paquita

[Guest PhotoBallrina]

I was wondering if anyone knows the story of the ballet Paquita. We did excerpts of it for our spring concert but I don't know the Story...

thanx

[Mel Johnson]

The divertissement presented today as the "grand pas from Paquita" actually doesn't happen in the ballet. It's a cobbling together of a string of variations from many different ballets, including Don Quixote, The Little Hump-Backed Horse, La Gitana, Namouna, and any other ballet that isn't watching its variations too closely. They are all assembled with the Grand Pas de Deux from the title ballet, and sometimes the "Golden" pas de trois from same. It has nothing to do with the story, which is a melodramatic, villain-still-pursued her, sort of mess. You can find it in Beaumont's Complete Book of Ballets.

And BTW, Welcome to Ballet Talk!

[Richard Jones]

This post prompted me to look up some details about the ballet. I found that the original Paquita was produced in Paris in 1846 with Grisi in the title role, five years after her success in Giselle. The music was by Deldevez and the choreography by Mazilier. The ballet is set in Spain at the time of Napoleonic occupation. Paquita, a Spanish gipsy, saves the life of a French officer, Lucien. They fall in love, but their marriage appears to be impossible because he is a nobleman - until it is revealed that she is also of noble birth......(!)

The first Lucien was Lucien Petipa, brother of Marius, who produced Paquita for his St Petersburg début in 1847. Petipa (M) asked Minkus to compose new music for a Pas de trois and Grand Pas in 1881 (which is what is commonly heard today).

The interesting parallel with the original is that the book upon which Bizet's Carmen is based was written in 1845 by Mérimée; another French story about a Spanish gipsy, but with rather different results!

[Mel Johnson]

Apparently, at least some of the pas de trois is still Deldevez' music, to wit, at least the entrée and the girl's variation "that has a front attitude and an entrechat-six somewhere in the beginning" because there are so many different ways of beginning it, and the only thing that's common to all is that there's an attitude devant and a six in it.;) The Grand Pas de Deux, however, is all Minkus, but the "supporting" variations come from all over, as mentioned above.

Richard, I always thought that story reminded me a bit of H.M.S. Pinafore and other Gilbert libretti, except that it's the girl, not the boy who is the concealed noble/royal/gentry.

[Nadezhda]

So, if I wanted to have the music from Paquita, where should I look for it? Under M for Minkus or under D for Deldevez? Or is the music they use nowadays a mixture of both?

I've been looking for a CD with the music from Paquita for a long time, but perhaps I was looking at the wrong place. Don't tell me to ask the sales person: they don't know anything about classical music, not to speak of ballet music! :eek:

[Mel Johnson]

The music is generally credited to Minkus, but it's the same sort of thing as with Le Corsaire; it's indexed under Adolphe Adam, but there's Pugni, Minkus, Delibes, and others in the mix.

There's nearly the same group of composers of "musique dansant" in "Paquita Grand Pas", but it's very changeable, and you can plug in and drop out variations, just as long as they are stylistically similar.

There's a nice recording of the Grand Pas done by the Sofia National Orchestra under Boris Spassoff on Cappriccio # 10554.

[Estelle]

Pierre Lacotte made a reconstruction of "Paquita" for the Paris Opera Ballet last year, and it will be performed again next season. The "poor girl who is in fact the daughter of a noble family" seems to have been a rather common scenario in that period (there the truth is discovered thanks to a medal that she has on her necklace).

Here's a link to a thread about it (started by Jeannie):

http://www.balletalert.com/forum/showthrea...ghlight=Paquita

[John-Michael]

I think I remember reading that Balfe's opera, THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, was made into a ballet but with music not by Balfe. Is that PAQUITA? The plots seem to resemble each other

[Mel Johnson]

Same church, different pew.