[Illustration: Fig. 63.--Mlle. Fanny Ellsler. From a lithograph by A.
Lacaucbie.]
The great production of the period appears to have been the "Triumph
of Love" in 1681, with twenty scenes and seven hundred performers;
amongst these were many of the nobility, and some excellent
_ballerine_, such as Pesaut, Carre, Leclerc, and Lafontaine.
A detailed history of the ballet is, however, impossible here, and we
must proceed to touch only on salient points. It passed from the
Court to the theatre about 1680 and had two characteristics, one with
feminine dancers, the other without.
[Illustration: Fig. 63a.--Dancing satyr playing castanets, by Myron,
in the Vatican Museum. The action is entirely suggestive of that of
Fanny Ellsler, and might be evidence of the antiquity of the Spanish
tradition.]
It is not a little curious that wearing the mask, a revival of the
antique, was practised in some of these ballets. The history of the
opera-ballet of those days gives to us many celebrated names of
musicians, such as Destouches, who gave new "verve" to ballet music,
and Rameau.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57