Precaution summary. Ballet Vain Precaution

Screenplay by J. Dauberval.

"Ballet about straw, or From bad to good is just one step"

Ballet in 2 acts (3 scenes) to group music, choreographer J. Dauberval.

1. Aunt Simone's Farm(in Russian productions of Marcellina). She forces her daughter Lisa to do various housework. And the girl thinks about meeting with her beloved Knee. Peasants come to be hired to work on harvesting Simone's crops. Colin is among them, but Simone chases him away. She does not need a poor fiance, she is going to marry her daughter to the winemaker's son Tom (in Michaud's Russian productions). So he is easy to remember, he came along with his son Nikez (in Russian productions Alain). Nicaise promises a rich dowry, Simone, after bargaining, agrees. Liza becomes stubborn, snatches her hand from the young man and runs away. The others leave after her.

Field. Harvest. At the midday break, Lisa finds Colin, but Simone interferes with the lovers again. General fun and dances of the peasants. A thunderstorm starts. Nicaise opens his umbrella, but strong gusts of wind knock him over. The downpour forces everyone to leave. In the turmoil, the lovers are together again.

2. Room on Simone's farm. In the background is the staircase to the bedroom. Simone tells her daughter to sit down at the spinning wheel. She also tries to spin, but sleep overcomes her. Lisa tries to steal the key from her mother's pocket. She wakes up and, in order to drive away the dream, invites her daughter to dance. Lisa happily agrees and brings her mother a tambourine. Simone tries to accompany Lisa's dance, but falls asleep again. Colin appears in the window above the door, Lisa tries to steal the key again. Simone suddenly wakes up and frantically beats her tambourine. Simone dances with her daughter.

Reapers and reapers come. They bring many sheaves and ask for retribution. Simona sparingly distributes money and sees off the workers. Suddenly Colin appears from the sheaves. A touching meeting, lovers exchange neckerchiefs. Hearing that his mother is returning, Liza, frightened, sends the young man to the bedroom, and she herself pretends that she fell asleep at work. Simone wakes up her daughter. Seeing her new handkerchief, she angrily tells Lisa to go to the bedroom. In vain, the girl begs not to do this - the mother drives her daughter with a spinning wheel to where Colin is, and locks the door behind her.

Enter Thomas, Nicaise, the notary, and the peasants behind them. Tom puts two bags of money on the table, everyone is ready to sign the marriage contract. Simone gives the groom the key to the bedroom and offers to fetch the bride. Nicaise puts on his gloves and solemnly ascends the stairs. But as soon as he turns the key in the lock, everyone sees the embarrassed, but happy Liza and Kolya at the door. Nicaise refuses to marry, Simone is in despair. Young on their knees ask her to agree to their happiness. Everyone, including the notary, joins them. Simone has no choice but to agree. Only Tom and Nicaise are indignant, they have no choice but to retire in disgrace.

The rural holiday ends the show.

"Vain Precaution" is the oldest masterpiece of the choreographic heritage that has come down to us, so to speak, the great-grandmother of modern ballet. The famous dancer, teacher and choreographer Jean Berchet (1742-1806), nicknamed Dauberval, was called by his contemporaries "Molière of Dance", Diderot, the brothers Grimm and Beaumarchais admired his art. The premiere took place at the Grand Theater in Bordeaux two weeks before the storming of the Bastille. It is not surprising that the first spectators found in the ballet themes consonant with their time. First of all - the struggle of heroes for their happiness, regardless of property and class prejudices. Over time, this conflict in society escalated, and Michaud became the owner of a rich mill, then faded into the background, and Alain became just a silly kid.

Over the years, the name of the ballet has also changed: “The Ballet of Straw”, “Badly Saved Daughter” (La Fille mal gardée), “One Step From Bad to Good”, “Deceived Old Woman” and, finally, “Vain Precaution” - a name that has become established on the Russian stage. For more than two centuries, both the original choreography and music have been erased from memory. The main thing has been preserved - the spirit and style of the ballet, which has not lost its freshness, cheerfulness and direct fun.

