The Balet des Polonais was performed in a temporary hall erected in the gardens of the Tuileries Palace, on August 19, 1573. The fete was organized to celebrate the arrival of the Polish ambassadors to Paris, who had elected Catherine de' Medici's second son, the future Henri III, to be the Polish King (Strong,p.12). Balthazar Beaujoyeulx, the Italian dancing master and court valet to Catherine de' Medici, is credited with choreographing the production.
The piece commences with the entrance of sixteen ladies of the court, personifying the provinces of France. They appear on an immense silver-gilt rock of lathe and canvas, twenty-six feet high, and descend to dance a lenthy and intricate ballet.
Brantôme, author of court memoirs contemporary with the production describes how,
after making a circuit of the hall, the nymphs, again seated on their rock as in a military encampment, stepped down, forming small battalions of bizarre invention. Accompanied by a band of thirty viols, the dancers, without one false step, to a lovely cadence, drew up before the king for ingenious figures, turns, turn-abouts, counter-turns, interlacings, stops and starts, in which not one lady failed to memorize their order, all participants having solid judgement and excellent memories (Kirstein,1970.p.51).
The ballet lasted for an entire hour. The Polish ambassadors were so impressed with the intricacy of the movement and the dancers polished execution that they commented,"le bal de France estoit chose impossible a contrefaire a tous les rois de la terre"(Strong,p.12).
The libretto for the ballet was written in Latin verse by Jean Dorat, the classical scholar, teacher and well-head of the Pléiade. In Chorea nympharum, (Dance of the Nymphs), Dorat details all the patterns of geometric dance which will subsequently appear in the later court ballets. (Marko,1993,p.21).
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