European ballet venues

Palais Garnier the Foyer de la Danse

The Photo: One of the worlds most beautiful assignation spots, the Foyer de la Danse in the Palais Garnier in Paris. An institution, the Foyer de la Danse in the opera house was the privileged meeting point between subscribers and dancers. It had its golden age in the decades 1820-1880. The Foyer de la Danse was discussed in my post for March 28, 2011 entitled Ballet Sex.

A proposed European trip: During June, July and August Anya and I will be visiting Taryn (outside Cambridge) and Tanaquil (in Bavaria) as well as major ballet performance venues in London, Paris, Vienna, Stuttgart and Milan. Tanaquil has made special arrangements for Anya and me to have intimate encounters in these venues ballet studios, some of which; Paris, Stuttgart and Milan were the scene of early innovations in classical ballet technique and costuming. Gigi will be with Jacques in Hawaii, Cyndi will be with her mom, Fiona, visiting her maternal grandfather’s castle in England and Aimée is returning to her home in France to visit her parents before returning to St Lucy’s for Fall term. All the arrangements aren’t final as yet but it should be an amazing time.

Our itinerary:

London: Royal Opera House: The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in the London district of Covent Garden. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Originally called the Theatre Royal, it served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later Handel's first season of operas began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1857. The façade, foyer and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The Royal Opera House seats 2,268 people and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The proscenium is 12.20 m wide and 14.80 m high. The main auditorium is a Grade 1 listed building.

Paris: Palais Garnier: The Palais Garnier, also known as the Opéra de Paris or Opéra Garnier or Grand Opera House, but more commonly as the Paris Opéra, is a 2,200 seat opera house. A grand landmark designed by Charles Garnier in the Neo-Baroque style, it is regarded as one of the architectural masterpieces of its time. Upon its inauguration in 1875, the opera house was officially named the Académie Nationale de Musique - Théâtre de l'Opéra. It retained this title until 1978 when it was re-named the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris. After the opera company chose the Opéra Bastille as their principal theatre upon its completion in 1989, the theatre was re-named as the Palais Garnier, though its more official name, the Académie Nationale de Musique, is still sprawled above the columns of its front façade. In spite of the change of names and the Opera company's relocation to the Opéra Bastille, the Palais Garnier is still known by many people as the Paris Opéra, as have all of the many theatres which have served as the principal venues of the Parisian Opera and Ballet since its founding.

Stuttgart: Staatstheater: The Staatstheater Stuttgart (Stuttgart National Theatre) is an opera house in Stuttgart, Germany. It is also known locally as the Grosses Haus, having been the larger of two theatres of the former Königliche Hoftheater. Designed by the noted Munich architect, Max Littmann, who won a competition to create new royal theatres, it was constructed between 1909 and 1912 as the Königliche Hoftheater, a royal theatre of the Kingdom of Württemberg with a Grosses Haus and a Kleines Haus. In 1919 the theatres were renamed the Landestheater, and later, the Staatstheater. The Small House was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War and, today, the site is occupied by a new Kleines Haus, which opened in 1962. The Grosses Haus is the only major German opera house to survive the bombing of the Second World War. Between 1982 and 1984, extensive renovations restored it to its original condition and it now seats 1,399.

Vienna: State Opera House: The Vienna State Opera Ballet, like the opera company, is based at the Vienna State Opera House in Vienna, Austria. The original building was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945.The ballet company performs to a worldwide audience each New Year's Day by means of the Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Day Concerts, the televised broadcast of which includes several pre-recorded dance sequences.

Milan: La Scala: La Scala (Italian: Teatro alla Scala), is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala (Italian: Nuovo Regio Ducale Teatro alla Scala). The premiere performance was Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta. Most of Italy's greatest operatic artists, and many of the finest singers from other nations, too, have appeared at La Scala during the past 200 years. Today, the theatre is still recognised as one of the leading opera and ballet theatres in the world and is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet and La Scala Theatre Orchestra. The theatre also has an associate school, known as the La Scala Theatre Academy (Italian: Accademia Teatro alla Scala), which offers professional training in music, dance, stage craft and stage management.