The dramaturgy of "Vain Precaution" is rightfully considered exemplary - the action, masterfully designed by Dauberval, moves with the utmost simplicity and at the same time with inexorable consistency. The story is full of unexpected twists and turns. Expressive pantomime is combined with a variety of dance and successfully sets it off. The heroes of the ballet are no longer conditional comedic masks, but living people, although the influence of the traditions of fair comedians is undeniable. In the characters, as is often the case in old ballets, today the artistic successes of many generations of outstanding performers of Vain Precaution are accumulated. Marie Theodore, Fanny Elsler, Virginia Zucchi, Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Ekaterina Geltser, Elena Lukom, Tatyana Vecheslova, Pavel Gerdt, Timofey Stukolkin, Mikhail Fokin, Mikhail Mordkin, Nikita Dolgushin - these are just a few of the famous names.

The Dauberval ballet, like many choreographic performances of that time, was performed to music assembled from popular melodies and couplets. French folk intonations sounded in unpretentious accompaniment of dances. In 1828, during the first production of Le Vain Precaution on the stage of the Paris Royal Academy of Music, the famous composer Louis Herold tactfully processed disparate musical fragments, preserving their naive simplicity and national character. In 1864, when staged at the Berlin Court Opera, the ballet acquired a new musical outfit composed by the German composer Peter Hertel. Having lost its former naivety and French flavor, the music has become typically ballet, sometimes sentimental, sometimes banal. In the future, it was supplemented by fragments of a different plan and quality: waltzes, polkas and even chardash.

In Russia, ballet appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century almost first hand. The choreographer of the St. Petersburg theater Charles Didelot in his youth danced Colin at the very Dauberval. Subsequently, "Vain Precaution" was often staged both in Moscow and in the capital. The tours of Fanny Elsler, who painted Lisa as a naive, flirtatious and playful simpleton, enjoyed great success. In 1885, for the debut in St. Petersburg of the Italian ballerina Virginia Zucchi, Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa already composed a three-act play to the music of Hertel. An increasing place was given to dancing: in the second picture, the dance of the Bohemian gypsies appeared, and the third act was a continuous divertissement in a rustic French style. From 1896, for almost a decade, the role of Liza was monopolized by the all-powerful Matilda Kshesinskaya. The ballerina shone in the famous dance with ribbons from the first picture and in pantomime scenes and, of course, in a spectacular pas de deux. The production was kept at the Mariinsky Theater until the end of the 1920s.

In 1937, in another Leningrad theater - the Maly Opera House - young Leonid Lavrovsky decided to abandon the former, in his words, "pastoral with charming shepherds and shepherdesses indulging in various pranks." Hertel's music was cleared of later layers by the conductor Pavel Feldt, who at the same time composed a new third act, dedicated to the birth of the first child of Lisa and Colin. The provocative and funny ballet was, it would seem, out of time in 1937, but it survived 26 performances and left the stage "under pressure" of the Pushkin anniversary. During the difficult years of the Great Patriotic War, both Leningrad theaters in evacuation again remembered the comedy "Vain Precaution". In Maly, who returned to direct, Fyodor Lopukhov composed a new choreography with the preservation of three fragments from the performance by Lev Ivanov.

At the Kirov Theatre, the renewal of the ballet in the 1923 edition fell to the lot of Vladimir Ponomarev. The only ballet review by composer Sergei Prokofiev is associated with this performance. In it, he explains the enduring interest in "Vain Precaution": "The plot, composed by the famous French choreographer Dauberval, is uncomplicated, but danceable and easily conveyed by means of ballet. It does not have to resort, as in some ballets, to desperate gestures to explain between two dance numbers that "he" loves "her" and "she" loves "the other", and the audience feels awkward why "they" they wave their hands a lot and still do not understand who loves whom. In "Vain Precaution" the action is clear from the dance itself. However, upon returning to their hometown, both ballet companies did not keep the comedy performance in their repertoire.

In the second half of the twentieth century, with new productions of The Vain Precaution, they returned to Herold's music, updating its orchestration and overall composition. In 1960, The Vain Precaution was re-staged at the London Royal Ballet by choreographer Frederick Ashton. The performance's conductor, John Lanchbury, made a successful transcription of Herold's music, and the legendary Tamara Karsavina advised the production. The successful performance not only adorned the London poster for many years, but had practically no competition with the desire of other Western troupes to realize the "Vain Precaution". In 2002, he was transferred to the Moscow Bolshoi Theater, finding worthy performers there. Meanwhile, in Kyiv and Frunze, Riga and Odessa, Tallinn and Saratov, a completely different version of the old ballet was danced.

