French Ballet Favourites

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Cat No: 8554062

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943406229

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: French Ballet Favourites

Description
French BalletFavouritesFrance has a long tradition of ballet, whether as a separateentertainment or as an indispensable part of French opera. An element of Frenchdance became part of the late Baroque musical synthesis of Bach and Handel,and, in a later generation, provided the technical basis for the Russianballet. The Paris Academie royale de danse was established in 1661 and theassociated school, which still continues, in 1713. The art of ballet in Francereached a new height in the middle of the nineteenth century, coinciding withthe early career of Leo Delibes, who entered the Conservatoire in 1848 and fiveyears later took a position secured for him by Adolphe Adam, composer of Giselle,as accompanist at the The?ótre-Lyrique. Like many other composers he wasemployed also as an organist, from 1862 until1871 at Saint-Jean-Saint-Fran?ºois,but his primary interest lay in music for the theatre. For the The?ótre-Lyriquehe wrote comic operas and for the Folies-Nouvelles and other companiesoperettas, while continuing to compose music for the church.Appointment as accompanist at the Opera in 1863 brought Delibes otheropportunities. He was allowed to associate with Minkus in the composition ofthe ballet La source in 1866, a task in which he was so successful thata commission followed for a divertissement, Le pas des fleurs, to beadded to Adolphe Adam's Le corsaire. Delibes won his greatest popularsuccess with the score for Coppelia, commissioned for 1870 and his firstcomplete ballet score. This was followed six years later by Sylvia andin 1883 by the important opera Lakme. His last opera was Kassya, orchestratedby Massenet and staged two years after the composer's death in 1891.The ballet Coppelia was based on a story by the German romanticwriter and composer E.T.A.Hoffmann, Der Sandmann, a tale that alsoserved Offenbach in the first act of Les contes de Hoffmann. In theoriginal version Nathanael is subject to brooding melancholy, intensely awareof a sense of evil. As a child he had been terrified of the Sandman, who bringssleep to children and whom he had identified with a late-night visitor to hisfather's house, the lawyer Coppelius. He finds out that his father andCoppelius conduct chemical experiments, in the course of one of which his fatheris killed. In later life he is troubled by the barometer-seller Coppola, whomhe identifies with Coppelius. From him he buys a telescope and sees thedaughter of Professor Spalanzini, the beautiful Olimpia, whom he laterdiscovers to be a clockwork puppet. Nathanael has been in love with Clara, towhom he now returns, but in madness tries to kill her, while the voice ofCoppelius lures him to his own death.The form of the story used by Charles Nuitter and Arthur Saint-Leon, theformer the archivist at the Opera and the latter a distinguished choreographer,with an interest in national dances admirably shown in Coppelia, is morefrivolous. The hero Franz is no haunted figure, while Coppelius seems arelatively harmless cha
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