Once upon a time...

At the end of the 15^th century in Florence, Italy, lavish celebrations were conducted where food, drink and song were abundant and even dance performances were performed by professional artists, to the applause of the celebrating masses.

It is known that in 1489, this sort of performance was produced, depicting pictures and fairytales. One of them was "Jason and the Golden Fleece". In this mythical story Jason was required to seize a golden sheep’s fleece guarded by a terrifying dragon that never sleeps, in order for an evil tyrant to return the crown to his father, Aeson.

It seems that the idea for the dance originated from the fact that during the banquet, mainly mutton was served (the idea can be repeated such that spectators could be served with dishes related to the dance theme – for example nuts during Tchaikovsky’s "The Nutcracker", and roasted chicken during his "Swan Lake"…).

From Florence in Italy this type of dance-play travelled to France, for the simple reason that Caterina de Medici, daughter to a Florence banking family, married the man who was to become Henry II of France between 1547 and 1559. The "Queen’s Ballet Comedy" was established in his court, from which exists today only one complete score.

We know that the queen’s dance teacher directed in 1573 the "Polish Ballet", which was not at all Polish, but was presented in honour of the Polish delegates who came to offer their country’s crown to the queen’s son, the 16 year-old Henry. Aristocratic girls, representing the counties of France performed in the ballet, which lasted precisely one hour. The French author Brantome, who watched the ballet, declared that it was so perfect, that no other king on the face of the earth could arrange for a similar performance.

The development of ballet – parallel to that of the art of fencing – presented its performers similar demands for physical perfection. Background sets began to appear and a special platform was raised at one part of the hall.

The ballet bloomed in France during the reign of Louis XIV, who was himself an enthusiastic ballet dancer. It is generally known that he received his nickname ‘the Sun King’ because he danced the part of the sun – in French ‘Le Soleil’ – in a ballet composed for his glorification. He himself established the "Royal Academy for Dancers" in 1661 when he himself was 23 years old and young enough to participate in many more ballets. His favourite composer was Lully (1632-1687), who was of Italian origins.

It is of interest to learn that women were not permitted to perform in ballet until Lully’s strong intervention put an end to this scandal. The system worked as follows: the king gave him the themes for the ballets to which he composed music – the subject was always the contrast between love and glory. The king had dozens of lovers, adding to his glory. This composer cooperated with the playwright Molière and composed music for the ballet appearing in the comedy "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme". When the king grew older and turned to religion, his court-composer composed church music, placing the king of France alongside the King of Heaven.

The 18^th century was a period of pronounced progress in the history of ballet, but the festive and official ‘ballet of the court’, so prominent in the days of Louis XIV, began to decline.

The last of these ballets, performed in celebration of the completion of the forts of the port city of Dunkirk, was named "The Temple of Peace", and was intended for the celebration of the completion of works of a military nature. The orchestra for this ballet included 24 violins, flutes, oboes, military trumpets, 700 drums and 80 canons. This ballet was performed in the open (the theatre could not contain 80 cannons, and there were those who feared that the noise could break the dancers’ concentration).

The 18^th century saw the birth of the Ballet D’action, as well as the prominence of professional dancers who toured from country to country. The first English ballet, "The Loves of Mars the God of War, with Venus the Goddess of Love", was performed in London in 1717. The Englishman John Weaver (1693-1753) would breathe life into the Ballet D’action, claiming that "the body must speak from head to toes". He taught the dancers to acknowledge the anatomical form, the human skeleton and the body’s muscular array.

In France, after the era of Louis XIV, who danced with royal passion, his great-grandson, who has never danced, gains power, putting an end to the history of the ‘ballet of the court’. The renowned author Jean Jacques Rousseau complained that the ballet ‘swallows’ too large a part of the opera’s plot, but he himself ended his opera "Le Devin du Village" with a ballet of shepherd boys and girls.

The first female ballerina to reach stardom was the Frenchwoman of Spanish origin Marie Anne Cupis de Camargo (1710-1770), known as ‘La Camargo’. She first performed at the age of 16 – and Paris was swept off its feet. Every new fashion carried the ballerina’s name and her hairstyle was imitated by the ladies of the court. The Parisian police, in fear that intimate parts of her body would be revealed in the raptures of dance, forced her to wear ‘protective underwear’. She danced in 78 ballets and drove her royal-blooded lover Louis de Bourbon – Count Clermont – to bankruptcy.

