NINETEENTH CENTURY BALLET AND OPERA NINETEENTH CENTURY BALLET

Running head: NINETEENTH CENTURY BALLET AND OPERA
NINETEENTH CENTURY BALLET AND OPERA
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1NINETEENTH CENTURY BALLET AND OPERA
Ballet and Opera are popular and famous classical dance and music forms of Europe
since ages (Meisel, 2014). However, the romantic ballet is a genre of ballet which had emerged
in the nineteenth century as a resistance and reaction against the genre of classicism in art forms
that was dominant in Europe in the eighteenth century. Classical ballet depicted the life of
mythological characters and life of gods and goddesses (Lee, 2016). However, the new wave of
romanticism in ballet demanded to show the lives of real people and real places. Pointe work
became an artistic expression and long, white skirts for ballet were used to provide the audience
an illusion of delicate weightlessness. Gas lightening and wires gave the audience dimming and
fairy-tale effects (Matthews David, 2016).
The nineteenth century western classical music became full of expression which
exhibited literary, artistic and philosophical thoughts of their society (Meisel, 2014). Certain
music was also composed with a wide nationalistic sentiment and emotions (Ther, 2014). The
size of orchestra was dramatically expanded and the instruments that were used became diverse
with more variety. Public concerts, which were earlier an entertainment source for the aristocrats,
were then opened for the middle class and common audiences as well. Beethoven and Bellini are
examples of some famous early romantic opera composers of Europe (Maguire, 2018).

2NINETEENTH CENTURY BALLET AND OPERA
References:
Lee, A. (2016). The Romantic Ballet and the Nineteenth-Century Poetic Imagination. Dance
Chronicle, 39(1), 32-55.
Meisel, M. (2014). Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century
England (Vol. 775). Princeton University Press.
Matthews David, A. (2016). Blazing Ballet Girls and Flannelette Shrouds: Fabric, Fire, and Fear
in the Long Nineteenth Century. TEXTILE, 14(2), 244-267.
Maguire, S. (2018). Vincenzo Bellini and the aesthetics of early nineteenth-century Italian opera.
Routledge.
Ther, P. (2014). Center Stage: Operatic Culture and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century
Central Europe. Purdue University Press.