ジュール・ペローの書簡をめぐる一考察

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the historical value of an autographed letter written by Jules Perrot on July 16, 1848. Little attention has been given to this letter up to the present because it had long been privately owned (it is now included in Kenji Usui Ballet Collection of Hyogo Performing Arts Center, Japan). Perrot addresses this letter to “Mon cher Directeur,”whom I identified as Benjamin Lumley, the then director of Her Majesty's Theatre.By carefully checking Perrot's description against articles in such periodicals as The Musical World, I discovered that the letter reveals the process through which the programs of Her Majesty's Theatre were decided. In addition, the letter tells us the state of the relationships among the director, ballet master, and star dancers in the Theatre. Thus we can safely count this letter as one of the primary sources of nineteenth-century ballet history.