Ballet and Opera in the Age of Giselle (review)

Ballet and Opera in the Age of Giselle. By Marian Smith. (Princeton Studies in Opera.) Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. [xx, 306 p. ISBN 0-691-04994-7. $39.95.] Music examples, illustrations, index.

In this award-winning publication (recipient of the highly coveted de la Torre Bueno Prize for 2001) Smith presents a narrowly defined argument that "the longtime marriage between opera and ballet at the [Paris] Opéra had not fully ended in the 1830s and 1840s" (p. xiii). Smith positions her case in the modern context where opera and ballet have evolved to separate art forms with correspondingly distinct audiences and research communities. The author laments weaknesses in current performances that lack elements of musical and dramatic association characteristic of ballet-pantomime's close association to opera that can enrich audiences' involvement with the plot and gesture.

Smith persuasively reconstructs the historical context in which ballet-pantomime was tied to opera by examination of five inherent traits of the genre. First is the manner in which the music helps portray the ballet's plot. Some of the conventions in this process include simple text painting and melodic borrowings from well-known arias that evoke the context of the plot. The more flexible and dramatic musical passages for mime are contrasted with the consistent eight-measure structure of general dance movements. Next, the author presents the closely associated administrative context and genre characteristics of ballet and opera. We are reminded that both genres flourished at the same theater, sharing support and influence from the same administration, costume and scene designers, composers, and even artists. The commonality of plots, staging, and gesture are also documented. The third characteristic used to establish the relationship with opera is what Smith somewhat paradoxically refers to as "the lighter tone of ballet-pantomime" (p. xx). The complaint of nineteenth-century critics that the tragic and heroic are somehow inconsistent with dancing is considered. Smith further demonstrates how early-nineteenth-century ballets that parodied the plots of popular opéra comique were modified to accentuate visual aspects of the plot and enhance the context for dancing. Next Smith examines the "silent language" of ballet- pantomime. She surveys several conventions of conveying the words or content of the plot to the audience when dance and mine alone are inadequate (the onstage sign, the libretto, instrumental recitative). The air parlant, or music borrowed from another well-known operatic source used to establish the dramatic context, is documented as a common device of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Smith, however, demonstrates how the air parlant fell from favor in the 1830s and 1840s as audiences and the press became more critical of ballet scores that relied primarily on borrowed material. The final argument to confirm ballet-pantomine's close association to opera is the obvious and indisputable hybrid work that integrates a major dance role as a mute character in a grand opera. Three works—La muette de portici (1828) and Le dieu et la bayadère (1830) of Daniel Auber, and La tentation (1832) by Fromental Halévy, are examined in detail.

After building her principle argument, Smith focuses an entire chapter on Giselle (Adolphe Adam, 1841) and evaluates its performance in the original context established in the preceding chapters. Common current interpretations of Giselle are challenged with recommendations for a more historically correct rendition. There are two appendices: "Ballet Pantomimes and Operas Produced at the Paris Opéra, 1825- 1850"; and a transcription and translation of the original libretto or program for Giselle.

In summary, Smith merits recognition for an excellent reassessment of one of the principal musical and dramatic genres of the early nineteenth century. Perhaps the work's greatest contribution is its pioneering advancement to the scholarship of ballet music by examination of the genre in its full historic and dramatic context. If any fault in Smith's presentation should be considered, it might be her assertion that ballet and opera were...