Romanticism in performing arts

1. ROMANTICISM IN THE
PERFORMING ARTS
How Romantic themes influenced performing arts
Theatre
Dance
Watching tasks for seminar
(Note no actual film from this era!)

2. ROMANTICISM IN THE PERFORMING
ARTS
While Romantic poets/ writers and (visual) artists were very prominent Romanticism also
influenced the performing arts
You may be surprised that in 1830 in Brussels the performance of an opera incited rebellion!
Many influences of Romanticism focussed on getting rid of old conventions to find new ways
to make the world on the stage seem more real and express real life emotions
New dramas appealed particularly to growing middle class

3. THEMES OF ROMANTICISM
RELATED TO PERFORMING ARTS
• Glorification of Nature
• Interest in ancient times
• Instinct more important than reason
• Giving voice to the poor/ oppressed
• Individual feeling
• Individual detail as revealing ‘truth’
• The quest for ultimate truth (which is
always beyond reach)
• Mountain and forest settings ‘Gothic’
castles and cathedrals
• Expressive performances
• Main characters are common people
• Roles are focussed on the individual’s
experience that reveals a more general
truth about human experience
• Supernatural elements

4. ROMANTICISM AND THEATRE
• Theatre also broke with traditional rules
and conventions of C17 and early C18
theatre to appeal to emotions
• Victor Hugo’s Hernani caused a riot in 1830
because this play about love intrigue and
death did not fit the required formal
elements the French Academy expected
• With the lovers poisoning themselves and
dying in each other’s arms it followed a by
now typically Romantic theme of love
beyond death

5. ROMANTICISM AND THEATRE
• Romantic authors attracted to writing works for theatre included Johann Wolfgan
Von Goethe, Victor Hugo and Freidrich Schiller
• Romanticism allowed for combination of comic and tragic (rather than separating
them as in previous conventions)
• Rising middle class audience for dramas which drew from ‘real ‘ life but went
beyond realism
• Emphasis on feeling could lead to emphasis on sensation in performances

6. ROMANTICISM
ROOTS OF MELODRAMA
Middle class audiences flocked to melodrama
ie story with a hero, heroine and villain in which good overcomes evil
Plot has structure of
Provocation- something that leads to the villain to do evil to the hero
Suffering -of the hero, heroine and other good characters suffer as a result of villain’s
actions
penalty- in the last part of the play the villain gets the punishment he or she
deserves.

7. SCENIC DEVELOPMENTS
• New emphasis on the visual -Scenery was carefully and realistically painted
to create an illusion of reality
• Importance of lighting- at first candles or oil lamps – but by 1830s, gaslight
was used
(Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia was the first to be lit by gas, in
1816).
• Use of lighting and special effects used to create scenes that were
supernatural or mysterious including use of flying, trap doors and moving
panoramas,

8. THEMES INFLUENCED TECHNIQUE
• For actors this period marks the start of the journey to express ‘real’ emotion on
stage
• For playwrights the traditions of melodrama can be argued to continue in much
film and TV
• For dancers a whole technique developed to create ‘ethereal’ (other worldly ) female
characters with point work and high jumps for women to again appear weightless
• Effort was hidden to add to other worldly image of the dancers
• As the C19 continues pas de deux developed to create lifts in which ballerina
appeared weightless as she was lifted by the male

9. MARIE TAGLIONI AS LA SYLPHIDE

10. ROMANTIC BALLET
• Romanticism had a big impact on ballet
• Romantic Literature used as basis for ballets eg La Esmeralda (1844) is based on
Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris/Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831)
• Importance on feeling-expressive use of gesture
• Romantic love as a theme led to emphasis on pas de deux (male/female duet)
• Settings reflected Romantic obsession with gothic ruins and forests
• Obsessions with supernatural reflected in roles for ballerina as spirits in ballets such
as La Sylphide and Giselle 1841

11. GISELLE 1841
• Story written drawing on sources from Romantic Literature by Romantic poets
Theophile Gautier and Jules-Henri Vernoy de St Georges
• Set in medieval times
• First scene in a village in the country
• 2nd scene in a ghostly forest
• Theme of love extends beyond the grave and exists beyond social conventions

12. GISELLE STORY
• A village girl loves a man she thinks a peasant (like her)
• He is actually a prince engaged to someone of his own rank
• She goes mad and kills herself when she finds out
• Giselle becomes one of the wilis-spirits who haunt the forest at night and seek
revenge on any men who venture in the forest
• The strength of her love from beyond the grave protects the Prince who is forgiven
by Giselle who protects him from the other wili

13. WATCHING TASK: DANCE
• See these clips from Giselle (not the technique and choreography has changed since 1841) to discuss how it is relates to
Romanticism
• Giselle goes mad because she finds out she has been betrayed
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZyYBHoGqzk
• Giselle and the Prince when he meets her spirit in the forest
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql3o-1eSdbQ
• The Prince is made to dance to death but Giselle tries to save him
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1eIC1mi9aA
• Giselle has saved the Prince
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VSevfRKjmI

14. WATCHING TASK: ACTING
• Watch this clip from the 1931 film made of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel of
Frankenstein
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qNeGSJaQ9Q&list=RDQMJx7wlMu7DGk&start
_radio=1
• What do you understand as a key theme that relates to Romanticism
• What do you make of the style of acting?
• Now watch this clip from the same film. How does the setting relate to themes in
Romanticism?
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5FtI472Q6I&list=PLE7D31BBA24A6F75D&inde
x=6