65 replies to this topic

[Alexandra]

Jane, I'm all for your "casting backwards" idea! I remember Lesley Collier's Aurora.  She literally whizzed through in Act I -- couldn't slow down to do the Rose Adagio. But was never a convincing Princess, for me.  I don't think I'd classify Aurora as an allegro role, any more than Odette-Odile. I think you're right: it's both.

Leigh, I think allegro/adagio may be a 20th century American classification, as heroic/lyric is a 20th century Russian one.  Both leave out things, as Andrei mentioned in his post explaining why you need the noble, the demicaractere and the grotesque above.  But technically, the danseur/ses noble were the adagio genre, dancing the slow, measured rhythms (saraband, pavane) and the allegro was definitely the demicaractere genre (courante). Also, an adagio (noble) needs line.  I'm quite certain that Vestris's famous instruction to Perrot ("Move fast so they don't ever get a good look at you") is NOT because he was ugly, as the history books usually interpret this, but because he had no line, and you have to have line to do adagio.

Perhaps Petipa's leading roles were a different way of merging the demicaractere and the noble genres? The women's roles all seem to have bits of both.

[Leigh Witchel]

Yes, Jane's respsonse about Aurora shows that there's more to adagio and allegro than just adagio or allegro.  The adagio in Act II, Swan Lake (for lack of a better word at the moment, lyric) takes a different quality entirely than the Act III adagio in Sleeping Beauty (I think "expansive" as Jane puts it suits it perfectly.)  Adagio or allegro isn't a good label, because in my head the "allegro" dancer I would hypothetically cast as Aurora can do Act III - just not like Act II, Swan Lake.

I don't know if Petipa was attempting to merge genres or if his ballerina at the moment had both qualities and he fashioned whatever role he was making on her.  Do you think the chicken or the egg came first here?

[Victoria Leigh]

What an interesting theory, Intuviel!  Makes sense to me  

[Alexandra]

Intuviel, I loved the wineglass story. I'd never heard that one.  You've set a new challenge for dancers  

Leigh, is it possible that the roles have changed so much, through time and a hundred bodies, that we can't really answer your question? I'm sure there are individual differences, but I also think that the fourth genre was a blending of the old noble style, which was decapitated around 1789, and the demicaractere.

I suggest that whoever responds start a second thread, Emploi 2, because even with the new multi-pages, this is getting a bit long for older computers, I think.

Alexandra