Léo Delibes (1836 - 1891)
Ballet Suite from Coppelia
Ballet Suite from Sylvia
Ballet Suite from La Source
Le Roi s'amuse: Airs de danse dans le style ancien
Kassya
Adolphe Adam (1803 -1856)
Excerpts from Act I and Act II of Giselle
France has a long tradition of ballet, whether as a separate entertainment or
as an indispensable part of French Opéra. An element of French dance became
part of the late Baroque musical synthesis of Bach and Handel, and, in a later
generation, provided the technical basis for the Russian ballet. The Paris
Academie royale de danse was established in 1661 and the associated school,
which still continues, in 1713. The art of ballet in France reached a new height
in the middle of the nineteenth century, coinciding with the early career of
Léo Delibes, who entered the Conservatoire in 1848 and five years later took a
position secured for him by Adolphe Adam, composer of Giselle, as
accompanist at the Theatre Lyrique. Like many other composers he was employed
also as an organist, from 1862 until 1871 at Saint-Jean-Saint-François, but his
primary interest lay in music for the theatre. For the Theatre Lyrique he wrote
comic Opéras and for the Folies Nouvelles and other companies operettas, while
continuing to compose music for the church.
Appointment as accompanist at the Opéra in 1863 brought Delibes other
opportunities. He was allowed to associate with Minkus in the composition of the
ballet La Source in 1866, a task in which he was so successful that a
commission followed for a divertissement, Le pas des fleurs, to be added
to Adolphe Adam's Le Corsaire. Delibes won his greatest popular success
with the score for Coppelia, commissioned for 1870 and his first complete
ballet score. This was followed six years later by Sylvia and in 1883 by
the important Opéra Lakme. His last Opéra was Kassya, orchestrated
by Massenet and staged two years after the composer's death in 1891.
The ballet Coppelia was based on a story by the German romantic writer
and composer E.T.A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann, a tale that also served
Offenbach in the first act of Les Contes de Hofftnann. In the original
version Nathanael is subject to brooding melancholy, intensely aware of a sense
of evil. As a child he had been terrified of the Sandman, who brings sleep to
children and whom he had identified with a late-night visitor to his father's
house, the lawyer Coppelius. He finds out that his father and Coppelius conduct
chemical experiments, in the course of one of which his father is killed. In
later life he is troubled by the barometer-seller Coppola, whom he identifies
with Coppelius. From him he buys a telescope and sees the daughter of Professor
Spalanzini, the beautiful Olimpia, whom he later discovers to be a clockwork
puppet. Nathanael has been in love with Clara, to whom he now returns, but in
madness tries to kill her, while the voice of Coppelius lures him to his own
death.
The form of the story used by Charles Nuitter and Arthur Saint-Leon, the
former the archivist at the Opéra and the latter a distinguished choreographer,
with an interest in national dances admirably shown in Coppelia, is more
frivolous. The hero Franz is no haunted figure, while Coppelius seems a
relatively harmless character, in spite of his strange delusion. Nevertheless
dancers such as Karsavina have succeeded in investing Coppelia with
something of the tragedy of Hoffmann's original.
Coppelia was first produced at the Paris Opéra on 25th May 1870, an
ominous year. The sixteen-year-old Giuseppina Bozzacchi as Swanilda danced her
first important rôle that took her from the corps de ballet to the position of
prima ballerina at a remarkably early age and Eugénie Fiocre, première
dansense of the Opéra, who specialised in travesty rôles, took the part of
Franz, establishing an initial travesty tradition for the part. François Dauty
took the character part of Dr. Coppelius. The ballet enjoyed immediate success
and continued in the Paris repertoire. Bozzacchi danced the first eighteen
performances, but the opera closed at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War
and two months later she was dead of a fever contracted during the German siege
of the city.
Coppelia combines two stories, the love of Franz and Swanilda and the
ambitions of the old puppet-maker Dr. Coppelius, whose desire is to make a
living doll. Franz falls in love with the puppet, but through the mischievous
trickery of Swanilda, who impersonates a puppet in the workshop of Dr. Coppelius,
he is brought to his senses.
The Slav Theme and Variations are taken from the first act of
the ballet, principally concerned with the love of Franz and Swanilda. The dance
of the automata is in the second act, in the workshop of Dr. Coppelius and other
dances in the suite are taken from the divertissements of the third act.
Sylvia was first produced at the Paris Opéra on 14th June 1876, with
choreography by Louis Merante, who had created a leading rôle in La Source. The
story was drawn from Tasso's pastoral drama Aminta. In the history of
Russian ballet Sylvia occupies an ambiguous position, since its
production at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1901 was the cause of
Dyagilev's resignation, when he was required to submit to formal supervision of
his work by older members of the cultural establishment. Dyagilev had already
set to work on an ambitious production, in which Bakst and Benois were involved,
but opposition to his undertaking, on the grounds of his youth, led to a breach
with Prince Volkonsky, Director of the Imperial Theatres. The ultimate
consequences for the history of ballet were far-reaching.
The shepherd Amyntas loves Sylvia, a nymph of Diana and therefore vowed to
chastity. He is rejected by her, as is the Black Hunter, Orion. Eros intervenes
on behalf of Amyntas and Diana is induced to forgive her disloyal votary Sylvia
and to bless the wedding of the lovers.
