Flames Of Paris
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''Flames of Paris'' or ''The Flames of Paris'' () is a full-length
ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
in four acts, choreographed by Vasily Vainonen with the stage director Sergei Radlov to music by
Boris Asafyev Boris Vladimirovich Asafyev (27 January 1949; also known by pseudonym Igor Glebov) was a Russian and Soviet composer, writer, musicologist, musical critic and one of founders of Soviet musicology. He is the dedicatee of Prokofiev's First Symp ...
based on songs of the French Revolution. The libretto by Nicolai Volkov and Vladimir Dmitriev was adapted from a book by Felix Gras. It was premiered at the
Kirov Theatre The Mariinsky Theatre (, also transcribed as Maryinsky or Mariyinsky) is a historic opera house in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th-century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces ...
in
Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
on 7 November 1932, with
Natalia Dudinskaya Natalia Mikhailovna Dudinskaya (29 January 2003) was a Soviet prima ballerina who dominated the Kirov Ballet from the 1930s to the 1950s. Dudinskaya was born on , in Kharkiv. Her mother was , a Ukrainian and Russian ballerina who had been coa ...
as Mireille de Poitiers, Vakhtang Chabukiani as Jérôme, Olga Jordan as Jeanne, Nina Anisimova as Thérèse, and
Konstantin Sergeyev Konstantin Mikhailovich Sergeyev (; – 1 April 1992) was a Soviet and Russian ballet dancer, ballet master, pedagogue and choreographer for the Kirov Theatre. When the Kirov Ballet returned to Leningrad from Perm (where it had been moved durin ...
as Mistral. The Bolshoi Ballet premiered the full work on 6 July 1933 at the
Bolshoi Theatre The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈat(ə)r, t=Grand Theater) is a historic opera house in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové. Before the October Revolutio ...
in
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
, with
Aleksey Yermolayev Aleksey Nikolayevich Yermolayev (Russian: Алексе́й Никола́евич Ермола́ев; 12 December 1975) was a Soviet and Russian ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher. He played an important role in the development of Russian b ...
(Jérôme), Anastasia Abramova (Jeanne), Nadezhda Kapustina (Thérèse) and
Marina Semenova Marina Timofeyevna Semyonova (, , Saint Petersburg – 9 June 2010, Moscow) was the first Soviet-trained prima ballerina. She was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1975, and a Hero of Socialist Labour in 1988. Early life The first great ...
(Mireille de Poitiers). The conductor was Yuri Fayer. A new production (using some of the original choreography) was staged in 2008 by
Alexei Ratmansky Alexei Osipovich Ratmansky (, born August 27, 1968) is a Russian-Ukrainian-American choreographer and former ballet dancer. From 2004 to 2008 he was the director of the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet. He left Russia in 2008. In 2009 he was appointed the ar ...
for the
Bolshoi Ballet The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest Ballet company, ballet companies. In the early 20th century, it ca ...
and is available on DVD with Ivan Vasiliev and Natalia Osipova. In 2013 a three-act reconstruction of the Vainonen ballet was staged by Mikhail Messerer for St Petersburg's Mikhailovsky Theatre. It is based on a 1947 version done by Vainonen for the Bolshoi.


Background

''The Flames of Paris'' is a so-called "revolutionary" ballet which takes as its subject the French Revolution, including in its scenario the storming of the Tuileries Palace by the revolutionary soldiers and their victorious march on Paris. The plot is taken from the Felix Gras's Provençal language 1896 novel ''Li Rouge dou Miejour'', which is translated into French as ''Les Rouges du Midi (Reds of the South)''. Although the ballet's setting is eighteenth-century France, it is a perfect illustration of Soviet ballet in the 1920s and 1930s, during which time there was a determined effort to find subjects in world history which reflected the more immediate situation in the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, and to show that the
October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...
was part of more universal movements and historical events.