It was performed in 1971 at the Leningrad Maly Opera Theater by Oleg Vinogradov in collaboration with the famous ballet historian Yuri Slonimsky. The choreographer composed the entire choreography anew, relying on the best traditions of the past and without avoiding modern means of expression. The three acts of the performance are essentially three suites of dances with an obligatory pas de deux in each. The range of moods of these duets is great: modest, closely connected with the development of the plot in the first picture, more developed, emotionally saturated in the picture of the harvest, and, finally, the final joyful triumph of the heroes, using the diverse richness of classical dance. In the last act, a peculiar quartet-competition of saboteurs also stands out, which presents considerable difficulties for the performers and always delights the audience. The whole performance is immersed in the poetic atmosphere of everyday life, it has a lot of light, bright, sometimes funny scenery. This is a mischievous and passionate game of vintage ballet from rural life. The actors now and then "feed cues", play a lot and successfully with sickles, rakes, etc. The style and manner of the dance, the details of stage behavior develop the traditions of Dauberval's French comedy ballet. Only on the native stage this performance, replete with many acting successes, was held 186 times. The fact that such "Vain Precaution" has not become obsolete even in the twenty-first century has been shown by its recent performances in Perm, Kazan and the Moscow Musical Theater named after Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko.

A. Degen, I. Stupnikov

Photo: Vain Precaution at the Mikhailovsky Theater

Vain Precaution (ballet)

"Vain Precaution"(fr. La Fille mal gardee- in literal translation badly cared for daughter listen)) is a ballet in two acts created by the French choreographer Jean Dauberval.

"Vain Precaution" is the only ballet of the classical repertoire that has survived to our time, in which the characters were contemporaries of the spectator of the days of the premiere.

History of creation

According to another version, he was inspired by an etching by Chauffard (Pierre-Philippe Choffard) (1730-1809) based on a painting by Baudouin depicting a comic everyday scene: an elderly lady scolds a young girl, and her lover with pantaloons in his hands flies up the attic stairs.

And there is a version that in the image of the handsome Colin, Jean Dauberval hinted at himself and his own amorous adventures.

Characters and plot

The characters and the plot are given according to the version of the composer L. Gerold, translated into Russian, L. Entelis's entry. Initially, according to the plan of J. Dauberval, the names of the characters were somewhat different from later editions. So, the main characters were not called Lisa (French: Lise) and Colin (French: Colin), but Lison (Lison) and Cola (Colas). And the modern Marcellina was called the widow Ragotte (Ragotte) or in later versions - Simone (Simone), while her ballet part was always at the mercy of male performers.

Characters

Lisa's friends. Peasants and peasant women.

Plot

Marcelina dreams of getting her beautiful daughter Lisa to marry Nicaise, the son of the local rich man Michaud. But the daughter has already chosen her own beloved - this is the neighbor's poor peasant boy Colin. This turn of events does not suit the mother, who is looking for material well-being, and she does not take her eyes off her daughter, preventing her from dating Colin. But the nimble poor man is not going to betray his beloved. He sneaks into the closet of the house where Marcelina and Lisa live and hides in a haystack. And Marcellina, not knowing anything about Colin's deceit, conceived her own deceit: so that her daughter would not run away to her impoverished lover at the wrong moment, she locks her in the closet - the very one where Colin hid. She herself is actively preparing for the upcoming wedding of her rebellious daughter, and only when everyone gathers in the house: the notary, the rich man Michaud, his son, the groom Nicaise, the peasant guests, she solemnly releases the prisoner-daughter from the closet. But before the eyes of those present there appear two - lovers Lisa and Colin, and even in what form! Lisa and Colin.

Premiere

• July 1, 1789 - Bordeaux, Bolshoi Musical Theatre; entitled Le Ballet de la paille ou Il n'y a qu'un pas du mal au bien(“Ballet about straw, or From bad to good is just one step”), to team music. The main parties were performed by: Lizon - Marie-Madeleine Crespe, Cola - Eugene Yus, stern widow mother Ragotta - dancer Francois le Rich.

Productions

J. Dauberval still repeated his invariably popular ballet on other stages. Then the productions began to be resumed by other choreographers. At first, any music was used according to the taste of the directors. In 1796, P. Gavo wrote the music for remaking the ballet into a comic opera, and Omer used this music for his production of the ballet. However, Pierre Gaveau's music did not last long. In 1828, the composer L. Herold finally endowed the ballet with permanent music. And in 1864, another composer, P. Gertel, made his own musical version. Thus, one work had two scores at once. The ballet took place in almost all the world's musical theaters.

