Jules Perrot

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Perrot, Jules Joseph (b Lyons, 18 Aug. 1810, d Paramé, 24 Aug. 1892 (some sources 18 Aug. 1892)). French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. One of the most important choreographers of the Romantic era. He studied in Lyons (from 1819), and later with Auguste Vestris. His early career as a dancer was spent in two Parisian Boulevard theatres: Théâtre de la Gaîté (1823-5) and Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin (1826-9). In 1830 he was appointed first soloist at London's King Theatre and made his debut at the Paris Opera (in the opera Le Rossignol by Lebrun) the same year. There he quickly became Taglioni's favourite partner, although he left the Opera three years later, the result of a contract dispute. In later years, despite his success as a choreographer in London and St Petersburg, Paris continued to snub him: the Paris Opera produced only one of his ballets, La Filleule des fées. He appeared in London and Naples (1834), where he met Carlotta Grisi, who was to become his partner and lover (they had a daughter, born 1837). He performed in Munich and Vienna (1836), Milan (1838), and Lyons (1840). He created roles in Coralli's Léocadie (1828) and L'Orgie (1831), F. Taglioni's Robert le diable (1831), La Révolte au sérail (1833), Sire Huon (1833), and Mazilia (1835), Deshayes's Zéphir berger (1835), and in countless ballets choreographed by himself. As a dancer he had great strength and stamina, but also unusual grace. Gautier wrote that Perrot possessed ‘the perfect legs of a Greek statue, somewhat feminine in their roundness’. The first major ballet he choreographed was Le Nymphe et le papillon for the Vienna Kärntnertor Theater in 1836. He choreographed all of Grisi's solos for Giselle at the Paris Opera in 1841 and partnered her as Albrecht in the ballet's London premiere in 1842. He was ballet master at Her Majesty's Theatre in London (1843-8), probably his most important years as a choreographer. He was choreographer at La Scala, Milan, in 1848 and ballet master at St Petersburg (1851-8). He also worked in Berlin, Brussels, Lyons, and Warsaw. As a choreographer, his overwhelming achievement was the integration of dance into the drama, so that stories could be told through the movement itself and not just through mime. A list of his works includes Alma ou la Fille de feu (with Deshayes, mus. Costa, London, 1842), L'Aurore (mus. Pugni, 1843), Ondine (mus. Pugni, 1843), La Esmeralda (mus. Pugni, London, 1844), Eoline ou la Dryade (mus. Pugni, London, 1845), Pas de quatre (mus. Pugni, London, 1845), Caterina ou la fille du bandit (mus. Pugni, 1846), Le Jugement de Pâris (mus. Pugni, London, 1846), Les Quatre Saisons (mus. Pugni, 1848), Lalla Rookh, or The Rose of Lahore (mus. Félicien David and Pugni, 1846), Les Eléments (mus. Bajetti, 1847), Faust (mus. Penizza, Costa, and Bajetti, La Scala, Milan, 1848), La Filleule de fées (mus. Adam and Saint-Julien, Paris, 1849), Le Angustie or Les Tribulations d'un maître de ballet (mus. Pugni, St Petersburg, 1851), La Guerre des femmes (mus. Pugni, St Petersburg, 1852), Gazelda ou les tziganes (mus. Pugni, St Petersburg, 1853), Markobomba (mus. Pugni, St Petersburg, 1854), and Armida (mus. Pugni, St Petersburg, 1855). He was married to the Russian ballerina Capitoline Samovskaya.