Plot outline

This outline is different from the plot of the ballet version revived by Alexei Ratmansky for the Bolshoi Ballet. The ballet opens in a forest near
Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
, where the peasant Gaspard and his children, Jeanne and Pierre, are gathering firewood. When a Count and his hunting party arrive, the peasants disperse, but Jeanne attracts the attention of the Count, who attempts to embrace her. When her father intervenes, he is beaten up by the Count's servant and taken away. Next, in the city square in Marseille Jeanne tells the people what has happened to her father and the people's indignation over the injustices of the aristocracy grows. They storm the prison and free the prisoners of the Marquis de Beauregard. At the court of
Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...
a performance of the court theatre is followed by a lush banquet. The officials of the court present a formal petition to the king, requesting permission to deal with the unruly revolutionaries. Antoine Mistral, an actor in the theatre, on discovering this secret document is killed by the Marquis de Beauregard, but before he dies he manages to pass the petition on to Mireille de Poitiers, who escapes the palace as the sound of the
Marseillaise "La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. It was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration of war by the First French Republic against Austria, and was originally titled "". The French Nati ...
is heard through the windows. The scene shifts to a square in Paris, where an uprising and the storming of the palace is prepared. Mireille rushes in with the document revealing the conspiracy against the revolution, and her bravery is applauded. At the height of this scene, the officers of the Marquis arrive in the square; Jeanne, recognizing the man who insulted her in the woods, runs up and slaps his face. Following this, the crowd attacks the aristocrats. To the sound of revolutionary songs, the people storm the palace and burst into the staircase of the front hall. Jeanne attacks the Marquis, who is then killed by her brother, and the Basque girl Thérèse is shot to death. Finally, back in the Paris square, the people celebrate their victory over the defenders of the
Old Regime Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Mai ...
.


Analysis

In creating the choreography for this ballet, Vasily Vainonen drew upon many different sources, as did the composer Boris Asafyev. ''The Flames of Paris'' blends classical and character dancing, court and folk dances, pantomime, solo performances and group scenes. For the part of Thérèse, for example, Vainonen chose a character dancer Nina Anisimova, who displayed strong, expressive folk movements which symbolized the energy and the spirit of the crowd. On the other hand, the dances for Philippe (originally Jérôme), one of the Marseillais, and his bride are almost purely classical: the two characters dance a ''
pas de deux In ballet, a ( French, literally "step of two") is a dance duet in which two dancers, typically a male and a female, perform ballet steps together. The ''pas de deux'' is characteristic of classical ballet and can be found in many well-known ...
'' which although is reminiscent of Petipa choreographic manner, is distinctly more modern and is heroic for the male. As a further technique for putting classical dancing on the stage, Vainonen invented the roles of the pair of actors, Mireille de Poitiers and Antoine Mistral, who have been invited by the king to perform at the banquet. These were originally danced by Natalia Dudinskaya and Konstantin Sergeyev and are designed for outstanding ballet dancers who can display their virtuosity in a classical ''pas de deux.'' These characters are, of course, on the side of the revolutionary mob, so that after the storming of the palace, and the death of Antoine Mistral, Mireille de Poitiers is joined by the group in dances which include variations, codas, and the participation of an enormous ''
corps de ballet In ballet, the ''corps de ballet'' (; French language, French for "body of the little dance") is the group of ballet dancer, dancers who are not principal dancers or Soloist (ballet), soloists. They are a permanent part of the ballet company and ...
'' consisting of 24, and later 32, dancers. In the scene at the palace of
Louis XVI Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...
there is a great deal of mime sequences whilst Mireille de Poitiers dances a minuet, which is a beautiful piece of choreography in itself.


Recordings

*1953, '' Stars of the Russian Ballet'', a Soviet film production that contains segments of the ballets ''
Swan Lake ''Swan Lake'' ( rus, Лебеди́ное о́зеро, r=Lebedínoje ózero, p=lʲɪbʲɪˈdʲinəjə ˈozʲɪrə, links=no ), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failu ...
'', '' The Fountain of Bakhchisarai'', and ''The Flames of Paris''.IMDB entry for the Stars of the Russian Ballet film
/ref> Available on DVD. *2010, Bolshoi Ballet, with Natalia Osipova (Jeanne), Ivan Vasiliev (Philippe), Denis Savin (Jérôme), Yuri Klevtsov (Marquis de Beauregard), Pavel Sokorin (conductor). Available on DVD.


See also

* List of historical ballet characters


References

Notes Sources * Bremster, Martha, ed. (1993). ''International Dictionary of Ballet'' (Vol. 1 and 2). Detroit: St James Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Flames Of Paris Ballets set in the 18th century Ballets set in Paris Ballets set in France Ballets by Vasili Vainonen Ballets by Boris Asafyev 1932 ballets Ballets about the French Revolution Cultural depictions of Louis XVI Cultural depictions of Marie Antoinette Ballets based on actual events