Her greatest dancing achievement was the Entrechat – a high jump during which the feet are knocked together. She and her rival Marie Salle (1707-1788) shortened the dancers’ skirts and the latter had to escape to London before the Parisian authorities could decide that her dress was too short.

In London she performed her own creation, the ballet "Pygmalion", wearing a white cloth dress, as if she were an ancient Greek sculpture. But the principal character in the ballet was Jean Georges Noverre (1727-1820), who is considered the creator of the modern ballet. His debut creation was the ballet "Chinese Festivities" – 1754 – in which the dancers and ballerinas appeared in costumes inspired by a most imaginative Far East.

He published "Letters on Dance and Ballet" – 1760 – which revolutionised the field. He defined ballet as "a respectable art and not a superficial and confused entertainment". He travelled throughout Europe and collaborated with Mozart in the creation of "Le Petits Riens", the only one of the great composer’s works dedicated solely to the ballet.

Noverre opined that in a tragic ballet the dancer must feel as if electrocuted – a new expression in the 18^th century. His birthday, April 29^th, is the international Day of Dance. The queen Marie Antoinette appointed him as the ‘ballet manager for the Parisian Opera’. Noverre was a friend of the famous British actor David Garrick, who titled him the ‘Shakespeare of Dance’, himself a composer and conductor of unforgettable ballets such as "קנאה בהרמון הנשים","התלבשותה של ונוס " and "חצרם של שודדי הים". His only work which is still performed today is "La Fille Mal Gardée", which has no gods or goddesses but contemporary farmers, which was performed, how symbolic, during the 1789 revolution!

In 1992 the Swedish choreographer Ivo Cramer managed to reconstruct Noverre’s Greek mythology-based ballet, "Medea & Jason", which culminates when Medea poisons her rival and stabs the two sons she bore to her unfaithful man, Jason. Demons of both sexes and dragons appear in this impressive ballet – the entire world of Baroque legends has been faithfully reconstructed.

Among Noverre’s most appreciated dancers was his contemporary, the Venice-born Gaetan Vestris (1729-1808) (titled ‘the Mozart of Dance’). Vestris studied art in Paris and was Louis XVI’s dance teacher. He defined the purpose of dance – adding beauty to the human body. Those of the people of the royal court who knew him saw in him a specimen of honour and masculine grace – not only on stage but also in the lounges, where he was a welcome guest. He was literally fought over by the King’s Versailles residence and the Paris Opera. He took advantage of Noverre’s reform which cancelled the use of masks and gigantic feathers which were deemed necessary in ballets depicting Greek or Ancient Roman life. To the same degree that Vestris was the subject of adoration, he was also irritating in his refusal to get rid of the extrovert Italian accent and the vanity he displayed in the matter of dance. He used to say that there were only three truly great men in his time – the author Voltaire, Friedrich II and he himself.

Vestris was completely ‘straight’, but greatly appreciated masculine beauty. When he met an English nobleman who was a particularly handsome man – the dancer said in admiration – "if I were not Vestris, I should have liked to have been the Duke of Devonshire!" General Napoleon Bonaparte’s first few ‘sparks’ excited him in such a way that he joyously stated: "a man of such greatness deserves the greatest reward! Even that Vestris – he himself – dance before him!"

He danced to melodies composed by Lully, Rameau and Campra. He was compared to Apollo and like the ancient god, had many erotic adventures – particularly evident was his relationship with the young ballerina, Mademoiselle Allard. Nine years later, when impressed by the perfect dancing of a child, he asked the local teacher as to the identity of the child and was told that it was the young Allard. Vestris was amazed and cried "then this is my son!" He took little Auguste to his home, hurriedly educated him, and presented him on stage as the son who was accidentally found at the age of 11. Auguste was not as tall or handsome as his father, and many of his positions lacked his father’s grandeur. Therefore he was defined in ballet terms as a Demi-caractère, though succeeding in achievement of the same glory as his father.

