Mam'zelle Angot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mam'zelle Angot is a one-act ballet in three scenes. The choreography and libretto are by Léonide Massine; the music is by Charles Lecocq. The plot is broadly based on Lecocq's 1872 opéra bouffe, La Fille de Madame Angot.
Massine had previously created ballets to scores specially arranged from works by Scarlatti (The Good-Humoured Ladies, 1917), Rossini (La Boutique fantasque, 1919), Johann Strauss (Le Beau Danube, 1933) and Offenbach (Gaîté parisienne, 1938). They were arranged and orchestrated by, respectively, Vincenzo Tommasini, Ottorino Respighi, Roger Désormière and Manuel Rosenthal.[1] Massine's innovation of creating ballets to scores arranged from the music of a single composer was followed by other choreographers including George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton and John Cranko.[n 1] Mam'zelle Angot was Massine's final work in this genre.[3]
History
Massine's first version of the ballet was produced by Ballet Theatre under the title Mademoiselle Angot, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with Nora Kaye in the title role, Massine as the barber, Rosella Hightower as the aristocrat and André Eglevsky as the caricaturist. The music was arranged by Efrem Kurtz and orchestrated by Richard Mohaupt and Gordon Jones.[4]
Massine revived the work for Sadler's Wells Ballet during a visit to London in 1947 (when he also staged and danced in Le Tricorne and La Boutique fantasque),[5] with the title Mam'zelle Angot and a new score, taken mainly from La Fille de Madame Angot,[n 2] arranged by Gordon Jacob, designs by André Derain, and a cast that included Margot Fonteyn as Mam'zelle Angot, Alexander Grant as the barber, Moira Shearer as the aristocrat, and Michael Somes as the caricaturist. Australian Ballet took this version into its repertoire in 1971.[7]
Having been performed in most seasons from 1947 to 1959, and toured by the Touring Company in 1968-69, the ballet was revived at Covent Garden in the spring of 1980 in memory of Massine who died the previous year.[8] Other dancers to have appeared with both companies included, as Angot, Julia Farron, Avril Navarre, Nadia Nerina, and Merle Park; Brian Shaw and Ronald Emblen as the barber; John Field, David Blair, Paul Clarke and Christopher Gable as the caricaturist; and Gerd Larsen, Julia Farron, Rosemary Lindsay and Georgia Parkinson as the aristocrat.[9]
