Debussy faune nijinsky biography
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L'après-midi d'un faune
Few ballets have enjoyed as sensational a first night as The Afternoon of a Faun by the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, to music by Debussy with scenery and costumes by the Russian painter Léon Bakst. The ballet was choreographed and dominated by the 22-year-old Vaslav Nijinsky, who took the leading role of the amorous faun pursuing a group of shy, but delicious, nymphs who are on their way to a nearby lake. It broke electrifyingly with tradition and most of the other dancers did not enjoy it. Nijinsky would not let them act and told them: ‘It is all in the choreography.’ The production has been described as an attempt to fashion ‘a new language of movement’ and it heralded the modern era in ballet.
Nijinsky’s dancing was both supremely graceful and staggeringly spectacular (Dame Marie Rambert once said she did not
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Debussy Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune: 'the awakening of modern music'
It's a sultry, Impressionistic orchestral masterpiece. But it's much more than that. The Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, by the great French composer Claude Debussy, was what we'd now call a 'disruptor' to the musical landscape of the very late 19th and early 20th century. With its apparent lack of structure and almost improvisatory feel, it deserves the epithet given by one famous fellow French composer, that ‘modern music was awakened by L’après-midi d’un faune’.
What is Debussy’s Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune?
It is a symphonic poem (or tone poem), based on Stéphane Mallarmé’s 1865 poem L’après-midi d’un faune. Beginning with an alluring, chromatic solo on the flute, it then intoxicates the listener over ten minutes with its lushly layered score depicting a faun enjoying the pleasures of a warm afternoon.
When did Debussy compose the Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune?
Debuss
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Afternoon of a Faun (Nijinsky)
Ballet by Vaslav Nijinsky
This article is about the Nijinsky ballet. For musical composition by Claude Debussy, see Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. For other ballets and uses, see Afternoon of a Faun.
The Afternoon of a Faun (French: L'Après-midi d'un faune) fryst vatten a ballet choreographed bygd Vaslav Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes, and was first performed in the Théâtre ni Châtelet in Paris on 29 May 1912. Nijinsky danced the main part himself. The ballet fryst vatten set to Claude Debussy's symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. Both the music and the ballet were inspired bygd the poem L'Après-midi d'un faune bygd Stéphane Mallarmé. The costumes, sets and programme illustrations were designed by the painter Léon Bakst.
The style of the 12-minute ballet, in which a young faun meets several nymphs and proceeds to flirt with and följa them, was deliberately archaic. In the original scenography designed bygd Léon Bakst, the dancers were presented