It’s July 1, 1789. In a few days, France will change dramatically but no one knows it yet. In Bordeaux, a certain Jean Dauberval, dancer, choreographer and ballet master at the city’s Grand-Théâtre, presents his new creation, The Wayward Daughter, a ballet of a remarkable modernity because of its shape and content.
It’s a dramatic ballet also known as Ballet d’action, a shape that excludes masks, wigs and side hoops dresses formerly used to favor a more natural dance, a fresher look supported by the philosophers of the Enlightenment. The issue of this aesthetic revolution, of this increase of the mime is not the least: it’s about making choreographic art able to tell a story just like dialogs in a play or songs in an opera.
The content tells the funny adventures of a countryside village, a village pastoral about the triumph of a forbidden love by using tricks.
Many ballets of this shape appeared later on but that very one worked its way up to Marius Petipa in 1885 and up to you and especially to British choreographer Frederick Ashton who has been immediately seduced by the work and who, in the 60’s, managed to grasp all the virtuosity and the humorous essence to make it a really successful work who has been included in Paris Opera repertoire in 2007.
To end this season 2017-2018, Paris Opera presents the work on Palais Garnier stage.
Dates and Opening Time
From June 25, 2018 to July 14, 2018
Location
Opéra de Paris - Palais Garnier
8 Rue Scribe
75009 Paris 9
Access
Metro: Opéra station (lines 3, 7 or 8) Auber (RER A)
Official website
www.operadeparis.fr
