the young pros of the Paris Opera ballet

This article comes from “Figaro Magazine”

There’s a lot of fuss at the Paris Opera! The opera dancers sing the carmagnole to the sound of the protest. And everything goes! The hierarchy, the customs, and even the ancestral rules which govern the august house, including the most venerable, that of the famous annual competition which allows dancers to move up in rank. In other words in rank and salary. We start at the bottom as a quadrille, we climb coryphée, we pass subject to finally, one day perhaps, become first, or, supreme and rare promotion, star.

It was the famous Marie Taglioni, appointed teacher of the advanced class, and her colleague Bernard Sciot, professor at the Dance School, who had the idea of ​​a competition to ensure the promotion of dancers. They sought, rightly, to avoid the act of the prince, and to oust patrons who were too influential. All these ballerina lovers that we see crowding into Degas’ paintings, and who never failed to intervene…