship, which may have appeared early in the year. The Morris, Mr Isaac’s ‘new Dance for the year 1716’, was published towards the end of 1715 not by Walsh but by Pemberton.

The ninth of the dance publications was from an up-and-coming dancing master, Kellom Tomlinson. He produced his first published duet The Passepied Round O during the year. It may simply have been fortuitous that it appeared in 1715, but Tomlinson was soon to prove himself adept at attracting patronage.

One other dance may belong to 1715, although it was not published for several more years. L’Abbé’s stage dance Canaries ‘perform’d by Mr La Garde and Mr Dupré’ appeared in his A New Collection of Dances around 1725. Charles Delagarde and Louis Dupré were both among the dancers at Lincoln’s Inn Fields during the 1714-1715 season. This was the only time they are known to have danced together. The duet signals the new emphasis on dancing in London’s theatres, as well as the virtuosity of the male professional dancers working in them.

Dancers in Ballets de Cour, 1648-1669

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Between 1648 and 1669 the dancers in ballets de cour were predominantly male. More than 300 male dancers appeared during this period. Around 90 of them, not quite one-third, were professionals. About 100 men, mostly courtiers, appeared in only one or two of the ballets. Of those who appeared in a significant number of ballets, i.e. at least half of the productions, around two-thirds were professional dancers. These men were the core performers in the ballets de cour. They ensured that the performances were the spectacular events they were meant to be.

Among the most important of the professional dancers were:

Louis de Mollier (c1615-1688). He took 48 roles in 18 ballets and was the most prominent dancer up to 1660.

Pierre Beauchamps (1631-1705). He took an astounding 93 roles in 23 ballets. His significance for the development of ballet cannot be overestimated, not least because of his dominant position as a performer over the whole period.

François Hilaire d’Olivet. He took 46 roles in 18 ballets and like Beauchamps was active throughout the period.

These men were also leaders of the profession of dancing masters. D’Olivet was a founder member of the Académie Royale de Danse, established in 1661. Beauchamps became Director of the Académie in 1680.

Two other men were, if anything, even more important to the ballet de cour and dancing:

Louis XIV, the monarch around whom these entertainments were created, was the subject of an earlier post. His regular appearances alongside professional dancers, as well as the range and extent of his repertoire, suggest that reports of his dancing skills were not simply hyperbole.

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), composer and dancer. He took 45 dancing roles in 11 ballets. He made his dancing debut in 1653 in the Ballet de la Nuit. He began to compose music for the ballets de cour in 1655. His involvement as a dancer diminished as his role as a musician and composer expanded.

Ballets de cour did include female dancers. Around 120 noblewomen and female professionals appeared in 15 out of the 26 ballets performed over the period. Six of these ballets involved only professional female dancers. The number of female professionals is uncertain, because they are difficult to identify from the sources, but there seem to have been about 15 of them. Of the other nine ballets, five were closely associated with Louis XIV’s sister-in-law, the English Princess Henriette-Anne, known as Madame, also the subject of an earlier post.

However, so many male dancers and the irregular appearance of female dancers meant that female roles were often danced by men. This is a topic I will return to.

Ballroom Dancing in the 18th Century

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It is not widely known that, in the early 18th century, ballroom dancing (duets by a man and a woman) reached a height of sophistication probably not seen again until the 20th century. These dances were, of course, very different to their modern counterparts. The couple danced side by side, performing the same steps and floor patterns often in mirror image. They did not touch except occasionally to take hands.

The only one of these dances still known today (although it is widely misunderstood) is the minuet, which dominated the ballroom for around 100 years from the late 1600s to the late 1700s. However, there were also the ‘danses à deux’ or ‘double dances’, many of which were created for important occasions at court and then more widely disseminated through their publication in notation. These appeared over a shorter period, roughly the first third of the 18th century. A handful of choreographies became so famous that they were danced throughout the 18th century and are referred to many times in contemporary writings.

Beauchamp-Feuillet notation, the system developed at the court of Louis XIV in the 1680s, published in 1700 and used to record these ballroom duets, will be the subject of a later post. The duets themselves have been catalogued by Meredith Little and Carol Marsh in La Danse Noble (1992) and by Francine Lancelot in La Belle Dance (1996).

The danses à deux use the steps, style and technique of what is now recognised as an early form of ballet. They range over a variety of different dance types – the saraband, the loure, the passsepied, the bourée, the rigaudon, the English hornpipe among others. Some of them bring together two or more dance types within their choreographies. Although they vary in difficulty, some are as complex as stage dances while others are short and simple, even the most straightforward of these duets require much practice if they are to be performed with the requisite skill and ease.

There has been much disagreement over the appropriate style and technique for these dances, not least because the original sources can be obscure and contradictory. That, and the need for would-be dancers to have had some formal dance training as well as the time and patience to practise, has deterred most from learning these choreographies. They are currently rarely taught or performed in the UK. Most people, even those closely concerned with dance or dance history, will never have seen them.

Yet, these duets provide a window onto a vanished world of dancing. They are an integral part of the history of dance. As well as looking in detail at the ballroom minuet, I will analyse individual choreographies and pursue the stories behind them in future posts.

The illustration shows where these ballroom duets began.

A ball at the court of Louis XIV. Pierre Rameau. Le Maître à danser (Paris, 1725).

A ball at the court of Louis XIV. Pierre Rameau. Le Maître à danser (Paris, 1725).