Women’s Work: Making Dance in Europe before 1800

4 The Female Ballet Troupe of the Paris Opera from 1700 to 1725

It was not until 1681 that female dancers first appeared on the stage of the Royal Academy of Music, during a revival of the Triomphe de l’Amour. There were four: Mesdemoiselles Caré, Pesant, Leclerc, and La Fontaine . The Opera dance company, which had so far been exclusively composed of men, was at long last opening up to professional female dancers. Their growing presence became rapidly and increasingly felt and the first female celebrities of the prestigious Parisian troupe were soon to hold their own under the leadership of ballet master Guillaume Louis Pécour. Rare are the surviving sources allowing us to know the composition of this company and assess its bylaws. To make up for this lack of information , the only recourse is to methodically analyze the cast of every production given by the troupe on the Parisian stage.1 The present study of the Opera’s female dance troupe in the first quarter of the eighteenth century is based on investigation of a corpus of 145 libretti (from the Ballet des Saisons on 31 July 1700 to Atys on 23 December 1725).2 The collected data has been compared and cross-checked with other available 99 4 The Female Ballet Troupe of the Paris Opera from 1700 to 1725 N L Translated by Régine Astier data whenever feasible to present information about the troupe’s composition as well as its organization. Index of Female Dancers Between 1700 and 1725, a total of eighty-seven female dancers appeared on the Opera stage, as shown in figure 4.1. For better legibility, names are listed in alphabetical order, taking into account the length of their careers: on the left side, forty-five dancers with careers of less than four years, and on the right, forty-two whose careers amounted to or were greater than four years. Before analyzing this list further, two preliminary points should be made. First, the spelling of surnames is not fixed in the eighteenth century; a performer’s name can be written differently from libretto to libretto, indeed, from act to act within the same libretto. Examples include Mademoiselle La Ferriere/La Feriere/Laferiere/De la Feriere/ De la Ferière; Mademoiselle Du Fort/Dufort; Mademoiselle Le Roy/Le Roi/Leroy; Mademoiselle Menés/Menès/Menez; Mademoiselle Prévost /Prevôt/Provôt; Mademoiselle Le Comte/Lecomte/Le Conte; or, Mademoiselle Thybert/Tibert/Thibert/Thybere. For the sake of convenience , one spelling, that most commonly found at the time, is given in the chart—for example, La Ferriere, Du Fort, Le Roy, Menés, Prévost , Le Comte, and Thybert. Second, the first names of female dancers are never mentioned in casts of libretti.3 When two sisters are part of the same production, their names are traditionally accompanied by initials, “L” meaning the elder and “C” meaning the younger. Comparison for the same period of both the women’s and men’s indexes reveals the existence of many namesakes, such as Mesdemoiselles and Mrs. Dangeville, Delisle, Dupré, Duval, Guillet, Guyot, Javillier, Joly, Le Comte, Le Roy, Mion, Paris, Rameau, Richalet, Rose, Ruelle, and Saligny. The current level of research does not permit establishing a blood relationship between most of these artists. We may nevertheless surmise that the Salignys were brother and sister, since they were cast in roles meant for young performers in 1703. Less clear is the case of Marie-Catherine Guyot and Jean-Baptiste Guyot (who was dancing in the ballet troupe in 1699 and again from 1712 to 1722): were they just namesakes, brother and sister, or husband and wife? The same goes for 100 N L Figure 4.1. Female dancers listed at the Paris Opera between 1700 and 1725. C      C    Antié/Lantié 1721–22 Binet 1724–25* Bassecour 1704–6 Brunel 1714–19 Basset 1704 Carré [aînée] 1703, 1705–9 Beaufort 1711–12 [1715] Chaillou 1707–12 Bertin 1703–4 Chateauvieux 1714–16, 1718–20 Blin 1704 Corail 1718–23 Boulogne 1704 Dangeville (Michelle) 1699–1706 Boyer 1721 Defrêne 1706–12 Briere 1712 Delastre ( Jeanne Edmée Camus, married) Caré cadette 1708 1719–23 Chapelle 1700 Delisle [aînée] 1712, 1720–25* Clement 1700–1701 [1705] Desmâtins (Marie-Louise) 1700–1703 Corbière 1713–14 Dimanche [aînée] 1708–9, 1711–14 [1715] Delong 1703 Du Fort (Elisabeth) 1700–1702 Deseschaliers 1715–17 Dupré 1714–16, 1718–24...