''The Kermesse in Bruges, or The Three Gifts'' is a

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

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 three acts created by the Danish

ballet master A ballet master (also balletmaster, ballet mistress, ''premier maître de ballet'' or ''premier maître de ballet en chef'') is an employee of a ballet company who is responsible for the level of competence of the dancers in their company. In mo ...

and

choreographer Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

August Bournonville August Bournonville (21 August 1805 – 30 November 1879) was a Danish ballet master and choreographer. He was the son of Antoine Bournonville, a dancer and choreographer trained under the French choreographer, Jean Georges Noverre, and the ne ...

to music by Holger Simon Paulli, first performed by the

Royal Danish Ballet The Royal Danish Ballet ( Danish: ''Den Kongelige Ballet'') is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Danish Theatre in Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen, Denmark. It is one of the oldest ballet companies in the world a ...

on 4 April 1851. The Danish title is ''Kermessen i Brügge eller De tre Gaver''.Walter Terry, ''Ballet Guide,'' 1976, p. 199 The ballet tells the story of three brothers who receive magic gifts from an

alchemist Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...

Plot summary

At a

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Fairs showcase a wide range of go ...

(or kermesse) in 17th century

Bruges Bruges ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders, in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is in the northwest of the country, and is the sixth most populous city in the country. The area of the whole city amoun ...

three brothers (Adrian, Geert, and Carelis) receive magical gifts from the alchemist Mirewelt. The two older brothers, Adrian and Geert, leave their sweethearts behind and set off into the world with their gifts (a sword and a ring) to seek their fortunes. The magical gifts bring disappointment to the two men but, back home, the brothers discover Carelis' magic lute brings happiness to all. Adrian, Geert, and Mirewelt are charged with

sorcery Sorcery commonly refers to: * Magic (supernatural), the application of beliefs, rituals or actions employed to manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces ** Goetia, ''Goetia'', magic involving the evocation of spirits ** Witchcraft, the ...

and sentenced to death at the stake, but Carelis appears and his magic lute sets everyone to dancing joyfully. The condemned are released and reunited with their sweethearts while Carelis and Eleonore, the alchemist's daughter, embrace. Carelis' magic lute is locked away in a chest, to be taken out only at the yearly kermesse.

Characters

*Adrian, brother to Geert and Carelis. *Geert, brother to Adrian and Carelis. *Carelis, brother to Adrian and Geert. *Johanna, sweetheart of Adrian. *Marchen, sweetheart of Geert. *Trutje, mother to Johanna and Marchen. *Mirewelt, an alchemist. *Eleonore, Mirewelt's daughter and Carelis' beloved. *Madame von Everdingen, a beautiful widow.

Music

The music is composed and arranged by Holger Simon Paulli, who liberally borrowed musical material from other composers and also from his own earlier works. To illustrate the young couple's love for one another Paulli lets Carelis, in the scene in which he is alone with Eleonore, play the

romanesca Romanesca is a melodic-harmonic formula popular from the mid–16th to early–17th centuries that was used as an aria formula for singing poetry and as a subject for instrumental variation. The pattern, which is found in an endless collection o ...

, a 17th-century ''aire de danse'', on the

viola da gamba The viola da gamba (), or viol, or informally gamba, is a bowed and fretted string instrument that is played (i.e. "on the leg"). It is distinct from the later violin family, violin, or ; and it is any one of the earlier viol family of bow (m ...

. Extensive sections of the marketplace scene in Act I are danced to various passages from

Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. He gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano p ...

opera comique The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, located between Wych Street, Holywell Street and the Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and K ...

'' Le Comte Ory'' (1828), whilst the

round dance Modern social round dance, or round dancing, is a choreographed and cued ballroom dance that progresses in a circular counter-clockwise pattern around the dance floor. The two major categories of ballroom dances found in round dancing are the s ...

in the same scene is taken from Paulli's music for Bournonville's ballet, ''The White Rose''. In the scene set in Madame van Everdingen's home, music from

Ferdinand Hérold Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold (28 January 1791 – 19 January 1833), better known as Ferdinand Hérold (), was a French composer. He was celebrated in his lifetime for his operas, of which he composed more than twenty, but he also wrote ballet mus ...

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

Zampa ''Zampa'','' ou La fiancée de marbre'' (''Zampa, or the Marble Bride'') is an opéra comique in three acts by French composer Ferdinand Hérold, with a libretto by Mélesville. The overture to the opera is one of Hérold's most famous works an ...

'' and Rossini's finale from his opera '' L'assedio di Corinto'' are used. Paulli's own voice as a composer is heard in the many dances, such as the ''

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 ...

'' for Eleonore and Carelis in Act I; similarly, the obligatory final

galop In dance, the galop, named after the fastest running gait of a horse (see Gallop), a shortened version of the original term galoppade, is a lively country dance, introduced in the late 1820s to Parisian society by the Duchesse de Berry and popu ...

is a characteristic example of the dance music Paulli wrote for Bournonville.

History

''The Kermesse in Bruges'' is composed of equal parts

folk tale Oral literature, orature, or folk literature is a genre of literature that is spoken or sung in contrast to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as anthropologists have used va ...

and contemporary

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

. Bournonville's burlesque ballet about

Flemish Flemish may refer to: * Flemish, adjective for Flanders, Belgium * Flemish region, one of the three regions of Belgium *Flemish Community, one of the three constitutionally defined language communities of Belgium * Flemish dialects, a Dutch dialec ...

life in the seventeenth century was first performed in 1851, two years after the introduction of Denmark's first liberal constitution, at a time when Europe was in turmoil. ''The Kermesse in Bruges'' is, in its own way, Bournonville's comment on a period which had to learn to administer freedom. The alchemist Mirewelt cannot predict the consequences when, out of sheer gratitude, he gives the three brothers a share in his magic powers, but his three gifts quickly prove to be all it takes to turn the social order in Bruges upside down. The moral of the tale is that success in battle and love are short-lived gifts whereas the cheerful disposition will, as Bournonville himself wrote, always triumph and endure. There is indeed much cheerfulness in this Danish classic which also contains one of Bournonville's most beautiful dance compositions, the ''pas de deux'' in Act I, Carelis' declaration of love to Eleonore. This ''pas de deux'' received its definitive form when Bournonville restaged the ballet in 1865. Later important productions are Harald Lander's and Valborg Borchesnius' version from 1943, where some scenes were omitted in an attempt to tighten the structure. In 1966, Flemming Flindt and Hans Brenaa made their own treatment. The costumes were in bright colours in the fashion of the day, but the performance also had a brush of something mysterious and medieval in the lighting and grouping. In 1979 Brenaa created a new version, in which the ballet received a cinematic speed and a cheerful energy. This version was kept until 2000, when Dinna Bjørn, Anne Marie Vessel Schlüter, and the stage producer Jan Maagaard injected a serious shade into the cheerful lightness of the earlier production. In 2000,

Peter Schaufuss Peter Schaufuss (born 1949 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is a Danish ballet dancer, director and choreographer. Biography He is the son of ballet dancers Frank Schaufuss (1921–1997) and Mona Vangsaae (1920–1983). Schaufuss trained at the Royal D ...

also created a version of ''The Kermesse in Bruges'' for his own company, The Peter Schaufuss Ballet.

Notes

References