the ballet

Last night our group went to a performance by the School of Dance (L'Ecole de Danse) of Paris, which was held at the Palais Garnier, or the National Opera House. It looks like this:


Incredible, right?

Anyways, we saw three performances. The first was "Soir de fête", which had extracts from "La Source" by Léo Delibes and was choreographed by Léo Staats. It was very classical ballet,with a leading male and female dancer, and pairs and 3 and 4-somes of ballerinas in matching tutus upholding the soloist's frequent feats of twirling, leaping, etc (I don't know the real ballet terms).

The second was "Les Forains", music written by Henri Sauguet and choreography by Roland Petit. This told the story of a traveling troupe of performers, including a clown, a little girl, a women who danced with flowing transparent robes connected to sticks she held in the air, so she resembled a butterfly, Siamese twins, and a magician with a puppet ballerina. I loved how the dancing was incorporated into the story, and how the dancers lit up as they performed for the passersby, while before and after, while coming to set up the tent and then slowly packing up, they looked like a bedraggled group of nomads.

The third piece was "Symphonie en trois mouvements" by Stravinsky, with choreography by Nils Christe. This was REALLY modern and reminded me of my class on Music in Paris at the Turn of the 20th Century (remember, Hannah?!?!) We watched a reenactment of the original Rite of Spring choreography for the Ballets Russes. The choreography used a lot of turned-in feet, angular movements, and stomping. It was meant to reflect the savagery of the music and of the story. I thought I recognized some of that in the choreography of the Stravinsky that we saw last night. It was very modern, using lots of non-classic, flat movements, turned in feet, and some tumbling and stomping, too. I loved it. All the men and women wore mesh black shirts or dresses over shiny purple and blue leotards. It made them all look the same and it was such a cool effect, seeing everyone do the same flat angular movements at the same time. It was my favorite.

Here are some pictures of the Opera House. It's incredible. The ceiling was painted by Chagall in 1964, though the building itself was built much earlier, officially opening as the National Opera Theatre in 1875. It was this Opera House that inspired Gaston Leroux to write "The Phantom of the Opera"! Anyway, it's beautiful.