ballet is a dramatic entertainment by dancers, usually in costume with scenery and accompanied by music. Originating as elaborations of social dances in the lavish court spectacles of Renaissance Italy, it developed in France following the marriage of Catherine de Medici to Henri II in 1533. The
ballet de cour mixed poetry, vocal and instrumental music, dancing, costumes, and scenery—the same recipe as that of the English
masque, a similar celebratory entertainment including both professional dancers and members of the court.
The establishment of the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661 was rapidly followed by Lully and Molière's numerous
comédie-ballets, and the strong influence of French dance and Lully's music is clearly apparent in late 17th-cent. English stage works such as
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Dance continued to be incorporated into opera. When Marie Sallé came to Covent Garden in 1734, creating a stir in the ballet
Pygmalion with her loose muslin dress and free hair rather than panniered skirts and wig,
Handel included dance music for her troupe in his operas. Also popular in London at this time was pantomime, often performed between the acts of plays or operas. The dancing-master John Weaver claimed credit for the first pantomime with
The Tavern Bilkers: probably the ‘Comical Entertainment in a Tavern between Scaramouch, Harlequin and Punchanello’ advertised at Drury Lane theatre in 1703. The theatre director John Rich was a famous Harlequin in many productions, although Weaver's
The Loves of Mars and Venus (1717) ignored grotesque
commedia characters and offered what he termed ‘scenical dancing’ and mime.
Sallé's expressive dancing, together with the English pantomime and the acting style of David
Garrick, influenced Jean-Georges Noverre, the greatest proponent of the new
ballet d'action whose central dramatic narrative was conveyed entirely by dance, mime, and music without spoken or sung text. Among Noverre's pupils was Charles-Louis Didelot, who worked in London at the turn of the 19th cent. Carlotta Grisi, the first Giselle (Paris, 1841), married choreographer Jules Perrot, formerly partner of the great Romantic ballerina Marie Taglioni. The couple worked at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, in the 1840s, and Perrot's
Pas de quatre (1845) brought together four of the world's leading ballerinas: Taglioni, Grisi, Cerrito, and Grahn.
As with Noverre, the concept of a unified art-work was also central to Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, whose company had annual London seasons from 1911 to 1914. Diaghilev commissioned many of the leading artists of his time: choreographers Fokine, Massine, and Balanchine; designers Bakst, Picasso, and Cocteau; and numerous composers including Stravinsky, Debussy, Satie, and Ravel. Diaghilev helped establish classical ballet as a serious art-form and trained many of the key figures in British ballet: Marie Rambert, who in 1926 formed the company that became known as the Ballet Rambert (from 1987 the Rambert Dance Company); Ninette de Valois, who established the Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells (known as the Royal Ballet from 1956); and Alicia Markova, whose mantle as the leading British ballerina passed to Margot Fonteyn. Renowned for her effortless technique, grace, and dramatic involvement, Fonteyn's later career included an acclaimed partnership with Rudolf Nureyev.
Among leading British choreographers are Frederick Ashton, John Cranko, Kenneth MacMillan, and Antony Tudor, while important composers writing specific ballet scores included
Vaughan Williams, Bliss, and
Britten. Britten also exploited dance in his operas
Gloriana (1953) and
Death in Venice (1974). There are now numerous touring dance companies in Britain, some specializing in modern dance.
Eric Cross
