Ballet and Opera in the Age of Giselle. (Book Reviews: Genre Studies).

Ballet and Opera in the Age of Giselle.

By Marian Smith. (Princeton Studies in Opera.) Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. [xx, 306 p. ISBN 0-691-04994-7. $39.95.] Music examples, illustrations, index.

In this award-winning publication (recipient of the highly coveted de l Torre Bueno Prize for 2001) Smith presents a narrowly defined argument that "the longtime marriage between opera and ballet at the [Paris] Opera had not fully ended in the 1830s and 1840s" (p. xiii). Smith positions her case in the modern context where opera and ballet have evolved to separate art forms with correspondingly distinct audiences and research communities. The author laments weaknesses in current performances that lack elements of musical and dramatic association characteristic of ballet-pantomime's close association to opera that can enrich audiences' involvement with the plot and gesture.

Smith persuasively reconstructs the historical context in which ballet-pantomime was tied to opera by examination of five inherent traits of the genre. First is the manner in which the music helps portray the ballet's plot. Some of the conventions in this process include simple text painting and melodic borrowings from well-known arias that evoke the context of the plot. The more flexible and dramatic musical passages for mime are contrasted with the consistent eight-measure structure of general dance movements. Next, the author presents the closely associated administrative context and genre characteristics of ballet and opera. We are reminded that both genres flourished at the same theater, sharing support and influence from the same administration, costume and scene designers, composers, and even artists. The commonality of plots, staging, and gesture are also documented. The third characteristic used to establish the relationship with opera is what Smith somewhat paradoxically refers to as "the lighter t one of ballet-pantomime" (p. xx). The complaint of nineteenth-century critics that the tragic and heroic are somehow inconsistent with dancing is considered. Smith further demonstrates how early-nineteenth-century ballets that parodied the plots of popular opera comique were modified to accentuate visual aspects of the plot and enhance the context for dancing. Next Smith examines the "silent language" of ballet-pantomime. She surveys several conventions of conveying the words or content of the plot to the ...