La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet

Agnès Letestu and Mathieu Ganio in ‘La Danse’: The Paris Opera Ballet

The New York Times
November 4, 2009

MOVIE REVIEW 'LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET'

Creating Dialogue From Body Language
By A. O. SCOTT

In “La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet,” his 36th documentary in more than 40 years, Frederick Wiseman takes his camera into the stately and elegant Palais Garnier in Paris, observing rehearsals, staff meetings and, finally, performances of seven dances, including classics like “The Nutcracker” and spiky new work by younger choreographers. To say that the film, sumptuous in its length and graceful in its rhythm, is a feast for ballet lovers is to state the obvious and also to sell Mr. Wiseman’s achievement a bit short. Yes, this is one of the finest dance films ever made, but there’s more to it than that.

You might as well say that his previous documentary, the enthralling three-and-a-half-hour “State Legislature,” is a must-see for devotees of Idaho politics. It certainly is, but its greater virtue, and the substance of Mr. Wiseman’s particular genius, is the way it transfixes you with the inner workings of an institution you may not otherwise care about. The observation of groups of people functioning in a clearly defined professional or social context has been Mr. Wiseman’s primary interest ever since his first film, “Titicut Follies,” which exposed the workings of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts.

The Paris Opera Ballet is of course a more exalted place than either the Boise Statehouse or that grim New England penitentiary — its dancers are certainly easier on the eyes than legislators or social workers — but the quality of Mr. Wiseman’s attention is the same. His curiosity is boundless but also disciplined, and he forgoes explanation in favor of a visual version of what anthropologists call thick description.

In “La Danse” you watch closely as dancers and choreographers break complex movements down into their constituent gestures, a process that is at once tedious and entirely engrossing. Though all the rehearsing culminates in full-dress performance, “La Danse” really has no beginning, middle or end. It is, rather, about two kinds of time that exist outside traditional narrative frameworks: the long, slow, repetitive cycle in which institutions exist, and the fleeting moments of bodily motion and musical expression that make ballet such a singular and elusive art form.

All this makes the film sound remote, even abstract, but it is really the opposite. There are characters, events and miniature dramas that unfold in the course of the ballet company’s work. There is also a lot of talk, much of it provided by Brigitte Lefèvre, the troupe’s artistic director and a rhetorician in the grand French style. It is sometimes hard to follow what she is talking about, but her energy and cadences are mesmerizing.

And “La Danse,” among its other observations, emphasizes the distance between verbal analysis and physical movement. Dance is a vehicle of meaning and emotion, but it is also a technical undertaking consisting of minutely controlled muscular movements. What goes on in rehearsal is the negotiation between art and technique, and language is a paltry but necessary tool. One choreographer prattles on about “context” to a dancer who nods her head gamely but studies his body language more than his words. Another choreographer, an Anglophone working with French performers, forgoes words altogether, communicating his “notes” through a serious of hums and clucks, like a scat singer or a human beat box.

The performances that result from all this work — and that are upheld by the gritty business of fund-raising and nearly obstructed by French labor troubles — are ravishing and also a bit anticlimactic. By the time you see the dancers in costume, on a carefully lighted stage and accompanied by a full orchestra, you have attained an intriguing liminal status somewhere between spectator and performer.

If you did not already know the names of the stars of the Paris Opera Ballet — Aurélie Dupont and Laetitia Pujol stand out particularly — you will nonetheless have acquired an almost tactile sense of who they are. “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” wondered William Butler Yeats in his poem “Among School Children.” It’s a simple and also endlessly mysterious question, one that Mr. Wiseman, in his patient, meticulous, magical way, both restates and answers.

LA DANSE: The Paris Opera Ballet Opened on Wednesday (November 4, 2009 in Manhattan.

Directed and edited by Frederick Wiseman; director of photography, John Davey; produced by Pierre-Olivier Bardet and Mr. Wiseman; released by Zipporah Films. At Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. In English and French, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 38 minutes. This film is not rated.