The Fate of La Feste: An Affective Reading of Maximilien Gardel’s Mirsa Ballets

Abstract

In 1781, ballet master Maximilien Gardel presented La Feste de Mirsa, a sequel to his 1779 ballet en action Mirza. Given the latter’s success, Opéra audiences anticipated another evening of praiseworthy entertainment, but the La Feste proved a total failure, disappearing after one performance. Critics denounced the ballet for its disappointing lack of finesse, but a close reading of the two ballets and their reviews uncovers more aesthetic and narrative similarities than differences. What does distinguish them is the role of affect: Mirza inspiring sympathetic connections to imperial hegemony and white masculinity, La Feste to diversity, femininity, and human equality.

Key words:

• Affect
• ballet
• Mirza
• France
• race

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Olivia Sabee and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on initial versions of this article and the New York Public Library (Grant ID: 2431) for their support and assistance in the research process.

Notes

1 “Spectacles: Opéra,” Journal de Paris, February 23, 1781, 217, Gallica.

2 “Spectacles: Académie royale de musique,” Mercure de France, March 3, 1781, 84, Google Books.

3 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 84.

4 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 29.

5 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 29.

6 Joseph Harris, Inventing the Spectator: Subjectivity and the Theatrical Experience in Early Modern France (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 137.

7 Harris, Inventing, 137.

8 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 30.

9 Charles Altieri, The Particulars of Rapture: An Aesthetics of the Affects (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 2003), 120.

10 Altieri, Particulars, 125-26.

11 Altieri, Particulars, 223.

12 Altieri, Particulars, 228.

13 Altieri, “Interpreting Emotions,” chap. 3 in Particulars, 72-108; Altieri, Particulars, 109-11.

14 “Spectacles: Académie royale de musique,” Mercure de France, November 27, 1779, 177, Google Books.

15 “Spectacles,” Mercure, November 27, 1779, 181.

16 “Spectacles,” Mercure, November 27, 1779, 182.

17 “Spectacles,” Mercure, November 27, 1779, 182.

18 “Spectacles,” Mercure, November 27, 1779, 182.

19 “Spectacles,” Mercure, November 27, 1779, 182.

20 “Spectacles,” Mercure, November 27, 1779, 182.

21 Maximilien Gardel, Mirza, ballet en action, de la Composition de M. Gardel l’aîné, Maître des Dallets du Roi, en survivance, Représenté devant Leurs Majestés, à Versailles en Mars 1779, score by François-Joseph Gossec, Paris, 1779, 6, *MGTZ-Res. (Mirsa), Cia Fornaroli Collection, Performing Arts Research Collections-Dance, New York Public Library.

22 Gardel, Mirza, 6.

23 Gardel, Mirza, 8.

24 Gardel, Mirza, 8-9.

25 “Spectacles,” Mercure, November 27, 1779, 181.

26 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 31.

27 Louis Petit de Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la république des lettres en France depuis MDCCLXII jusquà nos jours; ou, Journal d’un observateur (London, 1784), 17:69, Google Books.

28 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 30.

29 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 30-31.

30 L’Almanach musical, quoted in Théodore de Lajarte, Bibliothèque musicale du théâtre de l’Opéra. Catalogue historique, chronologique, anecdoctique [sic], publié sous les auspices du ministère de l’Instruction publique et des beaux-arts (Paris, 1878), 1: 325, Gallica.

31 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 31.

32 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 32.

33 Gardel, Mirza, 7.

34 Gardel, Mirza, 5.

35 Maximilien Gardel, La Feste de Mirsa, ballet-pantomime, (Paris, 1781), 2, Gallica.

36 Gardel, Mirza, 5-6.

37 Gardel, Mirza, 7-8.

38 Gardel, Mirza, 8-9.

39 Gardel, Mirza, 9.

40 Gardel, Mirza, 10.

41 Gardel, Mirza, 10.

42 “Spectacles,” Mercure, November 27, 1779, 181-82.

43 “Spectacles,” Mercure, November 27, 1779, 182.

44 CNRTL, s.v. “Attacher,” 3b, accessed March 14, 2022, https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/attacher.

45 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. Knud Haakonssen (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 82.

46 Smith, Theory, 83.

47 Claude Adrien Helvétius, De l’Esprit in Œuvres complètes (London, 1777), II: 47, Gale Primary Sources.

48 Helvétius, De l’Esprit, II: 39.

49 Helvétius, De l’Esprit, II: 41.

50 Harris, Inventing, 170-171; Harris, “Beyond Domesticity: Diderot and the Drame,” chap. 8 in Inventing, 223-55.

51 Harris, Inventing, 185-87; see also Jean I. Marsden, “Dangerous Pleasures-Theatregoing in the Eighteenth Century” chap. 2 in Theatres of Feeling: Affect, Performance, and the Eighteenth-Century Stage (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 41-69, and—for a more “positive” perspective on the moral impact of drama—Harris, Inventing, 250-52.