The ballet itself was full of frivolous humor and ambiguous allusions. These love scenes were staged differently at different times, depending on the generally accepted norms of morality, which quickly changed: a haystack was either placed in the middle of the stage as the main scene of action, or chastely removed behind the scenery away from the eyes, and in the foreground, the industrious Lisa - depending on the imagination and knowledge of the director in the field of peasant life and its coloring, she fed real chickens, did laundry and ironing, spun or, sighing sadly, vividly imagined a happy family life with her beloved Kolen and the birth of their children - in a word, she did anything, but not scripted in the hayloft in the arms of a loved one.

Some performances:

Since that time, the ballet of J. Dauberval triumphantly went on the European scenes.

In the same edition, the ballet was staged in Vienna (1794), Marseille (1795), Lyon (1796), Naples (1797).

• 15 September 1837 - Royal Academy of Music and Dance, Paris, resumption of the production with music by Louis Herold but with the addition of a pas de deux, written by E. Leborgne for F. Elsler. First performers: Lisa- F. Elsler; Knees- J. Mazilier.

In the version of the music by Louis Herold, the ballet was repeatedly staged on European stages, including in Russia: in St. Petersburg at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater: November 20, 1848 (according to C. Didelot, Lisa- F. Elsler; Knees- H. P. Ioganson; Marcelina- J. Perrot) and October 28, 1854 (choreographer J. Perrot, Lisa- Anna Prihunova) and at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater: February 12, 1845 (choreographer I. N. Nikitin, edited by Sh. Didlo, Lisa- E. A. Sankovskaya; Knees- I. N. Nikitin) and May 11, 1850 ( Lisa- F. Elsler).

Natalie Bock in the ballet "Vain Precaution". 1987

During its existence since 1789, this ballet has attracted the attention of many outstanding choreographers, and the performers of the parts were world-famous ballet stars. But all these performances created, with different music, are firmly based on the very first production of Jean Dauberval.

Notes

Categories:

• Ballets in alphabetical order
• Petipa's ballets
• Gorsky's ballets
• Lopukhov's ballets
• Ballets of 1789
• Ballets 1828
• Ballets 1864

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

"Vain Precaution".
Mikhailovsky Theatre.
Music by Louis Herold, choreography by Frederick Ashton.

After a seven-year hiatus, The Mikhaylovsky Theater reappeared in the repertoire of The Vain Precaution, this time choreographed by Frederick Ashton (1960). The previous production - by Oleg Vinogradov (1971) to the music of Louis Herold - lasted on the billboard until 2007. In 2002, Ashton's ballet was transferred to the Bolshoi Theatre, but now only Yuri Grigorovich's version remains in its repertoire.

Scene from the play.

Vain Precaution, a lyrical comedy (a rare genre in classical ballet), miraculously survived all the reforms and upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries, is considered the oldest ballet that has survived to this day. True, we are talking only about the libretto by Jean Dauberval: the choreography and combined music of the premiere in 1789 have not been preserved. Pastorals with unpretentious intrigue, where circumstances interfere with the connection of lovers, were traditional for the ballet scene. But this ballet was perceived by contemporaries as innovative. Dauberval made the plot and characters more realistic (albeit naively): he replaced bucolic silks with prosaic chintz in the literal and figurative senses. An important difference was also the effectiveness of the choreography. Following his teacher Jean Noverre, Dauberval created a ballet, where the action developed through choreography, and not just pantomime, which was repeatedly noted by critics. At one of the first performances in the theater of Bordeaux, the main dancer, having heard the news from Paris that the third estate had received the right to vote, proclaimed a toast from the stage, vigorously supported by the audience. In the 19th century, this "folk" ballet acquired two scores by Louis Herold (1828) and Peter Hertel (1864), and, in the interpretation of various choreographers, was successfully performed on European stages, often chosen for debuts and tours due to its simplicity and versatility.

In Russia, ballet successfully survived the revolution of 1917, passing for a manual for a beginner balletomaniac. In 1937, Leonid Lavrovsky staged The Vain Precaution (based on the score by Gertel). The pastoral “doll kingdom” (by Lavrovsky’s definition) of the version of Marius Petipa - Lev Ivanov, which remained in the repertoire until 1922, he replaced with realism and social background. The main motive was the struggle for "free love", which triumphs in the third act, composed by the choreographer for festive dances on the occasion of the birth of Lisa and Colin's first child.

A. Soboleva (Liza), V. Lebedev (knees).
Photo - archive of the Mikhailovsky Theatre.

Ashton's "Vain Precaution" harmoniously blended into the atmosphere of bourgeois respectability that descended on the Mikhailovsky Theatre, pleasantly shaded by the floral ornament of Duat's opuses and skillfully diluted with measured doses of extraordinary director's interpretations in the opera. Today, Ashton's ballet - a classic, but not yet archaic - looks like a comic pastoral of the twentieth century. The performance even provides for the appearance of a cart drawn by a live pony, and the comic pasdecinq of a rooster and four plump hens opens the ballet.

Like a huge number of other versions of this ballet, Ashton's "Vanity" is assembled from a mosaic of musical fragments (arranged by John Lanchbury based on the score of Herold), finds of predecessors and original choreography. Much was learned from the stories of Tamara Karsavina, who performed the part of Lisa in the Petipa-Ivanov ballet, as well as from photographs of Lavrovsky's performance. This is how the dance with ribbons appeared, the umbrella-horse of the village fool Alain, the scene with the Maypole and the keys ... The program for the Mikhailovsky Theater performance contains a quote from the book of Julie Kavana version of Russian researchers, he appeared already in the performance of Petipa-Ivanov.

Ashton's well-done ballet, which harmoniously intertwines dance (quite effective) and pantomime, will have as much brilliance as talented performers can bring. Characteristic and grotesque roles in comedy suggest improvisation in creating the image. However, in this case, there are serious limitations: the exact correspondence to the original is scrupulously monitored by choreographer Michael O'Hare and the copyright holder of Ashton's production, Jean-Pierre Gasquier.

Scene from the play.
Photo - archive of the Mikhailovsky Theatre.

The premiere on March 27, performed not without enthusiasm, did not have enough brilliance, excitement, acting skills. The main characters - Liza (Anastasia Soboleva) and Kolen (Viktor Lebedev) - are more classical than characteristic, they would look more naturally in a palace, rather than a rural environment. Sometimes sweet and gentle, leading a flirtatious game, they lacked vitality and persuasiveness, independently found, memorable strokes.

Simone's widow, a grotesque role scored by Michael O'Hare, did not become as enchanting and funny as it could be. Alain (Denis Tolmachev) turned out to be a strange, but kind fellow.

On the whole, a homogeneous ensemble of actors was formed: no one drew attention to themselves, but they did not inspire by the miracle of theatrical transformation.

P. GERTEL
A VAST PRECAUTION
Ballet in two acts
Libretto by J. DAUBERVAL

ABOUT THE BALLET "Vain Precaution"

