LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

of violin playing.

      Marie-Anne Cupis de Camargo did not lose so much time in discovering her true vocation. She gave evidence of her genius for the ballet while she was still in the cradle, and was scarcely six months old when the variety of her gestures, the grace of her movements, and the precision with which she marked the rhythm of the tunes her father played on the violin led all who saw her to believe that she would one day be a great dancer. The young Camargo, who belonged to a noble family of Spanish origin, made her début at the Académie in 1726, and at once achieved a decided success. People used to fight at the doors to obtain admittance the nights she performed; all the new fashions were introduced under her name, and in a very short space of time her shoemaker made his fortune. All the ladies of the court insisted on wearing shoes à la Camargo. But the triumph of one dancer is the despair of another. Mademoiselle Prévost, who was the queen of the ballet until Mademoiselle de Camargo appeared was not prepared to be dethroned by a débutante. She was so alarmed by the young girl's success that she did her utmost to keep her in the background, and contrived before long to get her placed among the figurantes. But in spite of this loss of rank, Mademoiselle de Camargo soon found an opportunity of distinguishing herself. In a certain ballet, she formed one of a group of demons, and was standing on the stage waiting for Dumoulin, who had to dance a pas seul, when the orchestra began the soloist's air and continued to play it, though still no Dumoulin appeared. Mademoiselle de Camargo was seized with a sudden inspiration. She left the demoniac ranks, improvised a step in the place of the one that should have been danced by Dumoulin and executed it with so much grace and spirit that the audience were in raptures. Mademoiselle Prévost, who had previously given lessons to young Camargo, now refused to have anything to do with her, and the two danseuses were understood to be rivals both by the public and by one another. The chief characteristics of Camargo's dancing were grace, gaiety, and above all prodigious lightness, which was the more remarkable at this period from the fact that the mode chiefly cultivated at the Opera was one of solemn dignity. However, she had not been long on the stage before she learned to adopt from her masters and from the other dancers whatever good points their particular styles presented, and thus formed a style of her own which was pronounced perfection.

STAGE COSTUME

      Mademoiselle de Camargo, in spite of her charming vivacity when dancing, was of a melancholy mood off the stage. She was not remarkably pretty, but her face was highly expressive, her figure exquisite, her hands and feet of the most delicate proportions, and she possessed considerable wit. Dupré, the ex-violinist, who had leaped at a bound from the orchestra to the stage, was in the habit of dancing with Camargo, and also with Mademoiselle Sallé, another celebrity of this epoch, who afterwards visited London, where she produced the first complete ballet d'action ever represented, and at the same time introduced an important reform in theatrical costume.

      The art of stage decoration had made considerable progress, even before the Opera was founded, but it was not until long after Mademoiselle Sallé had given the example in London that any reasonable principles were observed in the selection and design of theatrical dresses. In 1730, warriors of all kinds, Greek, Roman, and Assyrian, used to appear on the French stage in tunics belaced and beribboned, in cuirasses, and in powdered wigs bearing tails a yard long, surmounted by helmets with plumes of prodigious height. The tails, of which there were four, two in front and two behind, were neatly plaited and richly pomatumed, and when the warrior became animated, and waved his arm or shook his head, a cloud of hair powder escaped from his wig. It appeared to Mademoiselle Sallé, who, besides being an admirable dancer, was a woman of taste in all matters of art, that this sort of thing was absurd; but the reforms she suggested were looked upon as ridiculous innovations, and nearly half a century elapsed before they were adopted in France.

      This ingenious ballerina enjoyed the friendship and regard of many of the most distinguished writers of her time. Voltaire celebrated her in verse, and when she went to London she took with her a letter of introduction from Fontenelle to Montesquieu, who was then ambassador at the English Court. Another danseuse, Mademoiselle Subligny came to England with letters of introduction from Thiriot and the Abbé Dubois to Locke. The illustrious metaphysician had no great appreciation of Mademoiselle de Subligny's talent, but he was civil and attentive to her out of regard to his friends, who were also hers, and, in the words of Fontenelle, constituted himself her "homme d'affaires."

PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES

      Mademoiselle Sallé was not only esteemed by literature, she was adored by finance, and Samuel Bernard, the Court banker and money lender, gave her a hundred golden louis for dancing before the guests at the marriage of his daughter with the President Molé. The same opulent amateur sent a thousand francs to Mademoiselle Lemaure, by way of thanking her for resuming the part of "Délie," in the "Les Fêtes Grecques et Romaines," on the occasion of the Duchess de Mirepoix's marriage. I must mention that at this period it was not the custom in good society for young ladies to appear at the Opera before their marriage. Their mothers were determined either to keep their daughters out of harm's way, or to escape a dangerous rivalry as long as possible; but once attached to a husband the newly-married girl could show herself at the Opera as often as she pleased, and it was a point of etiquette that through the Opera she should make her entrance into fashionable life. These débutantes of the audience department presented themselves to the public in their richest attire, in their most brilliant diamonds; and if the effect was good the gentlemen in the pit testified their approbation by clapping their hands.

      But to return to Mademoiselle Sallé. What she proposed to introduce then, and did introduce into London, in addition to her own admirable dancing, were complete dramatic ballets, with the personages attired in the costumes of the country and time to which the subject belonged. To give some notion of the absurdity of stage costumes at this period we may mention that forty-two years afterwards, when Mademoiselle Sallé's reform had still had no effect in France, the "Galathea," in Rousseau's Pygmalion, wore a damask dress, made in the Polish style, over a basket hoop, and on her head on enormous pouf, surmounted by three ostrich feathers!

      In her own Pygmalion, Mademoiselle Sallé carried out her new principle by appearing, not in a Polish costume, nor in a Louis Quinze dress, but in drapery imitated as closely as possible from the statues of antiquity. Of her performance, and of Pygmalion generally, a good account is given in the following letter, written by a correspondent in London, under the date of March 15th, 1734, to the "Mercure de France." In the style we do not recognise the author of the "Essay on the Decadence of the Romans," and of the "Spirit of Laws," but it is just possible that M. de Montesquieu may have responded to M. de Fontenelle's letter of introduction, by writing a favourable criticism of the bearer's performance, for the "influential journal" in which the notice actually appeared.

      "Mdlle. Sallé," says the London correspondent, "without considering the embarrassing position in which she places me, desires me to give you an account of her success. I have to tell you in what manner she has rendered the fable of Pygmalion, and that of Ariadne and Bacchus; and of the applause with which these two ballets of her composition have been received by the Court of England.

      "Pygmalion has now been represented for nearly two months, and the public is never tired of it. The subject is developed in the following manner.

MADEMOISELLE SALLE

      "Pygmalion comes into his studio with his pupils, who perform a characteristic dance, chisel and mallet in hand. Pygmalion tells them to draw aside a curtain at the back of the studio, which, like the front is adorned with statues. The one in the middle above all the others attracts the looks and admiration of every one. Pygmalion gazes at it and sighs; he touches its feet, presses its waist, adorns its arms with precious bracelets, and covers its neck with diamonds, and, kissing the hands of his dear statue, shows that he is passionately in love with it. The amorous sculptor expresses his distress in pantomime, falls into a state of reverie, and then throwing himself at the feet of a statue of Venus, prays to the goddess to animate his beloved figure.

      "The goddess answers his prayer. Three flashes of light are seen, and to an appropriate symphony the marble beauty emerges by degrees from her state of insensibility. To the surprise of Pygmalion and his pupils she becomes animated, and evinces her astonishment at her new existence, and at the objects by which she is surrounded. The delighted Pygmalion extends his hand to her; she feels, so to speak, the ground

Скачать книгу