Le Jeune Homme et La Mort, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Florence Faure @ephialtesincipit8673

ephialtes incipit From White Nights (1985).

Le Jeune Homme et La Mort, originally choreographed by Roland Petit in 1946 and performed anew by Baryshnikov and Florence Faure, was filmed at the Bristol Hippodrome. The gentleman paging the curtain for Baryshnikov is John Randall, the theatre's technical director at the time.

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Choreography: Roland Petit
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach
Scenario: Jean Cocteau
Designs: Georges Wakhevitch
Premiere: 25 June 1946, Ballets des Champs-Elysées, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris
Original cast: Jean Babilée, Nathalie Philippart

The Ballets des Champs-Elysées was a chic, intimate troupe, creating new works with charismatic young dancers and a distinctive sensibility. Its founders included Boris Kochno and Jean Cocteau, both veterans of Diaghilev’s company who saw ballet as a meeting-place of the arts, the home of artistic collaboration. The company’s productions were smallscale but accomplished. Roland Petit made his name with Les Forains, an appealing 1945 work about a troupe of circus artists, with music by Henri Sauguet.
Le Jeune Homme et la Mort caught a mood of post-war Parisian disillusionment. This was the period that produced the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, the alienation of Albert Camus. The ballet’s hero, a suicidal artist in paint-spattered overalls, is both vulnerable and brutal. It was a sensational showcase for Jean Babilée, a dancer of explosive technique and presence. He was partnered by Nathalie Philippart, his wife, a dancer of Left Bank looks, with a tousled fringe that recalls the singer and bohemian Juliette Gréco. At Cocteau’s suggestion, Petit created the ballet to a jazz score, then switched to the grandeur of J. S. Bach at the dress rehearsal.

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Synopsis

A young artist sprawls on his bed in a Parisian garret, smoking, looking at his watch. He wears paint-spattered jeans (sometimes dungarees), his chest bare. At last a young woman appears at the door: dark bob, black gloves and a bright yellow dress. He runs to her, she ducks away and he follows her around the room. She’s cool and taut, he’s twisting and agonised, pleading as she slaps him down, falling at her feet. At last she pulls a stool to the garret’s central pillar, pulling out a noose that hangs from the rafters. Returning to the young man, she puts her gloved hands around his neck, then leaves. Driven to a passion, he throws a chair against the wall, twists over the table, then finally goes to the noose and hangs himself, one leg kicking as he dies.
Around him, the walls of the garret lift up out of sight, revealing the Paris skyline, lurid with flashing neon signs. Now dressed in a long robe, with a skull mask and towering platform shoes, the woman returns. At her command, the young man comes down from the noose to stand beside her. She places the skull mask on his face, and leads him away over the rooftops.

updated 6 years ago

Le Jeune Homme et La Mort, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Florence Faure

ephialtes incipit 2020-04-18 | From White Nights (1985).

Le Jeune Homme et La Mort, originally choreographed by Roland Petit in 1946 and performed anew by Baryshnikov and Florence Faure, was filmed at the Bristol Hippodrome. The gentleman paging the curtain for Baryshnikov is John Randall, the theatre's technical director at the time.

***

Choreography: Roland Petit
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach
Scenario: Jean Cocteau
Designs: Georges Wakhevitch
Premiere: 25 June 1946, Ballets des Champs-Elysées, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris
Original cast: Jean Babilée, Nathalie Philippart

The Ballets des Champs-Elysées was a chic, intimate troupe, creating new works with charismatic young dancers and a distinctive sensibility. Its founders included Boris Kochno and Jean Cocteau, both veterans of Diaghilev’s company who saw ballet as a meeting-place of the arts, the home of artistic collaboration. The company’s productions were smallscale but accomplished. Roland Petit made his name with Les Forains, an appealing 1945 work about a troupe of circus artists, with music by Henri Sauguet.
Le Jeune Homme et la Mort caught a mood of post-war Parisian disillusionment. This was the period that produced the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, the alienation of Albert Camus. The ballet’s hero, a suicidal artist in paint-spattered overalls, is both vulnerable and brutal. It was a sensational showcase for Jean Babilée, a dancer of explosive technique and presence. He was partnered by Nathalie Philippart, his wife, a dancer of Left Bank looks, with a tousled fringe that recalls the singer and bohemian Juliette Gréco. At Cocteau’s suggestion, Petit created the ballet to a jazz score, then switched to the grandeur of J. S. Bach at the dress rehearsal.

***

Synopsis

A young artist sprawls on his bed in a Parisian garret, smoking, looking at his watch. He wears paint-spattered jeans (sometimes dungarees), his chest bare. At last a young woman appears at the door: dark bob, black gloves and a bright yellow dress. He runs to her, she ducks away and he follows her around the room. She’s cool and taut, he’s twisting and agonised, pleading as she slaps him down, falling at her feet. At last she pulls a stool to the garret’s central pillar, pulling out a noose that hangs from the rafters. Returning to the young man, she puts her gloved hands around his neck, then leaves. Driven to a passion, he throws a chair against the wall, twists over the table, then finally goes to the noose and hangs himself, one leg kicking as he dies.
Around him, the walls of the garret lift up out of sight, revealing the Paris skyline, lurid with flashing neon signs. Now dressed in a long robe, with a skull mask and towering platform shoes, the woman returns. At her command, the young man comes down from the noose to stand beside her. She places the skull mask on his face, and leads him away over the rooftops.