"Vain Precaution" is the firstborn of the classical choreographic heritage. For more than two centuries it has graced the repertoire of many theaters around the world. Created on the eve of the French Revolution of 1789, The Vain Precaution is intimately connected with the philosophy of Rousseau and Diderot. She continued, but in the field of choreography, the innovative searches of Gluck, Mozart, Beaumarchais, and in the genre of lyrical comedy, practically embodied the precepts of the great theorist and reformer of dance art J. Noverre. In the second half of the 18th century, ballet turned from an entertaining divertissement-applied spectacle to opera or drama into an independent art form. With advanced literature, music, painting, he was united by a common theme and range of images. Here the progressive ideas of the encyclopedists, their struggle for a theater-tribune, for the depiction of reality, were reflected.
The Greek and Roman characters of the tragic ballets of the leading choreographic ballets of that time - Noverre, Hilferding, Angiolini were endowed with deep and sincere feelings. Within the framework of traditional classical plots, new features were visible through the shell of popular myths and tales of antiquity. Naturally, unlike the naively pastoral performances of the court ballet at the beginning of the century, such performances required new means of expression. The coldish sophisticated technique of the Donoverr period was replaced by pantomime, a picturesque and emotionally colored gesture. Cold virtuosity was replaced by meaningful and laconic plastic recitative. Noverre argued that any gesture of a dancer-artist is "an arrow shot by the soul". The transformation of a ballet performance into a meaningful "play with dances", the development of pantomime and pas d "axion (effective dance), the reform of costumes, scenery, performing arts - these are the main merits of Noverre. The French dancer and choreographer Jean Berchet Dauberval (1742- 1806. A virtuoso in a semi-characteristic genre, he enjoyed well-deserved success in comic ballets on the stage of the Paris Academy of Music. His contemporary Beaumarchais wrote enthusiastically about the "masculine beauty of a flexible and graceful body", "strong movements that excite the soul", which distinguished the art of Dauberval After completing a brilliant stage career in Paris, he left for Bordeaux, where he began the second, perhaps the most fruitful stage of his work.In a small city theater, one after another, Dauberval's productions appeared - The Deserter (1784), Windy Park (1786) , "Vain Precaution" (1789).
Their ideological and thematic sound, stage situations, plot and intrigue are close to French comic opera. The Italian choreographer and teacher C. Blazis called The Vain Precaution "the most perfect image of a comic ballet". Following the precepts of Noverre, Dauberval was the first in the history of ballet to bring his contemporaries to the stage. His characters are ordinary people. They live in a familiar environment for the viewer, have fun and grieve, work and dream of happiness, actively defend their right to love, oppose social prejudices and mercantile calculations.
The success of the ballet was also accompanied by the presence of a naive story, widespread in the art of the 18th century, about the happy union of the young lovers Lisa and Colin, contrary to the desire of Aunt Marcelina to marry Lisa to the son of a rural rich man. The plot perfectly matched the musical score of the play. It is based on famous melodies and songs of that time, excerpts from Haydn's works, an abundance of folk dances. They were selected and processed by Dauberval himself, and the line of the song "From bad to good, one step ...", even entered the title of the first edition of the ballet ("Ballet about straw or From bad to good, one step"). Dauberval was called "Molière of the Dance" by his student Charles Didelot. “The main property of Dauberval was the ability to outline characters ... No one knew how to stage, show and play pantomime better than him, everything about him was truthful and deep,” wrote Didelot. Dauberval developed the plot in detail, played with household items, poeticized everyday life. He created a whole gallery of unique stage portraits. And Dauberval endowed each of the heroes with a rich and original dance speech.
"Vain Precaution" from the moment of its appearance has become a real school of performing arts - dancing and acting. During the life of Dauberval, his students, later the famous choreographers of the 19th century Ch. Didelot, J. Omer, S. Vigano, performed in the main parts of the ballet. It was they who transferred the choreographic masterpiece to the best scenes in Europe - to Vienna, Milan, Madrid.
Despite the general success of the ballet, its democratic and national character was always alien to the tastes of the leaders of the Paris Opera. Like Nover, Dauberval did not receive recognition in his homeland. Only more than two decades after Dauberville's death, The Vain Precaution finally appeared on the stage of France's leading musical theater. In 1828 it was staged by J. Omer in the musical version by L. Herold. The directors have preserved the best dance-musical and game episodes of the first edition, independently composed the forgotten and new fragments.
However, the ballet did not stay long in the theatre's repertoire. And in the future, repeated attempts to revive the performance did not give the desired result. Alien since the creation of the Paris Opera, the production of the ballet in the second half of the nineteenth century finally disappeared from the repertoire.
The second homeland of "Vain Precaution" was Russia. It was first shown in 1800 in Moscow and the St. Petersburg theater by the choreographer D. Solomoni under the title "Deceived Old Woman or Vain Precaution". In Moscow and St. Petersburg, she appeared repeatedly under different names in the editions of Bernardelli, Didelot, Perrault. Throughout the 19th century, The Vain Precaution had a constant place in the repertoire of theaters. The stage history of ballet in Russia is associated with the names of remarkable performers, among them the celebrated A.S. Pushkin A. Istomina, the favorite of Moscow students E. Sankovskaya. The famous F. Elsler, the Italian V. Zucchi, who performed the part of Lisa, had great success. Despite the abundance of ballets from the period of romanticism at that time, the old ballet of the 18th century still successfully continued its stage life.
In 1863, the German composer P. Gertel proposed the third musical edition of the ballet. It was she who served as the starting point for M. Petipa and L. Ivanov in St. Petersburg (1885, 1894), A. Gorsky in Moscow (1905, 1916). These editions of the ballet are based on the pre-Berval concept of solving the performance as a whole. Its dance text has changed - it has been enriched with discoveries and innovations in the ballet technique of the 19th century. At the beginning of our century, A. Pavlova, T. Karsavina, S. Fedorova, M. Mordkin shone in The Vain Precaution. E. Geltser, O. Lepeshinskaya, S. Golovkina later became the best performers of the part of Liza. In the first post-revolutionary decade (1917-1927) The Vain Precaution was one of the Bolshoi's most repertoire ballets. In recent decades, various stage editions of The Vain Precaution have appeared. The English choreographer F. Ashton (1960) and the Russian choreographer O. Vinogradov (1971) turned to an earlier edition of L. Herold's ballet. In Moscow, "Vain Precaution" was edited by A. Gorsky - P. Gertel, staged in the late 40s by A. Messerer and A. Radunsky. V. MAINIECE

