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Oh, if you could only know the tricks played on poor Father Chevrel by that Monsieur Noverre, by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and especially by Monsieur Philidor! They are a set of rascals; I know them well! They all have a gab and nice manners. Ah, your Monsieur Sumer , Somm " "De Sommervieux, papa." "Well, well, de Sommervieux, well and good.
As NOVERRE has said somewhere of a famous dancer, "she is always tender, always graceful, sometimes a butterfly, sometimes a zephyr, at one moment inconstant, at another faithful; always animated by a new sentiment, she represents with voluptuousness all the shades of love." To sum up her merits, she is really in her art the female Proteus of the lyric scene.
I had invited Ritter Gluck to meet us to-day, and he has not yet arrived. It shall not be said of me that I was ever wanting in respect to genius as transcendent as his. Hereupon he resumed his conversation with Noverre. The other guests were indignant, for they all felt the insult.
In those convents or seminaries, strange to say, the young girls were taught the most practical domestic duties, as well as dancing, music, painting, etc. Such teachers as Molé and Larrive gave instruction in declamation and reading, and Noverre and Dauberval in dancing; the teaching nuns were all from the best families.
But, though NOVERRE, and, after him, the GARDELS, introduced on the Parisian stage the pantomimic art in all the lustre in which it flourished on the theatres of Greece and Rome, yet they had been anticipated by HILWERDING in Germany, and ANGIOLINI in Italy, two celebrated men, who, in a distinguished manner, laid the foundations of a species of modern entertainment, before known only by the annals of ancient history.
It should not be forgotten that it was NOVERRE who first brought about in France this reform in what were till then called ballets, without deserving the title.
Count Durazzo, the director of the theatre, had preceded the prince by a week. Noverre, with his ballet-dancers, was to follow. The great opera of "Orpheus and Eurydice," whose fame was now European was being rehearsed at Innspruck, for representation on the first night of the festival.
Kaunitz pretended not to see the displeasure which, nevertheless, his guests were at no great pains to conceal, and he went on talking in an animated strain with Noverre. The poor dancer, meanwhile, gave short and embarrassed answers.
"Madame Guillaume!" said the old man, compelling her to silence. "Augustine," he went on, "artists are generally little better than beggars. They are too extravagant not to be always a bad sort. I served the late Monsieur Joseph Vernet, the late Monsieur Lekain, and the late Monsieur Noverre.
The emperor whispered to Frederick: "Sire, a compliment from Kaunitz is like the flower upon the aloe-it blooms once in a century." The festivities of the first day were concluded with a ballet. Great preparations had been made for the reception of the King of Prussia. Noverre with his dancers, and Florian Gassman with his opera corps had been summoned to Neustadt.
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