In 1781, when both father and son performed in London, the parliament recessed in order to allow its members to attend the Covent Garden Theatre and enjoy the Vestris family performance.

Mademoiselle Allard (1742-1802), whose full name was Marie Allard, kept dancing until her obesity prevented the continuation of her career. Even the great ballerinas cannot resist the temptations of French cuisine!

Vestris was at odds with and envious of the German ballerina Friedrike Heinkel (1753-1808), who invented a dance position called Pirouette à la seconde. Their dispute grew until she became his lover and bore his son, Adolphe, in 1791. A year later she became Mrs. Vestris.

The son, in contradiction of family tradition, did not become a dancer. Vestris II was a wealthy man but an even greater squanderer. He loved the company of ‘the pleasantly corrupt’, bringing him to bankruptcy. Nevertheless he was an excellent dance teacher, and coached Fanny Elssler and Marie Taglioni. He amazed the public by dancing a minuet at the age of 75.

In the 19^th century the Romantic Movement took over painting, sculpting and literature, and also swept over the ballet which by then had already spread almost to the four corners of enlightened Europe. The Romantic style brought to the ballet colour, imagination, legends, supernatural female creatures and love stories that do not take account of the confines of official morals.

One of the typical ballets of the period is "La Sylphide". The name is derived from the Greek work ‘Sylpha’, butterfly. The tale tells the story of the love of a Scottish youth to a half-woman half-butterfly creature who returns his love. The première took place in Paris on March 12^th 1832, led by the prima ballerina Marie Taglioni (1804-1884), who amazed the audience by dancing on the points of her toes. The conductor of the peace was her father and the Scott’s part was played by her brother Paul Taglioni, so that the whole affair remained a ‘family business’. The music, by the way, was composed by Jean Schneitzhoeffer, who, despite his German name, was a Frenchman from Alsace.

In 1834, a pupil of Vestris’s by the name of Bournonville, who managed the Danish Royal Ballet, visited Paris. The guest wished to present the dazzling ballet in Copenhagen, but the composer insisted on charging an exaggerated amount for the rights to his score. Bournonville returned to his country in a rage and entrusted to the Norwegian Barron Hermann Severin von Lovenskjold the preparation of a new score, with only a small change to the title: "The Sylphide and the Scotsman". It is therefore possible today to dance this famous ballet in two completely different versions. Nevertheless, both versions quenched the thirst of the Romantic Age for adventures where reality meets the world of fantasy and imagination.

In the Romantic ballet, women finally gained prominence over men. This was also the time of the birth of the title ‘ballerina’, the female ballet dancer – "a collection of legs, arms, painful blisters and swollen toes, flowing and moving in grace which is beyond the reach of a regular human being".

As previously mentioned, this was the international era of the art of Marie Taglioni, who brought into fashion the short white skirt – the "Tutu". In Paris she danced a ballet based on a classical theme: "Cinderella". The beautiful young sister is persecuted by her two evil sisters, but ends up marrying the king’s son.

The ballerina was married during the years 1832-1835 to the count Gilbert de Voisins but left him after he demanded that she end her career.

She amazed the public during her performance in St Petersburg. Another of the dancer’s great successes was the ballet "Giselle" where the central theme was that the world is filled with the souls of maidens and women who died for love. The heroine is a 15 year-old farmer’s daughter, and the time is harvest season. The man who loves her is the hunter Hillarian but the prince masquerades as a farmer and courts her for his own entertainment. She discovers the prince’s deceit, loses her mind – and dies. After her death she is embraced by the souls of the women who died of love. The music was composed by Adolphe Adam (1803-1856) based on a libretto by the poet Theophile Gautier (1811-1872), who was inspired by the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine.

The performance of "Giselle" was Marie Taglioni’s major European success, but she, due to her wasteful lifestyle, came to bankruptcy and had to make a living in old age as a dance teacher for girls.

Another star during the same period was the Austrian Fanny Elssler (1810-1884), who was a lot less ‘noisy’ than the former. Her dance, the ‘Cachuca’ – a slightly wild Spanish dance accompanied with castanets in the ballet "Le Diable Boiteux" in 1836 – made her famous. According to a story propagated by Edmond Rostan she was friendly with Napoleon II, the emperor’s son who was half-imprisoned in the Vienna imperial palace, and used to bring him books written about his famous father.

