Cesare Pugni: Esmeralda and Le Violon du diable
Editor: Edited and Introducted by Robert Ignatius Letellier
Date Of Publication: Mar 2012
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-3608-1
Isbn: 1-4438-3608-7
Esmeralda

Cesare Pugni was born in Genoa on 31 May 1802, and studied in Milan from 1815 to 1822 with Antonio Rollo and Bonifazio Asioli. He made his debut as a composer at La Scala in 1826 with the opera Elerz e Zulmida. He became a cymbalist in the theatre orchestra, and on the death of Vincenzo Lavigna was appointed musical director. He later moved to Paris where he became director of the Paganini Institute. There he met the great choreographers of the time and started an artistic collaboration that was to prove one of the most productive in the history of ballet. He began working closely with Jules Perrot, first in Paris, then in London. He later followed him to St Petersburg and became official composer of the Imperial theatres in St Petersburg. His most famous collaboration, with Marius Petipa, now followed, lasting until his death on 26 January 1870.

Pugni is known above all for his enormous output of musical works, including more than 300 ballets, a dozen operas, over 40 masses, other polyphonic works and a few symphonies, among which was a Sinfonia a canone highly praised by Meyerbeer. This extremely prolific composer was very popular with the public, his ballets being so easy to to listen to and to understand. He also found no diffculty in adapting his music to suit all sorts of choreographic needs, and many different performers. His versatility and facility in composition helped him succeed in his international career, even when they set limits on his artistic achievement. His time in Paris with Perrot was marked by an extraordinarily intense activity, which became even more evident when he reached Her Majesty’s Theatre in London. Here Pugni presented some of the most renowned ballets of the 19th century, such as Esmeralda and the Pas de Quatre (in 1844 and 1845 respectively), which still find their place in some modern repertories. He also worked with Saint-Léon, Paolo Taglioni, Marius Petipa, and some of the greatest dancers of the century. Some of his ballets already well-known in Europe were transferred to St Petersburg, although he also composed new ballets for that city.

Le Violon du diable

Fantastic Ballet in 2 acts, was first performed in Paris, at the Opéra, on 19 January 1849, with Fanny Cerrito, Arthur Saint-Léon and Jean Coralli. Urbain, a young violinist, is deeply in love with the beautiful Hélène de Vardeck, but she prefers her suitor Saint-Ybars. The sinister Doctor Matheus offers Urbain the power to play his violin so irresistibly as to win the heart of his beloved, but in return he asks for the player’s soul. Urbain refuses, and the doctor breaks his magic instrument. Everything works out for the best through the intervention of a holy man, Pater Anselm.

Arthur Saint-Léon (1821-1870) had married the famous dancer Fanny Cerrito (1817-1909) in 1845. They were to be separated five years later and divorced in 1851, but in the meantime worked well together. Saint-Léon was not only a choreographer and dancer, he was the best dancer of his day, after Jules Perrot. But he was also a violinist. A subject was sought that would show off his talents as both dancer and musician, and the result was Le Violon du diable in which he devised the role of the violinist Urbain for himself.

The ballet was a revival and elaboration of an earlier version called Tartini il violinista (with scenario by Saint-Léon after Gavarini, choreography by Emmanuele Viotti, and music by Saint-Léon, Felis and Pugni, first performed in Venice at La Fenice on 29 February 1848). At the Paris premiere, however, subject and choreography were attributed exclusively to Saint-Léon, and the music exclusively to Pugni. The ballet was well received. The music was praised; the mise-en-scène and choreography were also admired.

Robert Ignatius Letellier has specialized in the music and literature of the Romantic Period. He has studied the work of Giacomo Meyerbeer (a four-volume English edition of his diaries, a collection of critical and biographical studies, a guide to research, two readings of the operas, as well as compiling and introducing editions of the complete libretti and non-operatic texts, and a selection of manuscripts facsimiles). He has also written on the ballets of Ludwig Minkus, compiled a series of scores on the Romantic Ballet, a sourcebook on the French opéra-comique, a study of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, and edited anthologies of his overtures, ballet music, and a series of his operatic vocal scores.

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