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"The Shakespeare of the dance"

NOVERRE, Jean Georges.
Lettres sur la danse, et sur les ballets.







Stuttgart, Et se vend à Lyon, Chez Aimé Delaroche, 1760. Sm.8vo. Contemp. marbled calf, spine ribbed and richly gilt, with red title-label, gilt binding-edges, red painted edges. (4), 484 pp.

First edition of the letters on dancing and ballet by Jean Georges Noverre (1727-1810), a famous dancing master, called in praise "the Shakespeare of the Dance". On the title of the present work he introduced himself  as: "Ballet master of the Duke of Wurtemberg and before that ballet master of theatres in Paris, Lyon, Marseille,  London, etc." The book is written in the form of letters, in which the author exposes his ideas on dancing, ballet, mime, choreography, etc. The book is dedicated to the Duke of Wurtemberg.
After having filled the position of ballet master at the Opera Comique at Paris, the Operas in London and Lyon, Noverre directed from about 1760 to 1764 the ballets at the court of Wurtemburg which at the time was the most brilliant court of Europe. In 1770 Noverre went to the Theatre of Vienna and later to Milan, and after his return to Paris in 1776 he became director of dance at the Royal Academy of Music in Paris. Noverre revolutionized the ballet by disbanding masks and introducing dramatic action into the mime ballet. He wrote a large number of ballets, many of which were  performed at Paris between 1775 and 1780 and which made him famous all over Europe.
But long before these eclatant successes he had already exposed his ideas and his plans for the  renewal of the art of dancing in the present Lettres sur le dance, et sur les ballets. The first edition is also found with the Lyon address only, and the book was much republished at the time. A facsimile edition was published, with a biography of its author and an interesting introduction by André Levinson, at Paris in 1927.

Fine copy.
Magriel, Bibliogr. of Dancing, p. 115; Derra de Moroda, The Dance Library, 1966.

Related Subjects: 18th Century  Dance  Dancing  French 

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