"Le Diable Boiteux" tells of the student Cleophas who succeeds in convincing the demon Asmodeus to come out of the bottle in which he had been hiding and conjure beautiful women for the student. The role of the first woman - Florinda, with whom the student believes he is madly in love – was performed by Fanny Elssler with the Spanish dance that immortalised her name. The second woman, Dorothea, leads the student to become absorbed in games of fortune in which he loses his money, and the third, Paquita, teaches the student the meaning of true love.

Elssler loved to perform in ballets that included folk, Gipsy, Polish, Russian and Italian dances, such as the ‘Tarantula’ – the dance of the spider. This talented dancer was also very successful in the United States whose inhabitants only then began to take interest in ballet with the appearance of the first American ballerinas.

Elssler captured the audience by dancing ‘en traversti’ (in disguise) the role of a man. When she performed in London, even Her Royal Highness Queen Victoria attended. In her last performance prior to her retirement on 6^th December 1851 – at the age of 41 – she performed the role of the young girl in "Faust", based on the play by Goethe.

The last French classical ballet which was true to the previous Romantic tradition was "Coppelia", set to the music by Leon Delibes (1836-1891). The première took place on 25^th May 1870, 6 weeks before the start of the war with Prussia-Germany, which would eventually, in 6 weeks, eliminate Napoleon III’s empire. This ballet, devoid of kings and supernatural creatures, expresses the rise of the democratic spirit in the later years of the second empire (1852-1870). The plot was inspired by one of the fantastic stories by the German E.T.A Hoffman, who also supplied the plot for Offenbach’s last opera, "The Hoffman Tales".

The ballet is set in the central square of a picturesque yet strange village – this is a ballet without ghosts and ethereal spirits. The bride-to-be Swanhilda lives on one side of the square while on the other works the mysterious Dr. Coppelius, who takes apart mechanised human-sized dolls. Swanhilda’s groom-to-be, Franz, falls in love with one of those dolls, Coppelia, but upon discovering his mistake he returns to his fiancée.

The performances were stopped when the German siege on Paris began on 23^rd September 1870. The population suffered greatly from the famine which ensued in the besieged capital. The ballerina Giuseppina Bozachi, who danced the role of Swanhilda, died on her 17^th birthday.

The temporary halt to the progress of ballet in France presaged the beginning of the rise of the Russian ballet, thanks to the Frenchman Marious Petipa (1818-1910) who arrived in Russia in 1847, married a Russian Ballerina and remained there until his death. He was honoured by directing Pieter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s (1840-1893) first attempt in the field of ballet.

The Russian composer was invited in May 1875 to write a score for a piece titled "Swan Lake" for the Moscow Ballet – the capital of the empire was St Petersburg at the time – for 800 roubles.

The idea of a swan as symbolic of women’s charm has existed since ancient times. In "The Arabian Nights" the hero visits a place inhabited by swans, who are in fact beautiful women in disguise. The hero, Hassan, hides the feathers, and eventually marries the ‘swan’. An Austrian dancer who failed in his role was responsible for the famous dance. The intrigues behind the production of this ballet are reminiscent of Israeli politics. The lead ballerina insulted the governor of Moscow because she accepted jewellery from him yet married the dancer who sold them and so she was denied the lead role and the success was only limited.

The plot of the ballet was about a prince named Siegried who falls in love with a princess named Odette. Odette is abducted by the evil wizard Rothbart who turns her into a swan every night and tries to replace her with his daughter Odile. The prince is fooled at first, but regains his loyalty to the true princess and they both disappear into the depth of a lake, born of the tears shed by the parents of the abducted princess.

The composer, however, felt that he did not truly own the ballet, due to the interference of so many other factors, and his heart yearned for a peace that would be all his.

"The Sleeping Beauty" was premiered on 14^th January 1890. The imperial ballet was funded by the Tsar with one million roubles.