SUMMARY

FIRST ACT

First picture

Early morning. In front of Marcellina's house, a young peasant Colin is walking. He is in love with Lisa, Marcelina's pupil, and is looking for a meeting with her. but this is not easy to achieve. Marcelina strictly monitors her pupil and protects her from unwanted suitors. Peasants come to the farm to get money for field work. Marcellina, reluctantly paying, hurries to send them faster, as she is distracted by numerous household worries. Taking advantage of Marcellina's departure, Colin approaches Lisa, who is not indifferent to him. The lovers, not noticing anyone, dance enthusiastically. Marcellina returns and indignantly disperses them.
The rich Michaud appears with his stupid son Nicaise, whom he would very much like to marry Lisa in order to become related to Marcellina. Marcellina is not enthusiastic about Nicaise, but she is seduced by his father's wealth and is ready to start negotiations. Lisa, sensing that her love is in danger, diverts Michaud's attention and takes him away. Marcelina and Nicaise rush after them.

Second picture.

The successful completion of the harvest crowns the harvest festival. Everyone is happy and having fun. In a fit of generosity and joy, Marcelina gives the children new clogs. Marceline and Michaud, surrounded by happy children, leave. The youth dance enthusiastically and have fun. Young lovers are also dancing - Lisa and Colin. The gypsies appear. The fun is in full swing. Suddenly, a thunderstorm begins. Everyone is running away. Marcelina and Michaud make an appointment to meet at her house.

SECOND ACT

Third picture.

Marcellina and Lisa return home and sit down at the spinning wheels. The storm has passed. Marcellina goes out to the peasants who have come and locks Liza with a key. Offended Lisa dreams of her beloved. Suddenly she notices Colin hiding. Lisa is embarrassed and asks Colin to leave. But the door is locked, and Colin cannot leave. However, Lisa's anger does not last long, and she and Colin exchange handkerchiefs. Marceline's footsteps were heard. Lisa pushes Colin into the closet. Entered Marcelina immediately notices someone else's handkerchief around Liza's neck and wants to punish her. Marcellina forces Lisa to sit in the closet, unaware that Colin is there. Liza desperately resists, but Marcellina still pushes her into the closet. The head of a notary, a chisel-maker and a slanderer is pushed through the door. Together with him enter Michaud, Nicaise, youth. A marriage contract is signed. The groom is given the key to the closet. The door opens and ... on the threshold appear, holding hands, Colin and Lisa. Everyone is confused. Michaud is mortally offended. The marriage contract is broken. The lovers rush to the feet of Marcellina, and she blesses them. General delight and jubilation.

Fourth picture.

Guests gather to congratulate Marcelina and the lovers on the solemn occasion. Young Lisa and Colin are happy to dance for the guests. All the heroes of the play say goodbye to the audience, thanking them for their attention and participation in the events that took place on stage.

Vain Precaution (ballet)

"Vain Precaution"(fr. La Fille mal gardee- in literal translation badly cared for daughter listen)) is a ballet in two acts created by the French choreographer Jean Dauberval.

"Vain Precaution" is the only ballet of the classical repertoire that has survived to our time, in which the characters were contemporaries of the spectator of the days of the premiere.

History of creation

According to another version, he was inspired by an etching by Chauffard (Pierre-Philippe Choffard) (1730-1809) based on a painting by Baudouin depicting a comic everyday scene: an elderly lady scolds a young girl, and her lover with pantaloons in his hands flies up the attic stairs.

And there is a version that in the image of the handsome Colin, Jean Dauberval hinted at himself and his own amorous adventures.

Characters and plot

The characters and the plot are given according to the version of the composer L. Gerold, translated into Russian, L. Entelis's entry. Initially, according to the plan of J. Dauberval, the names of the characters were somewhat different from later editions. So, the main characters were not called Lisa (French: Lise) and Colin (French: Colin), but Lison (Lison) and Cola (Colas). And the modern Marcellina was called the widow Ragotte (Ragotte) or in later versions - Simone (Simone), while her ballet part was always at the mercy of male performers.