The composition of La Source was shared between the Austrian composer
Ludwig Minkus, who was for many years associated with the ballet companies in
Moscow and St Petersburg, and Delibes, who wrote the second and third of the
four scenes. The ballet was first produced at the Opéra on 12th November 1866,
its libretto and choreography by Nuitter and Saint-Léon. The action takes place
in Persia, where Nai1a, the spirit of the spring of the title, is defended by
the hunter Djémil from the gypsy Morgab, who wants to poison her waters. Naïla
rewards Djemil with the hand of his beloved Nouredda, providing a magic flower
that serves to protect her. The Pas des écharpes, with its final Circassian
Dance offers an element of exoticism that was to recur in the work of
Delibes.
The six ancient dances, elegant pastiche relying on well known thematic
material, were written for the ball scene in a Comedie-Française production of
Victor Hugo’s-play Le roi s'amuse in 1882, fifty years after its first
appearance. The play originally deals with the fickle amours of François 1er
and, with suitable modifications insisted on by the censors, formed the basis of
Verdi's Opéra Rigoletto, safely transposed to the duchy of Mantua.
Kassya was the last Opéra of Delibes, based on the story Frinko Balaban
by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, a writer better known for Krafft-Ebing's use of
his name. The opera, completed by Massenet, who added recitatives and
orchestrated the work after the composer's death, has a Galician setting, and
elements of exoticism, exemplified in the Ukrainian trepak.
Adolphe Adam, remembered today chiefly as the composer of Giselle, rather
than for any of his many operas or other works, was born in Paris in 1803, the
son of a musician who forbade his offspring any form of musical education and
went on to extend this prohibition, having given way on the first point, to the
composition of any work for the stage. Adam acquired his knowledge of music
through his own efforts and entered the Conservatoire, where he studied the
organ under Benoist but later deserted this instrument for the harmonium, on
which he performed effectively in the fashionable salons of Paris.
As a composer Adam won popularity for a series of works designed for the
Opéra-Comique and in 1847 opened his own Theatre National with the notion of
encouraging younger composers. The venture was ill-timed and came to nothing the
following years, when political disturbances broke out in Paris. Adam spent much
of the rest of his 1ife paying off the debts he had incurred in this enterprise.
Giselle, the seventh of Adam's ballets, was first staged at the Paris
Opéra in 1841 and is based on a story recounted by Heine. The country-girl
Giselle falls in love with Count Albrecht, of whose identity and earlier
betrothal to a noblewoman she is unaware. When she learns the truth she goes mad
and dies. In the second act Albrecht comes to worship at the tomb of Giselle, in
the forest, where, at midnight, Queen Myrtha and the Wilis appear, ghosts of
girls who loved dancing but died before their wedding-day. Albrecht's companion,
Hilarion, is driven to his death, but the Count himself is saved by the ghost of
Giselle, who dances with him until dawn breaks, and the Wilis must return to
their graves.
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava)
The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), the oldest symphonic
ensemble in Slovakia, was founded in 1929 at the instance of Milos Ruppeldt and
Oskar Nedbal, prominent personalities in the sphere of music. Ondrej Lenárd was
appointed its conductor in 1970 and in 1977 its conductor-in-chief, succeeded
recently by Robert Stankovsky. The orchestra has given successful concerts both
at home and abroad, in Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy,
Great Britain, Hong Kong and Japan. For Marco Polo the orchestra has recorded
works by Glazunov, Glière, Miaskovsky and other late romantic composers and
film music of Honegger, Bliss, Ibert and Khachaturian as well as several volumes
of the label's Johann Strauss Edition. Naxos recordings include
symphonies and ballets by Tchaikovsky, and symphonies by Berlioz and
Saint-Saëns.
Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava)
The Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), the oldest symphonic
ensemble in Slovakia, was founded in 1929 at the instance of Milos Ruppeldt and
Oskar Nedbal, prominent personalities in the sphere of music. Ondrej Lenárd was
appointed its conductor in 1970 and in 1977 its conductor-in-chief. The
orchestra has given successful concerts both at home and abroad, in Germany,
Russia, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Hong Kong and
Japan. For Marco Polo the orchestra has recorded works by Glazunov, Glière,
Miaskovsky and other late romantic composers and film music of Honegger, Bliss,
Ibert and Khachaturian as well as several volumes of the label's Johann
Strauss Edition. Naxos recordings include symphonies and ballets by
Tchaikovsky, and symphonies by Berlioz and Saint-Saëns.
Ondrej Lenárd
Ondrej Lenárd was born in 1942 and had his early training in Bratislava,
where, at the age of seventeen, he entered the Academy of Music and Drama, to
study under Ludovit Rajter. His graduation concert in 1964 was given with the
Slovak Phi1harmonic Orchestra and during his two years of mi1itary service he
conducted the Army Orchestral Ensemble, later renewing an earlier connection
with the Slovak National Opéra, where he has continued to direct performances.
Lenárd's work with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava began
in 1970 and in 1977 he was appointed Principal Conductor. At the same time he
has travelled widely abroad in Europe, the Americas, the Soviet Union and
elsewhere as a guest conductor, and during his two years, from 1984 to 1986, as
General Music Director of the Slovak National Opéra recorded for Opus Opéras
by Puccini, Gounod, Suchon and Bellini.
For Naxos Lenárd has recorded symphonies and ballet music by Tchaikovsky and
works by Glazunov, Johann Strauss, Verdi and Rimsky-Korsakov. For Marco Polo he
has recorded Havergal Brian's colossal Gothic symphony to great critical
acclaim in the international music press.