The story is based upon a French story published by Charles Perrault in 1697, but its origins are far older. The theme is well known: the king organises great festivities in celebration of the birth of his only daughter, and invites a multitude of respectable guests, including the fairies – supernatural beings – from within his kingdom, in order for them to bless the newborn – Aurora. But the witch Carabosse (whose role is performed by a man), who was not invited, curses the baby and prophesises that her finger will be pricked and she will fall asleep for one hundred years – which indeed occurs on her 18^th birthday. One hundred years later, prince Florimund discovers the princess and awakens her with a kiss. In the postponed wedding celebration, appear all children’s fairytale characters including the Puss in Boots, and even an electrical experiment takes place, a new invention which impressed Marius Petipa profoundly.

Encouraged by the success of his ballet, Tchaikovsky agreed to compose another, this time with a German theme, ‘Frenchified’ by Alexandre Dumas. It tells of a little girl who receives, as a Christmas present from an eccentric uncle, a nutcracker. At night this utensil turns into a prince who defeats the king of mice and takes the delighted girl to the kingdom of sweets. The success of the ballet was complete and sweet, and the Tsar Alexander III invited the composer to his imperial booth on 17^th December 1892 to congratulate him. Alexander III did not know much about music, but Tchaikovsky composed a peace for his coronation, a matter well understood by His Excellence.

The Russian choreographer and dancer Mikhail Fokine (1880-1942), whose career began at the age of 9, set out to break the ballet’s ‘fossilised’ traditions. He presented his reform ideas to the managing boards of the Russian operas, which rejected them. To his great luck, his ideas received the sympathy of Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), perhaps the greatest ballerina of all times.

She was the illegitimate child of a hard-working washer-woman. Her father was supposedly a young Jewish soldier. By chance, someone invited the child to see "The Sleeping Beauty", and at that moment she decided to become a dancer. She was admitted to the St. Petersburg Dance School at the age of 10. She followed with interest the revolution caused by Fokine, and particularly by a special man of the wealthy Russian bourgeoisie, Serghei Pavlovich Diaghilev (1872-1929). The first performance by the ballet group he established premiered on 19^th May 1909, and on this great day an enterprise was born that would last approximately twenty years: it is destined to create a treasure of ballets, educate a few generations of fantastic dancers and bring this art-form to previously unknown heights. The enterprise created by Diaghilev – ‘Les Ballets Russes’ – became the symbol of daring and innovation in the art world. The brightest superstars of the Russian Ballet were truly Russian, such as the set-artist Leon Bakst and the composer Igor Stravinsky. Diaghilev ordered pieces from first-class western artists such as the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the French composer Maurice Ravel, the Russian-American George Balanchine and the Russian-French Serge Lifar. But the artist-manager-contractor Diaghilev’s greatest superstar was the ingenious dancer Vaslav Formich Nijinsky, born 12^th March 1888.

He was the son of professional dancers and performed on stage from the age of 5. He was educated as a dancer at the Marinsky Theatre but left after an argument concerning his attire. He was favoured by the rich and noble, and it was Prince Pavel Dimitrievich who introduced him to Diaghilev, who became his teacher and lover. When he first performed in Paris, the brilliant high-society man Willy, husband to the author Colette, wrote: "Nijinsky rose and slowly elevated into a 4 and a half metre jump and disappeared noiselessly behind the set…" The admiration of a man for his grace and beauty was without precedent. The appearance of the Russian Ballets rejuvenated world ballet.

He danced with Pavlova and was the golden slave in Rimsky Korsakov’s "Scheherazade", directed by Fokine. His greatest success was in "Le Spectre de la Rose". This incredible ballet was inspired by a poem written by the French poet Theophile Gautier, featuring a rose, adorning the cleavage of a young woman, which sends its paradise-originated scent to dance all night with the girl who believes she is asleep. The score is "An Invitation to Dance" by the Romantic composer Karl Maria von Weber (1786-1826). This perfect ballet is performed to this day at the Marinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

When Nijinsky himself became a choreographer, his ballets invoked real rebellions in the more conservative sections of the audience, for example "L’Après-midi d’un faune". The Faun is a character from Greek mythology, half goat and half man blessed with a healthy sexual appetite. The premiere on 29^th May 1912 caused some shouting against pornography.

