Faust Goes Dancing

This chapter discusses four ballets, all based on Goethe’s Faust, created over the period 1832–48 by four leading choreographers: August Bournonville in Copenhagen, André-Jean-Jacques Deshayes in London, Salvatore Taglioni in Naples, and Jules Perrot in Milan. Each was significantly influenced by the early French Romantic ballet and the great Parisian Faust vogue of the 1820s and 1830s. Of the musical scores, only those from Copenhagen and London are extant, the former being largely a compilation. The London version, by Adolphe Adam, is an original composition treated here in some detail. The power of Adam’s music to evoke something of the variety and profundity of Goethe’s Faust as conceived by Deshayes is explored.