Marius Petipa: The Emperor’s Ballet Master / by Nadine MeisnerCall Number: 792.82092 Mei
ISBN: 9780190659295
Publication Date: New York: Oxford UP, 2019. xii, 497 p., 40 p. of plates.
Reviewed: NYRB 19 Dec. 2019 p. 72.
Description: One of the most important ballet choreographers of all time, Marius Petipa (1818-1910) created works that are now mainstays of the ballet repertoire. The first biography in English of this monumental figure of ballet history, this work covers the choreographer’s life and work in full within the con-text of remarkable historical and political surroundings. Over the course of ten well-researched chapters, Nadine Meisner explores Marius Petipa’s life and legacy: the artist’s arrival in Russia from his native France, the socio-political tensions and revolution he experienced, his popularity on the Russian imperial stage, his collaborations with other choreographers and composers (most famously Tchaikovsky), and the conditions under which he worked, in close proximity to the imperial court. Meisner presents a thrilling and exhaustive narrative not only of Petipa’s life but of the cultural development of ballet across the 19th and early 20th centuries. The book also extends beyond Petipa’s narrative with insightful analyses of the evolution of ballet technique, theatre genres, and the rise of male dancers. … As Meisner demonstrates, the choreographer laid the foundations for Soviet ballet and for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the expatriate company which exercised such an enormous influence on ballet in the West, including the Royal Ballet and Balanchine’s New York City Ballet. (publ.)