Pantomime-Ballet on the Music-Hall Stage: the Popularisation of Classical Ballet in Fin-De-Siècle Paris
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Pantomime-Ballet on the Music-Hall Stage: The Popularisation of Classical Ballet in Fin-de-Siècle Paris Sarah Gutsche-Miller Schulich School of Music McGill University A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Ph.D. in musicology April 2010 © Sarah Gutsche-Miller 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract and Résumé iii Acknowledgements iv Introduction 1 Chapter 1. The Origins of Parisian Music-Hall Ballet 19 Opéra Ballet 19 The Legal Backdrop 24 Ballet in Popular Theatres 26 English Music-Hall Ballet 37 Chapter 2. Elegant Populism: The Venues and the Shows 45 The Folies-Bergère, 1872-1886 47 Marchand’s Folies-Bergère, 1886-1901 54 The Casino de Paris 81 The Olympia 92 Chapter 3. Music-Hall Ballet’s Creative Artists 105 Librettists 107 Composers 114 Choreographers 145 Chapter 4. The Music-Hall Divertissement 163 The 1870s: The Popular Divertissement 164 The 1880s: From “Divertissement” to “Ballet” 171 The 1890s: From Divertissement to Pantomime-Ballet 189 Chapter 5. Popular Ballet’s Conventions 199 A Traditional Structure 200 Music as Storyteller 229 Chapter 6. Up-to-Date Popular Spectacles 253 Pantomime-Ballet Librettos: Conventions and Distortions 254 The Popular Surface 275 Chapter 7. The Music of Popular Ballet 319 Popular Ballet Music at its Height 348 Conclusion 363 Appendix A 371 Appendix B 387 Bibliography 403 ii ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the history and aesthetic of ballet in Parisian music halls at the turn of the twentieth century. Although the phenomenon is now long forgotten, ballet was for more than four decades a popular form of entertainment for a large audience. Between 1872 and 1918, nearly two hundred ballets were staged in Paris’s music halls, more than half of which were premiered by the three most prominent halls: the Folies-Bergère, the Olympia, and the Casino de Paris. These newly written, composed, and choreographed ballets were often complex productions with lavish scenery and costumes, large ballet corps, and star ballerinas. Although they were in many ways structurally comparable to ballets staged at the Paris Opéra, music-hall ballets reflect the preferences of their fashionable, pleasure-seeking audiences through their emphasis on catchy up-beat music, stage spectacle, and the female body. My doctoral research brings to light this important ballet culture and repertoire. I begin with an overview of the historical circumstances that made it possible for variety theatres to adopt ballet. I then examine ballet’s new context in order to establish the institutional features that helped shape music-hall ballet, and provide biographical information about the artists who created and performed them. This is followed by analyses of music-hall ballet’s conventions, with sections on the types of subjects favoured by librettists, the formal structures of popular ballets, the choreographic elements that were typically incorporated, and the musical characteristics of the genre. I end with an exploration of the visual and musical elements that distinguish music-hall ballet as a “popular” genre, and discuss its mediation of high and lowbrow features and intersections with contemporary popular culture. iii RÉSUMÉ Cette thèse examine l’histoire et l’esthétique du ballet dans les music-halls parisiens au tournant du XXe siècle. Quoiqu’on l’ait longtemps oublié, le ballet constitua pour plus de quatre décennies une forme de divertissement populaire auprès d’un vaste public. Entre 1872 et 1918, près de deux cent nouveaux ballets furent mis en scène dans les music-halls de Paris, dont plus de la moitié furent créés dans trois établissements proéminents, les Folies-Bergère, l’Olympia et le Casino de Paris. Ces œuvres aux partitions, chorégraphies et livrets originaux constituaient fréquemment des productions complexes et spectaculaires, faisant appel à des décors et costumes flamboyants, un important corps de ballet et des danseuses étoiles. Bien que les ballets de music-halls aient été comparables, sous plusieurs aspects, aux ballets contemporains présentés à l’Opéra de Paris, ils reflètent néanmoins les préférences de leur audience épicurienne par l’importance accordée à une musique vive et entraînante, au spectaculaire et au corps féminin. Ma recherche met en lumière l’importance de la culture et du répertoire du ballet de music-hall. Je me penche d’abord sur les circonstances historiques qui permirent aux music-halls d’adopter le ballet. J’examine ensuite ce nouveau contexte de représentation du ballet afin d’établir les caractéristiques institutionnelles qui contribuèrent à façonner les ballets de music-hall, et offre de l’information biographique sur les artistes qui créèrent et interprétèrent ceux-ci. J’analyse les conventions du ballet de music-hall, les types de sujets abordés par les librettistes, les structures formelles des ballets populaires, les éléments chorégraphiques communément incorporés et les aspects du langage musical propres au genre. En terminant, j’explore les attributs visuels et musicaux caractérisant le ballet de music-hall comme un genre « populaire », discute de la façon dont il amalgame des éléments « légers » et « sérieux » et examine ses points communs avec la culture populaire contemporaine. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A great many people have contributed to this dissertation and made the process an enjoyable one. Above all, I would like to thank my advisor, Steven Huebner, and second reader, Lloyd Whitesell for their advice, insights, and encouragement throughout the process of writing my dissertation. I wish to extend a special thanks to Julie Cumming, who has consistently supported my work and offered her advice both for parts of this dissertation and for the many grants that have allowed me to pursue my research. I am grateful to Marian Smith, who went far beyond the call of duty in reading and providing suggestions for what became three chapters, and to Jane Pritchard for her generosity in sharing her knowledge of English music-hall ballet and French popular ballet, and for bringing my attention to a multitude of documents in the Victoria and Albert Theatre Archives that have greatly enriched this project. Since my work is grounded in archival research, I have relied on the kindness and resourcefulness of many unidentified librarians and archivists who have helped me turn up arcane bits of information. I would especially like to thank the magasiniers of the Opéra, who took it upon themselves one summer to devote several hours to unearthing three scores listed as “missing,” and to Vincent Warren of the Grands Ballets de Montréal dance library for presenting me with several rare documents from the library’s treasure trove of old journals and iconography. Several friends and fellow musicologists, including Samuel Dorf, Willa Collins, Matilda Butkas, and Stephanie Schroedter, have also generously shared material and information. v This dissertation would not have been possible without substantial research and travel funding, including a Canadian Graduate Scholarship and travel grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Elizabeth Bartlet research travel grant from the American Musicological society, and McGill Alma Mater travel grants. A McGill Schulich Graduate Scholarship also allowed me to focus on writing in my last year of the Ph.D. I could not have completed this dissertation without the support and practical help provided by friends and family. Dana Gorzelany-Mostak did wonders with the footnotes and bibliography, Julie Pedneault with the translation of my abstract at the eleventh hour, Andrew Deruchie with teaching me how to negotiate the Byzantine world of the BnF, and Nathan Martin with teaching me how to negotiate the field. All were also wonderful colleagues and friends. As well as prepare most of my musical examples, Steven Vande Moortele patiently answered all of my analysis questions and offered suggestions for nearly every chapter. My mother, Clara Gutsche, proved a phenomenal editor and my father, David Miller, a wonderful copy editor. Above all, I would like to thank Mom, Dad, Wilbur, and Steven for their intangible but all the more valuable contributions of love and encouragement. vi INTRODUCTION In the late nineteenth century, a popular form of ballet emerged in Paris’s foremost music halls, first at the Folies-Bergère in the 1870s, then at the Casino de Paris and Olympia in the 1890s. For more than four decades, music halls rather than ballet’s traditional home, the Opéra, were the settings of a vibrant French ballet culture. Music halls had the money, artistic ambition, and public visibility to attract the era’s best creative and performing artists, and the profitable staging practices to support the production of a constant stream of spectacular ballets. Performed to full houses night after night alongside acrobatic acts and popular song-and-dance routines, these ballets catered to a diverse but increasingly upscale audience that came for evenings of light entertainment and social encounters. Music hall ballets were initially no more than short divertissements similar to those integrated into large-scale lyrical and dramatic productions staged at mainstream Parisian theatres. In the 1870s and early 1880s, the Folies-Bergère regularly produced little illustrative ballets with slight plots that served as pretty and sometimes titillating backdrops to an evening of socialising. They proved immediately popular, and ballet quickly became a favourite form of music-hall entertainment. Soon