Louis* Alexandre Mérante

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Louis* Alexandre Mérante

Russian: Луи Мерант
Also Known As: "Луи-Александр Мерант"
Birthdate:
Birthplace: Париж, Франция=Paris, Seine, France
Death: July 17, 1887 (58)
Курбевуа, Франция
Immediate Family:

Husband of Zinaida Iosifovna Mérante

Occupation: французский танцовщик, педагог и хореограф итальянского происхождения
Managed by: Галина Олеговна Л...
Last Updated:
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Immediate Family

About Louis* Alexandre Mérante

Происходил из итальянской балетной семьи. Танцевал на сценах Марселя и Милана, затем перебрался в Париж. В 1848 году дебютировал в парижской Опере (в то время официально называвшейся Оперным театром Нации, Opéra-Théâtre de la Nation) на сцене театра Ле Пелетье[fr].

Танцевал в балетах Жозефа Мазилье, Люсьена Петипа и Артура Сен-Леона, был партнёром балерин Фанни Черрито и Эммы Ливри. Выходил на сцену до преклонного возраста. 26 июля 1861 года женился на балерине Зинаиде Ришар, происходившей из балетной семьи Ришар-Гюллень. С 1869 по 1887 руководил балетной труппой Парижской Оперы (до 1871 года носившей название императорской, Théâtre impérial de l’Opéra, затем — вновь национальной, Théâtre national de l’Opéra). Эдгар Дега. «Танцевальное фойе Оперы на улице Ле Пелетье» Дружил с художником Эдгаром Дега, который был частым гостем в театре. Изображён на его картине «Танцевальное фойе Оперы на улице Ле Пелетье» (1872, в коллекции музея д'Орсе, Париж). Также стал прототипом одного из героев мультфильма «Балерина» (Франция, 2016).

Born in Paris, Mérante was a pupil of Lucien Petipa, with whom he figured on the six-member select jury of the first annual competition for the Corps de ballet, held on 13 April 1860. The jury included the director of the new Conservatoire de danse, as well as the former ballerina Marie Taglioni, its guiding spirit.

Following Sylvia Mérante choreographed Le Fandango, a ballet-pantomime that premiered November 26, 1877 and had as librettists for the mimed action the team of Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, who provided librettos to Offenbach and had recently delivered a libretto on a similarly Spanish theme to Georges Bizet—Carmen.

His ballet, Les Deux Pigeons, after the fable by La Fontaine, to music by André Messager has been revived with new choreography, as a showpiece for the youngest dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet. But other ballets, with a mime libretto whose authors normally shared credit with Mérante, are perhaps an irretrievably lost part of ballet history: La Korrigane, "ballet fantastique" by François Coppée, choreographed by Mérante; Les Jumeaux de Bergame, "ballet-arlequinade" by Charles Nuitter and Mérante, to music by Th. de Lajarte, and others, produced season after season for the Opéra Garnier. Edgar Degas included the figure of Mérante, in an immaculate white suit, with the traditional baton for beating time on the floorboards, in his 1872 painting Le foyer de danse. The painting marked the beginning of Dégas' long infatuation with the ballet, but though he had sketched the individual dancers, and the practice room in the company's old premises in the Salle Le Peletier, with its great arched mirror, he was not permitted to attend a rehearsal in person. Edgar Degas included Mérante in his Foyer de Danse à l'Opéra de la rue Le Peletier, which shows the Balletmaster rehearsing in the Foyer de la Danse of the Salle Le Peletier, 1872 Wife (in 1861): the Russian ballerina Zinaida Richard [ru] (Mlle Zina, étoile in 1857-1863), which father Joseph Richard was the French ballet dancer and arrived to Russia in 1823 with his niece (or sister) Félicité Hullin Sor [fr] and her husband Fernando Sor.

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Louis* Alexandre Mérante's Timeline

1828
July 23, 1828
Париж, Франция=Paris, Seine, France
1887
July 17, 1887
Age 58
Курбевуа, Франция