Another ballet was "Le Sacre du Printemps". The plot takes place in primitive, ancient, pagan Russia, where it was common practice to sacrifice a virgin to the gods at springtime. The première took place on 29^th May 1913 in Paris and caused a sort of mutiny in the theatre. The innovative music sounded truly savage. Nijinsky’s dancing style only deepened the barbaric, primordial nature of the piece – and terrified some of the audience.

In Judith Stein’s book on the history of ballet, it is claimed that he met the American dancer Isadora Duncan and she influenced him as a dancer and choreographer. She was not focused on the ballet, but along with her six students – the Isadorables – she set out to bring dance back to the supposed purity of Ancient Greece.

Diaghilev, who, as previously mentioned, was intimate with the ingenious dancer Nijinsky, was amazed upon hearing of the latter’s unexpected marriage to the Polish countess Romola de Pulski. He immediately dismissed the dancer who did not recover, but instead began his decline into the realm of insanity.

The end of the 20^th Century was also the era of some excellent ballet dancers, one of the most original of those was Rudolf Nureiev (1938-1993). Despite having Tatar origins – one of the Siberian peoples (like the famous writer Tolstoy or the known revolutionary Lenin), Nureiev began to blossom in Great Britain, whose famous dancers so far were French or Russian.

At the same period another ballerina was born in England – Miss Margot Fonteyn (1919-1991), who danced her way into the British aristocracy and in 1956 became a ‘Dancer of the British Empire’ – a Lady of the British Empire!

Her first role was a snow-flake in "The Nutcracker". She danced in all the classical ballets and amazed the public in her role as Igor Stravinsky’s "Firebird". The theme is taken from an ancient Russian legend of the young Prince Ivan who becomes the prisoner of a huge and cruel giant who turns his victims into stone. But in his horrific prison he also keeps beautiful women. The innocent prince falls in love with one of them. To his great luck, in this cursed and magical space the magical Firebird also flies and the prince steals one of its feathers. This way he learns the secret of the Giant’s power – a bewitched egg kept among his treasures – a clear Freudian hint. The Prince shatters the egg and the Giant’s powers disappear. The prince then marries his beloved.

This talented dancer, Margot Fonteyn, was lucky to meet in the golden autumn of her life, the dancer Rudolf Nureiev, who was born on a train in Eastern Siberia and began dancing at the age of 6, at the end of WWII, to the enjoyment of the soldiers in the military hospitals who showered the tiny dancer with an abundance of sugar cubes as his wage. Nureiev became a popular Soviet dancer and towards the start of a tour of the West with his company he outwitted his guards and defected in 1961. In time he was awarded British nationality.

In the West he excelled in his performances of "Romeo and Juliet" to the music of Prokofiev and the ballet "La Bayadera" by the Austrian composer Minkus (1826-1917). The story revolves around the love of an Indian Raja to a woman whose holy destiny is to dance in temples (what a shame there are no holy dancers in our synagogues – it would certainly increase the interest in ballet…).

After touring with the British Royal Ballet he joined the American Ballet Theatre headed and managed by Martha Graham (1894-1991) who set out to revive in her dance the ancient myths of the Native Americans, which she termed ‘Primitive Mysteries’.

Nureiev performed much with the Paris Opera, where he was nicknamed ‘The Flying Tatar’, which added to the ballet the athletic aspect of Russian Ballet in the renewal of the Century’s famous ballets such as "Swan Lake", and he was decorated with the highest French honours. Although, in his absence, he was sentenced to 7 years in prison by the Soviets for defection. In the meantime he reached the peak of his success, lived a life of indulgence and bought himself an entire Italian (not Greek) island – Isola de Li Gali. Eventually, he received permission to visit the Soviet Union in order to bid farewell to his dying mother, before passing away himself with AIDS.

The Jews, as is well known, excelled in all fields of scientific and artistic creation, but their dancing talents – mentioned in the Bible – remained hidden until the appearance of the Israel Ballet. The immigrants exchanged the Diaspora-town lifestyle with the life of collective settlement, symbolized by the liberating, barefooted dance. At the start of the 21^st century there are a few active dance groups in Israel, but the Israel Ballet, established in 1967, is the only one entirely dedicated to the supreme calling of an art which is perhaps the essence of the culture of the enlightened world.