バレエ・ダクシオン成立前史におけるバレエの演劇性

「劇的バレエ」は劇的か

抄録

Jean-George Noverre, a godfather of action ballet, describes his earlier pieces with the discussion of ballet poetics in his book. Though action ballet is sometimes called “dramatic ballet,” his pieces don’t seem necessarily dramatic, judging from their synopses. This article puts Noverre’s theory and practice of ballet in perspective of those of ballet genres before the time of action ballet, namely, ballet de cour, opera- ballet and etc., and discusses in what meaning his pieces were “dramatic”. The seventeenth-century ballet theorists, Ménéstrier among others, remark that the ballet should be a mute comedy; it should be composed of diverse elements. To associate all the elements with the subject of work, Ménéstrier, who emphasized the diversity of ballet, advocated the rule of unité de dessein for his ballet poetics, abandoning the dramatic rule of unité de action -- these two unités are by their natures incompatible with each other. This article shows that the significance of the diversity in ballet poetics had been virtually diminished by the time of Cahusac, who emphasized rather dramatic aspects of ballet and suggested the idea of grande action, and that Noverre tried to realize this idea by adapting plots of opera-ballet with poor intrigue.