Characters

Lisa's friends. Peasants and peasant women.

Plot

Marcelina dreams of getting her beautiful daughter Lisa to marry Nicaise, the son of the local rich man Michaud. But the daughter has already chosen her own beloved - this is the neighbor's poor peasant boy Colin. This turn of events does not suit the mother, who is looking for material well-being, and she does not take her eyes off her daughter, preventing her from dating Colin. But the nimble poor man is not going to betray his beloved. He sneaks into the closet of the house where Marcelina and Lisa live and hides in a haystack. And Marcellina, not knowing anything about Colin's deceit, conceived her own deceit: so that her daughter would not run away to her impoverished lover at the wrong moment, she locks her in the closet - the very one where Colin hid. She herself is actively preparing for the upcoming wedding of her rebellious daughter, and only when everyone gathers in the house: the notary, the rich man Michaud, his son, the groom Nicaise, the peasant guests, she solemnly releases the prisoner-daughter from the closet. But before the eyes of those present there appear two - lovers Lisa and Colin, and even in what form! Lisa and Colin.

Premiere

• July 1, 1789 - Bordeaux, Bolshoi Musical Theatre; entitled Le Ballet de la paille ou Il n'y a qu'un pas du mal au bien(“Ballet about straw, or From bad to good is just one step”), to team music. The main parties were performed by: Lizon - Marie-Madeleine Crespe, Cola - Eugene Yus, stern widow mother Ragotta - dancer Francois le Rich.

Productions

J. Dauberval still repeated his invariably popular ballet on other stages. Then the productions began to be resumed by other choreographers. At first, any music was used according to the taste of the directors. In 1796, P. Gavo wrote the music for remaking the ballet into a comic opera, and Omer used this music for his production of the ballet. However, Pierre Gaveau's music did not last long. In 1828, the composer L. Herold finally endowed the ballet with permanent music. And in 1864, another composer, P. Gertel, made his own musical version. Thus, one work had two scores at once. The ballet took place in almost all the world's musical theaters.

The ballet itself was full of frivolous humor and ambiguous allusions. These love scenes were staged differently at different times, depending on the generally accepted norms of morality, which quickly changed: a haystack was either placed in the middle of the stage as the main scene of action, or chastely removed behind the scenery away from the eyes, and in the foreground, the industrious Lisa - depending on the imagination and knowledge of the director in the field of peasant life and its coloring, she fed real chickens, did laundry and ironing, spun or, sighing sadly, vividly imagined a happy family life with her beloved Kolen and the birth of their children - in a word, she did anything, but not scripted in the hayloft in the arms of a loved one.

Some performances:

Since that time, the ballet of J. Dauberval triumphantly went on the European scenes.

In the same edition, the ballet was staged in Vienna (1794), Marseille (1795), Lyon (1796), Naples (1797).

• 15 September 1837 - Royal Academy of Music and Dance, Paris, resumption of the production with music by Louis Herold but with the addition of a pas de deux, written by E. Leborgne for F. Elsler. First performers: Lisa- F. Elsler; Knees- J. Mazilier.

In the version of the music by Louis Herold, the ballet was repeatedly staged on European stages, including in Russia: in St. Petersburg at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater: November 20, 1848 (according to C. Didelot, Lisa- F. Elsler; Knees- H. P. Ioganson; Marcelina- J. Perrot) and October 28, 1854 (choreographer J. Perrot, Lisa- Anna Prihunova) and at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater: February 12, 1845 (choreographer I. N. Nikitin, edited by Sh. Didlo, Lisa- E. A. Sankovskaya; Knees- I. N. Nikitin) and May 11, 1850 ( Lisa- F. Elsler).

Natalie Bock in the ballet "Vain Precaution". 1987

During its existence since 1789, this ballet has attracted the attention of many outstanding choreographers, and the performers of the parts were world-famous ballet stars. But all these performances created, with different music, are firmly based on the very first production of Jean Dauberval.

Notes

Categories:

• Ballets in alphabetical order
• Petipa's ballets
• Gorsky's ballets
• Lopukhov's ballets
• Ballets of 1789
• Ballets 1828
• Ballets 1864

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