52 Marsden, Theatres, 168.

53 Marsden, Theatres, 168.

54 Alain Viala, Lettre à Rousseau sur l’têt littéraire (Paris: Quadrige/Presses universitaires de France, 2005), 57, 91.

55 Altieri, Particulars, 81, 110-11.

56 Altieri, Particulars, 87.

57 Altieri, Particulars, 85.

58 Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce de Lahontan, Voyages du baron de Lahontan dans l’Amérique septentrionale […] (Amsterdam, 1728), 1 : 217, Google Books ; Bernard Picard, Antoine Banier, Jean-Baptiste Le Mascrier, Histoire générale des cérémonies, mœurs et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde, vol. VII, part 1 (Paris, 1741), 8, Google Books.

59 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 30.

60 Bachaumont, Mémoires, 17: 69.

61 “Spectacles,” Mercure, March 3, 1781, 30-31.

62 Viala, Lettre, 50.

63 Viala, Lettre, 52-54.

64 Viala, Lettre, 58.

* In 1781, the Théâtre du Palais-Royal was located along the rue Saint-Honoré in the first arrondissement of Paris.

† Spelling for both of Gardel’s Mirsa ballets varies considerably in source materials. For the purposes of this article, I will retain the spelling given in the titles of the first publicly-circulated libretti. Moreover, the nuance in orthography will serve to distinguish between the character and the ballet. I will use “Mirsa” when speaking of the persona and “Mirza” when referring to the libretto or production.

* I choose to use the phrase “pantomime ballet” as a generic appellation for Gardel’s ballets consciously and cautiously. Given the fluidity and ambiguity of eighteenth-century terminology in designating subgenres of musical spectacle, it is important to acknowledge the generic and aesthetic implications and limitations that accompany any choice of an English translation for French ballet generic subtitles. For a detailed account of the contentions surrounding the phrase “pantomime ballet,” see Olivia Sabee’s introduction to Theories of Ballet in the Age of the Encyclopédie (Oxford: Liverpool University Press on behalf of Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford, 2022), 12-17, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment 2022:01. All other translations are mine, unless otherwise noted.

† It is unknown if these two accounts were written by the same or different critics for the Mercure.

‡ Namely, Maximilen Gardel, François Gossec, and André Grétry.

* I am using a vocabulary of affect and performance as defined by Charles Altieri in The Particulars of Rapture: An Aesthetics of the Affects (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 2003). Other critical lexical and conceptual paradigms of affect exist, but I have chosen Altieri’s as it lends itself to my reading of Gardel’s ballets and the early modern notion of intérêt (see discussion below).

* Since Sargent Faydieu of the royal Régiment des gardes is listed as the choreographer of these maneuvers, one might conclude that the soldiers were recruits under his leadership.

* If reading itself can be thought of as a type of spectatorship that engenders an affective state with its own system of values, attitudes, and modes of positioning in relation to the spectacular world, then the affective influence of the performance increases. Moreover, if scholarship can be thought of as a type of performance of reading, a re-presentation of an historic(al) text, then we must conclude that scholarship is likewise an affective experience, and all reader-spectators, regardless of temporal positioning, will be subject to the power of the historical spectacle. This should be kept in mind when reading and re-reading eighteenth-century sources such as the Mirsa ballets, for the performance can yet emotionally influence and impact us. Present-day reader-spectators must be aware of prejudices and assumptions inherent to the historical sources that would seek to affectively persuade us of their justice.

* A note of clarification is in order concerning how I have chosen to translate the ethnic, racial, national, and tribal identifications of the characters in the original Mirsa libretti. I acknowledge that, in spite of my caution, the terms that I have chosen are insufficient in their specificity and perpetuate the ambiguity of individual personhood present in the original texts, but I have attempted to rectify this as much as is within my power as a writer, scholar, and performer.

In the first of the ballets Mirza, distinctions are made between Français, such as Lindor; Créoles, such as Mirsa and her mother; Nègres or Négresses, such as Mirsa’s governess; Corsaires, such as Lindor’s rival; and Américain(e)s, such as the attendees at Mirsa’s wedding. In the second ballet La Feste de Mirsa, the identifications are somewhat clearer and more specific. In addition to the Français, there are Sauvages, such as the chieftain and his wife; Indien(ne)s, who form a distinct group from the Sauvages; European performers who are Scandinaves, Écossais, or Anglais; and Nègres, who perform domestic duties in the Mondor household.

Given that both ballets take place on an “Isle de l’Amérique” (in the second ballet, it is called the Isle of Cataracoui [sic]) and that the colonial outpost is identified as “Fort Fontenac [sic]” in the second ballet libretto, I am strongly persuaded that references made to original inhabitants of what is now Canada (“Américain[e],” “Sauvage,” and perhaps also “Indien[ne]”) are an attempt to identify Indigenous North American people groups and tribes, and characters referred to as “Nègres” would be enslaved and forcibly displaced Black Africans. However, as it is impossible to know exactly the ethnic, racial, national, or tribal identity of the individual character—due to the lack of clarity in the libretti as well as the terminological imprecision present in eighteenth-century writing and culture, as a whole—I do not want to overly-presume (and, thus, incorrectly affix) the identity of any particular person in the ballets. Consequently, I have chosen to replace “Nègre/Négresse” with “Black African” and “Sauvage” with “Indigenous.” As for “Américain,” when it is clear from the context of the libretto that this is in reference to original inhabitants of North American lands, I have chosen to use “Indigenous,” but I confess that I am still uncertain as to what identity “Indien(ne)” may refer to in the second ballet in light of the fact that this group of dancers is distinguished from the group of “Sauvages.” Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

* “Spectacles: Académie royale de musique,” Mercure de France, November 27, 1779, 181, Google Books. The Mercure praised the selection of musical compositions that backgrounded the pantomime scenes, for instance, but found those written for the dancing much less appealing: “Il y auroit sans doute quelques nuances à desirer encore, quelques retranchemens à faire; car, où la perfection se trouve-t-elle? Le choix des airs qui sont mis en action, est fait avec beaucoup d’esprit & de discernement; on ne peut pas en dire autant du choix des airs de danse. Malgré ces observations critiques, M. Gardel n’en méritera pas moins les applaudissemens qu’il a obtenus & les suffrages du Public François [sic].”

† “Spectacles: Académie royale de musique,” Mercure de France, March 3, 1781, 84, Google Books. The critic uses the generic term “Asiatique” although the ballet libretto specifies the comic opera as being set in Turkey.

* Joellen A. Meglin describes the appearance of La Mariée in Gardel’s ballet as a “throwbac[k] to the past,” both socially (the dance would have been considered passée by the debut of La Feste de Mirsa) and choreographically (dancing master Guillaume-Louis Pécour had created the dance at the beginning of the century). See Meglin, “‘Sauvages, Sex Roles, and Semiotics’: Representations of Native Americans in the French Ballet, 1736-1837, Part One: The Eighteenth Century,” Dance Chronicle 23, no. 2 (2000): 122, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1568072.

* David M. Powers discusses colonial hierarchies and the categories of the “Other” at length in From Plantation to Paradise? Cultural Politics and Musical Theatre in French Slave Colonies, 1764-1789 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2014). Although Powers’ focus is on the French Caribbean and Gardel’s ballets are most likely set in French Canada (given references to Fort Frontenac and the Cataraqui River in the libretto of La Feste de Mirsa), Powers’ research and analysis of race, class, and performance are invaluable to an understanding of French colonial culture and politics more generally.

* I would suggest Gardel’s Mirza and La Feste de Mirsa as artistic and aesthetic French parallels, or prequels, to the Italian Salvatore Viganò’s nineteenth-century coreodrammi. An association between the two ballet masters has always existed, beginning with Viganò’s contemporaries, although, as Ellen Lockhart has remarked, it is important not to assume Viganò as a mere successor to the French but as an artist in his own right. It is probable, nonetheless, that Viganò’s creativity stemmed from the same ideological and aesthetic influences as Gardel’s, if not taking inspiration from Gardel directly, given the mutual connections of the two ballet masters and their similar training. Pietro Lichtenthal, Dizionario et bibliografia della musica, vol. 1 (Milano, 1826), 81, Hathi Trust; Lockhart, Introduction to Animation, Plasticity, and Music in Italy, 1770-1830 (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), 6, EBSCO. See also Jennifer Homans, “Italian Heresy: Pantomime, Virtuosity, and Italian Ballet,” chap. 6 in Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2010), 205-42.

† The role of Madame Mondor (a character who is unnamed and designated only as Gouverneur Mondor’s Creole spouse in Mirza) was played by Mademoiselle Hidoux in the first ballet and by Mademoiselle Dorlay in the sequel.

‡ For an analysis of national types in early modern French ballet, see Ellen R. Welch’s article “Dancing the Nation: Performing France in the Seventeenth-Century Ballets des nations,” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 13, no. 2 (2013): 3-23, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43857921.

