 M.Socrative.com
– Room 38178
 Questions:

1. Who wrote the Nutcracker and Swan Lake ballets? (the answer is
in your music notes...)
Multiple choice on the devices!!
You CAN use cell phones for the bell ringers, but after that they MUST be put up
(tablets too!)
Ballet
 Known
as the “Golden Age of Ballet”
 Turned
against neoclassicism
 Subjective
 The

viewpoint and feeling sought attention
music is written first, dance written to fit
It was the opposite in the Classical Period

The writings of Gautier (1811-1872)

Gautier was a poet and critic who believed that dance was visual
stimulation to show “beautiful forms in graceful attitudes.”

Dancing, for Gautier, was like a living painting or sculpture –
“physical pleasure and feminine beauty.”

In Romantic ballet, male dancers were reassigned to the
background, females were the lead

They could do more
 Blasis
 His
(1803-1878) wrote the “Code of Terpsichoro”
principles covered training, structure, and positioning
 Everything
in ballet required a beginning, a middle, and an
ending
 Dancers
needed to display the human figure with taste and
elegance
2.
1.
3.
4.
 The
5.
“beginnings” and “endings” of each
move
 Invented in the Baroque period by
Beauchamp
 Comes

from the classical idea
Developed from the desire for dancers to appear weightless
 Literally
 Special
 Both
means “on the tip”
shoes called “pointe shoes” or “toe shoes”
men and women can dance en pointe, but most
commonly performed by women
 Can
cause foot
deformities if started
too early (usually age
10 at the earliest)
 Blisters,
boils,
athlete’s foot, cuts,
and bleeding are to
be expected
 Choreographers
of romantic ballet sought magic and escape
in fantasies and legends
 Ballets
about elves and nymphs enjoyed great popularity, as
did ballets about madness, sleepwalking, and dreams


Taglioni’s La Sylphide: about how a man leaves his fiance for a
mythical creature, but encounters a witch who curses her to death
Taglioni’s The Revolt in the Harem: wives revolt against their
oppressors with the help of ‘the spirit of womankind’
 Influence
Western dance – Ballet as we know it today
 Tchaikovsky’s


The Nutcracker (1892)
Swan Lake (1877)
 Swan


The Nutcracker and Swan Lake
Lake popularized the fouette, or whipping turn.
The star of Swan Lake dances 32 consecutive fouettes – mandatory!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOdE0P7K0HM
We’ll study, watch, and listen to parts of the
Nutcracker today.
(We’ll do Swan Lake tomorrow)
2
Act Ballet
 Music

by Tchaikovsky
The story is based of Hoffman’s story “The Nutcracker and the
Mouse King.”
 Premiered

in St. Petersburg on Sunday Dec. 18th, 1892
Always performed around Christmas time because the ballet takes
place at Christmas
 Today,
American ballet companies generate about 40% of
their annual ticket revenue from performances of the
Nutcracker

LOTS of people go see it around the holidays
It’s a tradition for a lot of families

(UofL does “Clara’s Dream” EVERY YEAR to a PACKED house!)

 What
is it about?
 It’s
Christmas Eve
 Main
character: Clara
 Clara’s
godfather, a toy maker, gives her a nutcracker that
she takes a liking to. Fritz, her sibling, purposely breaks it
and Clara is heartbroken.
 Once
everyone goes to sleep, Clara gets up to check on her
beloved Nutcracker.
 Suddenly,
mice begin to fill the room and the Nutcracker
grows to life-size (some interpret this as her dreaming,
others say the godfather is a magician and shrinks her)
 The
Nutcracker and his army of toys are fighting an army of
Mice led by the Mouse King

The mice start eating the gingerbread soldiers
 As
the Mouse King goes to attack the wounded Nutcracker,
Clara throws a shoe at him which distracts him long enough
to get stabbed by the Nutcracker
 The
Nutcracker transforms into a handsome prince
 Clara
and the Prince go to the Land of Sweets (where the
Prince is apparently from)
 Clara
is showered in sweets from all around the world
 During
the final waltz, Clara and the Prince are crowned
rulers of the Land of Sweets
 Battle
Scene
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEbobwxU4OU
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8J8urC_8Jw
 The
music is used a LOT in popular culture – movies,
commercials, tv shows, concert performances, etc. Some of
the most recognizable classical music EVER!







Marche
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Trepak (Russian Dance)
Arabian Dance
Chinese Dance
Reed-Flutes
Waltz of the Flowers
(You will NOT need to
recognize these for the
test because there’s so
many of them – but you
should be familiar with
them!!!)
 Dance
of the Sugar Plum Fairy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8At8zfh_o3E
 Arabian
Dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxVWlqcpeTg