Romantic Ballet Masterpieces

Ballet had long been codified in France, which explains why so much dance vocabulary is borrowed from the French language. In the early years of the Romantic era, the Paris premieres of ballets like La Sylphide (1832) and Giselle (1841) advanced the art form from its frequent status as incidental fare, gesturing to grander narratives and finer expression, and standardizing en pointe technique. In the second half of the 19th century, while the Paris Opera continued to feature ballet as something of a sideshow during operas, it became a grand form in its own right especially in Russia, where Tchaikovsky's extraordinary scores for Swan Lake (1877), The Sleeping Beauty (1890), and The Nutcracker (1892) — the latter two choreographed by the great Marius Petipa — brought ballet to new heights of musicality and artistry.