* Foster appropriates for ballet David Marshall’s literary approach to emotions in order to arrive at this reading of La Feste de Mirsa. See Marshall, “La Vie de Marianne, or the Accidents of Autobiography,” chap. 2 in The Surprising Effects of Sympathy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 50-83, and Foster, Choreography & Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 129, 310, fn. 2.

† “Spectacles: Académie royale de musique,” Mercure de France, November 27, 1779, 182, Google Books. “M. Vestris fils a rendu avec beaucoup de chaleur, d’intérêt & de dignité, le moment où il arrête le Corsaire cherchant à enlever Mirsa…la vérité de ses attitudes, son expression, ont été saisies & applaudies comme elles le méritaient.”

* Similar to the contemporary notion of affect, as earlier defined.

* Pannill Camp argues for an ideological connection between not only French theater and French theories of human sympathy and collective morality but also between French theater and English theories. “The Theatre of Moral Sentiments: Neoclassical Dramaturgy and Adam Smith’s Impartial Spectator,” Journal of the History of Ideas 81, no. 4 (October, 2020): 555-576. http://doi.10.1353/jhi.2020.0029.

* The original score for Mirza confirms that the dance was likely more colonist than colonized in its national coloring provided that the music is for a gavotte. The dance form had featured prominently in Lully’s seventeenth-century operas, but its popularity peaked early in the eighteenth century and, by the time of Gardel’s Mirsa ballets, would have been a relic of the past. Nevertheless, it remained a core component of the French ballroom repertory, and its inclusion in an opera or ballet would have “lifted [the spectators] onto the stage… by the muscle memory of their own bodies” (Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Dance and Drama in French Baroque Opera: A History [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016], 153). The gavotte in Gardel’s ballet may also have served a comedic purpose, referencing André Campra’s earlier use of the dance form to parody the dance as embodied and musical synecdoche of French refinement and social culture.

The revised score of Mirza includes other musical possibilities for the danse du pays, but they are airs borrowed from the opera La Peronne sauvée, which debuted in 1783. It is impossible that any of this music could have underscored the dancing in the original Mirza, even if it did so for later versions, yet the intertextual gesture should not be overlooked. Given that the inclusion postdates La Feste de Mirsa, a musical reference to Nicolas Dezède’s La Peronne sauvée in the first Mirsa ballet would seem to justify the differences of the second. As explicitly stated in the “Avertissement,” the impetus behind La Peronne sauvée was to remind French audiences of the role that female heroism had historically played in the preservation and protection of the French patrie. The sentiment has no referent in Mirza as it is not a woman but a man whose heroism saves what is French; the sequel ballet, however, is an extraordinary representation of female valor. Consult Harris-Warrick, Dance, 90-93, 273-274; as well as Francine Lancelot, La Belle danse: Catalogue raisonné fait en l’An 1995 (Paris: Van Dieren, 1996), xlii-xlv and Jean-Michel Guilcher, La Contredanse et les renouvellements de la danse française (Paris: Mouton & Co., 1969), 156. See also François-Joseph Gossec, Mirza, unrevised score, 1779 [1788], *ZBT-729, Performing Arts Research Collections-Music, New York Public Library; Nicolas Dezède, La Peronne sauvée, opéra en quatre actes, libretto by Louis-Édme Billard de Sauvigny (Paris, 1783), 3, Library of Congress.

* Maximilien Gardel, La Feste de Mirsa, ballet-pantomime, (Paris, 1781), 11, Gallica. “…l’on renverse le Bûcher.”

† For a discussion of the parallels between social structures, danced movement, and visual representations of patterning, see Sarah R. Cohen, “Aristocratic Traceries” and “Watteau’s Performers,” chap. 3 and 5 in Art, Dance, and the Body in French Culture of the Ancien Régime (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 89-133 and 166-208.

* “Spectacles: Académie royale de musique,” Mercure de France, March 3, 1781, 31, Google Books. “…le Drame qui nous révoltoit [sic] malgré son faste, son appareil & ses pretentions.”

† Viala and Sarah Ahmed both speak of the social and communal nature of emotion and the affects. See Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (New York: Routledge, 2004), 8-12, EBSCO; Viala, Lettre à Rousseau sur l’intérêt littéraire (Paris: Quadrige/Presses universitaires de France, 2005), 49-50.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this article was supported by a Short-Term Research Fellowship from the New York Public Library.

Notes on contributors

Amanda Danielle Moehlenpah

AMANDA DANIELLE MOEHLENPAH is a scholar of early modern French literature and culture and instructor of French and Francophone Studies. Her work centers on the processes, discourses, and ideologies surrounding dance in Enlightement-era Europe and the ethics underlying the reproduction and re-performance of historical dance in the twenty-first century. Dr. Moehlenpah currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri.