Petra Dotlačilová

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Costume in the Time of Reforms

Louis-René Boquet Designing Eighteenth-Century Ballet and Opera

Petra Dotlačilová

Petra Dotlačilová Costume in the Time of Reforms

Department of Culture and Aesthetics

ISBN 978-91-86434-58-8

Petra Dotlačilová

The long eighteenth century was a turbulent period in France, with many crucial reforms in society, politics and art challenging the established order of the ancien régime. This battle took place on the theatrical stage as well and materialized in the approach to costume.

The present thesis examines the development of theatrical costume – especially for opera and ballet – during this period, with particular focus on the so-called costume reform. Who were the main personalities of the reform and what were their arguments? How did it relate to the artistic and social context of the period? What were the interplays between various theatres, genres, themes and characters presented on stage? And most importantly: how did the new ideas materialize in practice?

The work of Louis-René Boquet (1717– 1814), the leading costume designer of the French court and the Paris Opéra, collorator of fairground theatres and of reform choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre, becomes the main reference point in this study. Previously considered conventional or ‘unreformed’, Boquet is shown to embody, through his long career, the different stages and issues of the reform: a unique example of the dynamic development of costume in the second half of the eighteenth century.

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Costume in the Time of Reforms

Petra Dotlačilová

Academic dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre Studies at Stockholm University to be publicly defended on Friday 11 September 2020 at 10.00 in Auditorium (215), Manne Siegbahnhusen, Frescativägen 24.

Abstract

The long eighteenth century was a turbulent period in France, many crucial reforms in society, politics and art challenging the established order of the ancien régime. This battle took place on the theatrical stage as well and materialized in the approach to costume. The present thesis examines the development of theatrical costume – especially for opera and ballet – during this period, with particular focus on the so-called costume reform. Who were the main personalities of the reform and what were their arguments? How did it relate to the artistic and social context of the period? And most importantly:

how did the new ideas materialize in practice? In order to explore these issues, the work of Louis-René Boquet (1717–

1814), the leading costume designer of the French court and the Paris Opéra, a collaborator of the fairground theatres and the reform choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre, is used as the main reference point.

In accordance with recent theoretical approaches to costume research, formulated for instance by Aoife Monks, Anne Verdier, Donatella Barbieri and Veronica Isaac, costume is regarded as a specific object within theatrical practice, and as a crucial agent in the production of the body on stage. This helps to define eighteenth-century costume as a crossroads where aesthetic, social, dramaturgical and physical requirements met and negotiated. Drawing on a wealth of textual, visual and material evidence, the methodology applied in the research combines approaches from material culture studies and theatre studies, including practice as research, connecting aesthetic theory with the analysis of performance and sartorial practices.

The thesis is divided into two parts; the first part investigates mainly the theoretical discourse around costume, and the second part focuses on the making and agency of the costume in the context of theatrical practice, particularly at the French court, at the Paris Opéra and in Stuttgart, investigating the development of the reform through Boquet’s work. Two concepts of costume are defined and discussed, one driven by the ‘aesthetics of propriety’, which includes the (courtly) social proprieties of dress within the concept of verisimilitude; another driven by ‘aesthetics of truthfulness’, which views the stage as a tableau, therefore requiring a depiction of dress from different periods and locations similar to that in paintings, but also a costume that is adapted to the dramatic situations of the characters. The latter defines the movement of the reform. However, this thesis suggests that we should distinguish between two phases of the reform: a moderate ‘first wave’ (1750s–1770s) and a more radical ‘second wave’ (from c.1783). Focusing particularly on the pioneering ‘first wave’, and investigating costume strategies for various genres, themes and characters, this study shows how the first reformers negotiated with the older conventions and changing fashions, how they insisted on the specificity of the theatrical costume, and the extent to which the practices of the popular stages influenced those of the serious genres. Boquet’s work, previously considered conventional or ‘unreformed’, is shown to embody the different stages and issues of the reform: a unique example of the dynamic development of costume in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Keywords: costume, design, theatre, opera, ballet, genre, reform, eighteenth century, France, ancien régime, Louis- René Boquet, Paris Opera, Jean-Georges Noverre, aesthetics, material culture.

Stockholm 2020

http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-182501

ISBN 978-91-86434-58-8 ISBN 978-91-86434-59-5

Department of Culture and Aesthetics

Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm

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COSTUME IN THE TIME OF REFORMS

Petra Dotlačilová

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Costume in the Time of Reforms

Petra Dotlačilová

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©Petra Dotlačilová, Stockholm University 2020

ISBN print 978-91-86434-58-8 ISBN PDF 978-91-86434-59-5

Cover design created by Adam David, with the following sources:

Design of 'Faune' by Louis-René Boquet and workshop (1766), Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Warsawe;

Costume ‘En vildes klädning’ (1778), Livrustkammaren/Statens historiska museer, Stockholm;

Text from Inventaire général de l’Opéra (1767), BnF - Bibliothèque-Musée de l’Opéra, Paris.

Printed in Sweden by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm 2020

Distributed by STUTS – Stiftelsen för utgivning av teatervetenskapliga studier Printed in Sweden by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm 2020

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Mým rodičům, Lence a Zdeňkovi, s láskou.

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Acknowledgements

Just as costume is a product of many hands and minds, this thesis feels almost like a collective work, because there were so many people who have supported me and inspired me along the work on this project, and even before that. In fact, without the Erasmus scholarship granted by the Academy of Per- forming Arts in Prague, which funded my first visit to Stockholm University, and without the encouragements of Helena Kazárová, Professor at the dance department of the Academy, this project would never even have begun.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Magnus Tessing Schneider and Lena Hammergren, who thoughtfully guided me on that bumpy journey that is writing a dissertation. I regard them both as excel- lent scholars and caring, empathetic human beings. Magnus, thank you for all your challenging comments and questions that pushed me forward, and for the meticulous (and much needed) editing; Lena, I am grateful to have had you – a fellow ‘dance’ person – by my side, you are an inspiration!

Even before starting my own PhD project, I landed in the research project Performing Premodernity based at Stockholm University. And coincidental as it was, it truly changed my life. Members of the project Willmar Sauter, Mark Tatlow, Meike Wagner, Magnus Tessing Schneider and Maria Gullstam ac- cepted me with incredible generosity, and they never cease to impress me.

Together we have not only shared a lot of inspiring discussions, but also – perhaps even more importantly – many aesthetic experiences. Thank you for all these moments! I am very grateful that I had the privilege of being part of this exceptional group, who taught me a lot about the importance of exchanges between academic and artistic practices, gave me confidence and also the op- portunity to carry on experiments which constitute part of this thesis. Further- more, through the project I was able to meet the wonderful artists João Luís Paixão, Laila Cathleen Neuman, Noah Hellwig, Karin Modigh, Matilda Lars- son, Adrian Navarro, Andrew Erickson along with many others, who inspired me with their art and expertise. Last, but not least, through Performing Pre- modernity I was able to meet tailor and costume designer Anna Kjellsdotter, whose expertise became crucial when developing the practical experiments presented here, with whom I made my first ‘eighteenth-century stitches’, and who is now my dear friend. I would also like to thank the staff of the palace theatres Drottningholm, Ulriksdal and Český Krumlov, who generously hosted our workshops and performances.

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During my studies, I was also part of the research project Ritual Design for the Ballet Stage: Constructions of popular culture in European theatrical dance (1650–1760), led by Hanna Walsdorf at Leipzig University. This was another important contribution to the development of my project, because it enabled me to carry on archival work in several countries and to become part of the international research community. Within the project, I could also co-organize a research workshop and co-edit the subsequent volume Dance Body Costume, which was not only very valuable experience, but also directly influenced my own project. Parts of this thesis, in their earlier version, appeared in that book.

I would like to thank Hanna Walsdorf for giving me this wonderful oppor- tunity, to my colleagues from the project Jelena Rothermel, Kathrin Stocker, Christoph Koop, Gerrit Berenike Heiter for our collaboration and friendship, and to student assistants Torben Schleiner and Tim Rademacher for their great work, which is imprinted in the present thesis as well.

I would like to express my gratitude to curators and employees of the many archives and libraries I visited over the years, for helping me navigate their collections, and who kindly provided reproductions of material printed in this thesis. In particular, I would like to mention the staff of Bibliothèque nationale de France (Bibliothèque-musée de l’Opéra, département Estampes et photographie and dép. Arts du spectacles), Archives nationales, Bibliothèque- musée de Comédie-Française, Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris, Centre national du costume de scène in Moulin, Theatre & Performance collection of Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Royal Swedish Armoury, the costume archive of Royal Swedish Opera, National Museum and Swedish Na- tional Library in Stockholm, University of Warsaw Library, State Castle Český Krumlov, The Morgan Library in New York and Houghton Library at Harvard University. I also want to thank to the Carina Ari Foundations for the generous grants that funded several of my visits to Paris and the fees con- nected with publication of images in this thesis. Finally, I am very happy that I was able to contact René Jeannin-Naltet, descendent of Louis-René Boquet, who generously provided me with reproduction of the designer’s portrait, painted by his niece Anne-Rosalie Filleul – merci beaucoup!

I am very grateful to all scholars who have given me valuable feedback on my project during its various stages, in the framework of the PhD seminars, workshops and conferences at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, whose interdisciplinary profile was very beneficial for my work. I would spe- cifically like to mention Mårten Snickare, Jennie Nell, Anna Cullhed, John Potvin and not the least to all the members of Theatre and Dance studies unit.

It is a diverse and international unit, full of brilliant people, both senior scholars and PhD students, and I am proud to have been part of it. I want to especially thank Meike Wagner for her valuable feedback as reviewer of my thesis, and for her empathetic approach. And a special thanks to you, my fellow doc- toral students, for all those shared moments and mutual support – things were

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always better when shared, even if they did not go that well. Finally, I appre- ciate very much the work of the administrative staff at IKE, who have been ever so helpful and kind to me.

I have been blessed to be able to participate in many international workshops, conferences and symposia, which led to contact with the international research community in the fields of dance, theatre and costume, and contributed a great deal to the development of my project. Oxford Dance Symposia, conferences of European Association for Dance History and Early Dance Cir- cle regularly provided inspiration for my work and enabled important encoun- ters, as did scholarly events organized by Arianna Fabbricatore in Paris and Naples, and Barbara Nestola’s and Emanuele De Luca’s seminars ThéPARis in Versailles. Furthermore, I was glad to participate at the research seminar Thinking Costume, organized by Sofia Pantouvaki during Scenofest, WSD2017 in Taipei, and in the Scenography working group of IFTR, which broadened my perspective in the research field of costume and stage design.

Thank you for making me part of these events.

Over the years, I have met many brilliant people who contributed in one way or another to my project. Apart from the above mentioned, I would like to thank the curator of the Český Krumlov costume collection Kateřina Cichrová; Bianca Maurmayr, Hubert Hazebroucq, Edith Lalonger, Christine Jeanneret, Valeria De Lucca, Benoît Dratwicki, Marc-Henri Jordan, Vincent Droguet and Françoise Lapeyre-Dartois for sharing their knowledge with me, for friendly support and interest in my project. And most of all, a big big thank you to Mickaël Bouffard – for your expert and thorough feedback on my thesis during the final seminar and even afterwards, for our many inspiring exchanges, for your continuous encouragements, for your enthusiasm, which is contagious, and for the love of the research subject that we happen to share.

Furthermore, I am grateful to Doreen Kruger for her careful editing of my script, to Emma Jansson for the advices on the captions of images and to Adam David for the design of the cover page. And to Maria Gullstam, with whom I shared the joys and struggles of PhD life from the beginning to the very end – big thank you not only for the translation of the Swedish summary, but for everything!

I would also like to thank all my friends in Stockholm for making me feel at home, and for enriching my life there when it was not all about work. My gratitude goes also to Camilla Kandare, to the participants of her baroque dance course, and to the members of Pied en l’Air – thank you for all the dance!

And finally, my dear friends and family in Prague and in Slovakia, thank you for always being there for me. Even if I was too often far away, I felt you so close.

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List of abbreviations

Czech Republic

CZ-CK State Castle of Český Krumlov / National Institute for Heritage Preservation, Regional Unit České Budějovice

France

F-Pan Paris, Archives Nationales de France F-Pcarn Paris, Musée Carnavalet

F-Pcf Paris, Bibliothèque-musée de la Comédie-Française F-Pinha Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art F-Pnest Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France Département des

Estampes et photographie,

F-Pnas Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Arts du spectacle

F-Po Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Bibliothèque-Musée de l’Opéra

F-Pmad Paris, Musée des arts decoratifs F-Pml Paris, Musée du Louvre

F-Mcn Moulin, Centre national du costume de scène Germany

D-Shsa Stuttgart, Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg Hauptstaatsarchiv Italy

I-Tbr Torino, Biblioteca Reale Poland

P-Wu Warsaw, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Warsawe, Gabinet Rycin Sweden

S-Sk Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket

S-Slrk Stockholm, Livrustkammaren/Statens historiska museer, Stockholm

S-Smt Stockholm, Musik- och teaterbiblioteket S-So Stockholm, Kungliga Operan

United Kingdom

GB-Lv London, Victoria and Albert Museum

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United States of America

US-NYm New York City, NY, The Morgan Library

US-NYp New York City, NY, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

US-CAt Cambridge, MA, Harvard Theatre Collection of the Houghton Library

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Figure 1 – Anne-Rosalie Filleul, Louis-René Boquet, 1781. Oil on canvas. Private collection.

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Introduction

The only man able to create, to imagine, to remedy abuses, to subtract with art the useless parts of the costume, to tastefully substitute them with everything that can give it charm and character, is without doubt M. Boquet.

Jean-Georges Noverre, 1766¹

Appreciative remarks such as this one, made by choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810) about French designer Louis-René Boquet (1717–

1814),² and hundreds of Boquet’s sketches, sparked off my initial curiosity, resulting in this thesis. This single quote in fact outlines all the main topics which I set out to investigate: costume reform developing during the second half of the eighteenth century; Louis-René Boquet’s role in this movement (that he was able to ‘remedy abuses’ and ‘subtract with art the useless parts of the costume’) and more generally the material and aesthetic specificity of theatrical costume in the eighteenth century, which needed to have ‘charm and character’. What does this ‘charm’ mean in practice, how was it created, and on which aesthetic principles was it based? What were ‘the abuses’ of the costume at the time of Noverre’s writing, and what remedies could be offered – amongst others – by Boquet?

The second half of the eighteenth century was a turbulent period when many new, revolutionary ideas were introduced and publicly discussed in the fields of music, dance, art, philosophy, social and political thinking.³ The En- cyclopédie raisonné project by Denis Diderot and Jean Rond d’Alembert,

1 ‘Le seul homme en état de créer, d’imaginer, de remédier aux abus, de retrancher avec art les inutilités sans effet d’un costume, d’y substituer avec goût tout ce qui peut contribuer à lui donner de l’agrément et du caractère, est sans contredit Mr. Boquet.’ Jean-Georges Noverre, Théorie et pratique de la danse simple et composée (1766), chapter ‘Du Costume’, 223–224, PL–Wu Zb. Król. 795, 240–241. All translations in this thesis are mine, unless otherwise indi- cated.

Note to translation: according to Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (1762), l’agrément is defined as ‘quality by which [something] pleases us’ (‘Cette maison n’est pas réguliérement bâtie, mais elle a de grands agrémens’), or ‘object that gives us pleasure’, ‘cause of satisfaction’

(‘Cet homme trouve de grands agrémens dans sa famille, dans sa profession, dans sa charge, dans la Compagnie dont il est’).

2 The archival documents (and consequently also the modern researchers) present his name with two different spellings: Boquet and Bocquet. However, the painter himself always used the former when signing – therefore I use that form of his name in my work.

3 In the field of political and philosophical thinking, among the first revolutionary texts belong Montesquieu’s De l’Esprit des loix (1748), Rousseau’s Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inegalité parmi les homes (1755) or Voltaire’s essays and letters criticizing religion and

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which began publication in 1751, represents the epoch’s thirst for accumulat- ing knowledge about the world, and the primacy of reason and scientific approach when explaining it. It made this knowledge available to a larger number of people than ever. In music, the ‘querelle des bouffons’ in the 1750s and Gluck’s and Calzabigi’s opera reform in the 1760s marked important turning points.⁴ In dance, the ‘querelle des pantomimes’ debated new forms of ballet.⁵ In acting, new expressive styles were explored, exchanging the rhetoric of declamation with more ‘natural’ speech and gesture.⁶ Visual arts reached much wider audiences through the first public exhibitions of Parisian salons, which led to lively debates and developments.⁷

Costume, being at once a dramatic tool, a visual art form and a fabric in which social relations were woven, could not be excluded in the revolutionary thinking of the period – as has been well noticed by theatre and costume historiographies. It was a period when ‘new concepts of historical accuracy, dramatic truth, and natural beauty’ were introduced.⁸ Most historiographies con- nect this movement – and rightly so – with the actors of the Comédie-Fran- çaise, Claire Josèphe Hippolyte Leris, dite Clairon (1723–1803) and Henri- Louis Cain, dit Lekain (1729–1778), with the costumes of actress Marie Jus- tine Benoîte Favart, née Duronceray (1727–1772) and the ideas of choreogra- pher Jean-Georges Noverre. Through their writings, and those of contempo- rary critics, we can learn a lot about the ‘abuses’ or ‘useless parts’ – following Noverre’s argumentation – of the costume in the mid-eighteenth century: the rigid paniers and tonnelets,⁹ powdered wigs and superfluous decoration were identified as ridiculous accessories, owing partly to older conventions and partly to new fashions.¹⁰ Previously indispensable, these items were suddenly considered both impractical, hindering the movement of the performer (which

promoting tolerance. Cf. Vincenzo Ferrone, The Enlightenment: History of an Idea (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015); Jonathan Israel, Democratic Enlightenment:

Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

4 Cf. David Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Bruce Alan Brown, Gluck and the French Theatre in Vienna (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).

5 Cf. Arianna B. Fabbricatore, La Querelle des Pantomimes: Danse, culture et société dans l’Europe des Lumières (Rennes: Presses Universitéres de Rennes, 2017).

6 Cf. Marvin Carlson, Voltaire and the Theatre of the Eighteenth Century (Westport, CT: Green- wood Press, 1998); David Wiles, The Players’ Advice to Hamlet: The Rhetorical Acting Method from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

7 Cf. Jean Seznec (ed.), On Art and Artists: An Anthology of Diderot’s Aesthetic Thought (Dor- drecht and Heidelberg: Springer, 2011).

8 Anne Hollander, Looking Through Clothes (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor- nia Press, 1993), 274.

9 For explanations of these and other sartorial terms appearing in this thesis, see the Vocabulary in Appendix 1.

10 Cf. Jean-Georges Noverre, Lettres sur la danse, et sur les ballets (Lyon and Stuttgart: Aimé Delaroche, 1760), Lettre VIII.

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became more physically expansive), and improbable in relation to the depiction of the character and the theatrical milieu. The reformers demanded a more truthful portrayal of dress from different points in history, different nations, different classes and occupations, but also of the dramatic situation of the characters. While these characteristics of costume reform are sustained by all the historical accounts, there is sparse analysis of how new concepts were applied in practice, what the development depended on, and how they negotiated with pre-existing conventions, new fashions or the individual agency of the performers. Or, in Noverre’s words, what kind of costume substituted the

‘abuses’ with ‘everything that can give it charm’? Furthermore, the name of Louis-René Boquet – the man who according to Noverre could design costume with this ‘charm and character’ – is largely missing from the narratives of reform.

When mentioning Boquet, previous scholarship focused mainly on his relation to the pictorial arts (the rococo style of his drawings) and his depend- ence on everyday fashion (the silhouette of female costume on his designs).

Ballet historian Clement Crisp characterized Boquet’s work as one where ‘we see how rococo design lightened the stage picture and, in many cases, take it to an extreme of delicate fantasy’.¹¹ Although Crisp mentioned the collaboration between Boquet and Noverre – and he was one of the few authors to do so – he does not reflect on how Boquet’s costume of ‘delicate fantasy’ related to Noverre’s reform ideas. Art historian Anne Hollander also emphasized his skills in ‘creating delicate Rococo confections’, stating even – without any evidence – that Boquet ‘worked in a kind of vacuum’.¹² Finally, the more recent study of Boquet’s designs, by Marie-José Kerhoas, states that he re- mained ‘unwilling towards innovation’ and generalizes that ‘the costume did not undertake any remarkable transformation during the eighteenth century until the French revolution’.¹³

A comment by the French art historian Carlos Fischer helps to clarify why these interpretations have prevailed in the costume design historiography:

‘[Tessier] says how the costumer seconded Noverre in his famous choreo- graphic reform, but, unfortunately, nothing in the public collections gives evidence of such collaboration.’¹⁴ This missing piece of evidence only came to the knowledge of Western researchers in the second half of the twentieth century. The so-called Warsaw manuscript, preserved in the University Library

11 Clement Crisp and Mary Clark, Design for Ballet (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1978), 58.

12 Anne Hollander, Looking Through Clothes, 285.

13 Marie-José Kerhoas, Les dessins de costumes de scène de 1750 à 1790 dans les collections patrimoniales françaises (PhD thesis, Université François-Rabelais de Tours, 2007), 115 and 153.

14 Carlos Fischer, Les costumes de l’Opéra (Paris: Librairie de France, 1931), 96. Tessier quotes a catalogue from library in Paignon-Dijonval, which in the eighteenth century held a folder entitled Habit de costume pour l’exécution des ballets de Noverre, execute par M. Boquet, premier dessinateur des Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, containing 200 designs, but at the time of Tessier and Fischer, this folder was lost.

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of the Polish capital, contains a large number of designs made by Boquet for Noverre’s ballets, together with a new chapter dedicated to theatre costume, which did not appear in the printed versions of his Lettres sur la danse.¹⁵ A similar volume documenting the Boquet-Noverre collaboration, also barely researched, dates from 1791 and is preserved in the Swedish Royal Library.¹⁶ These sources allow for more detailed research and comparison with Boquet’s Parisian productions. To my knowledge, only one costume researcher, Albane Piot, has incorporated both these sources into her analysis, when she reflected on the development of Boquet’s designs.¹⁷ Her study of the ballet en action Médee et Jason, choreographed by Noverre and designed by Boquet, and its various stagings investigated the dramaturgical function of the costume in that period, as well as the development of Boquet’s design in relation to the reform.

The corpus of Boquet’s designs represents the most complete example of costume development in the second half of the eighteenth century. Submitting these sources to a close analysis produces a nuanced reading of the progress of costume reform. Therefore, my thesis takes those costumes in whose creation Boquet participated as a case study of the reform, its various aspects, problems and stages. I explicitly emphasize the collaborative aspect in costume creation, because as I argue through this thesis, costume making is never a solitary endeavour.

15 Relying on the testimony of the musician Alan Curtis, Sybille Dahms wrote about the ‘dis- covery’ of the manuscript in Leningrad in the 1970s, and its subsequent return to Warsaw (Der konservative Revolutionär: Jean Georges Noverre und die Ballettreform des 18. Jahrhunderts [Munich: Epodium, 2010], 105). However, the document had returned to Poland in 1923, and it survived the Second World War buried in the cellars of the University of Warsaw Library.

On the other hand, the local scholars worked with it – the manuscript served as the basis for the translation of Lettres sur la danse into Polish, which was accompanied by several reproductions of Boquet’s designs: Jean-Georges Noverre, Teoria i praktyka tanca prostego i kom- ponowanego, sztuki baletowej, muzyki, kostiumu i dekoracji (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im.

Ossolińskich, 1959). The preface was written by the first Czech dance theoretician Jan Reimoser (under the pseudonym Jan Rey), who also published an article about this manuscript in a Czech journal, Dance Letters: Jan Rey, ‘Zachráněný Noverrův rukopis’, Taneční listy, sborník pro taneční kulturu 1–2 (Prague, 1949), 14–17. Regarding the history of the manuscript, see also Małgorzata Biłozór-Salwa, ‘Bibliotheca regia jako artystyczna inspiracja? Rękopis Jean-Georgesa Noverre'a w kolekcji Stanisława Augusta’ – a manuscript kindly provided by the author, who is a curator of the Print Room in the University of Warsaw Library.

16 Karin Modigh and Irène Ginger, ‘Une dernière tentative d’emploi de Noverre: Le dossier de candidature au roi de Suède en 1791’, Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810): Danseur, choré- graphe, théoricien de la danse et du ballet: Un artiste européen au siècle des Lumières, Musi- corum No. 10 –2011, ed. Marie-Thérèse Mouray, Laurine Quentin (Tours: Université François- Rabelais de Tours 2011), 221–244, Dahms, Der konservative Revolutionär, 174–176; Alvar Granström, Balett och kostym (Borås: Carlssons, 1988), 70–76.

17 Albane Piot, Recherches sur Louis-René Boquet (1717–1814) (MA thesis, École du Louvre, 2014).

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Boquet across scenes and genres

When Louis-René Boquet started his career within the Parisian theatre scene, around 1750, he drew designs for the fairground theatres (théâtres de la foire), which hosted various popular genres such as pantomimes or comic operas, and also for the royal court and the Opéra, specializing in the costume department. The first traces of his work for the court seem to date from the early 1750s,¹⁸ and in 1754 he designed new costumes for Noverre’s Les Fêtes chinoises, performed at the fairground theatre of Foire Saint-Germain.¹⁹ From 1759 onwards, he worked as ‘dessinateur des habits’ at the Opéra, while he simultaneously designed for court spectacles. In 1764, Boquet became ‘dessinateur en chef des habits du roi pour fêtes, spectacles et cérémonies’, direct- ing a team of designers and makers responsible for providing decor and dress for the royal court. In 1770, he was appointed ‘inspecteur général des Menus- Plaisirs’.²⁰ At this point, his job description included as many administrative tasks as artistic ones: he was supposed to draw the designs of and paint various decorative patterns directly on the costumes, to control the work and hours of the tailors, seamstresses and other personnel in the atelier, to order and control the quality and quantity of materials, to have an overview of the costume wardrobe and to decide which old costumes could be used or repurposed for the next production. In other words, he supervised the entire costuming process in the theatre, rather than limiting only to design. Boquet still figured on the lists of this institution as dessinateur et inspecteur des habits in 1792.²¹ During the 1750s and 1760s (and probably also in the next decades) the designer collaborated continuously with the French choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre, creating costumes for his innovative narrative ballets, which were performed in Paris, Stuttgart, Vienna and elsewhere.

Hence, Louis-René Boquet worked across genres and institutions – and cer- tainly not in a ‘vacuum’ – which raises questions about their connections and differences. While each of these institutions and genres had different conventions and traditions, the appearance of new art forms and exchange between them was inevitable. This is perceptible in the repertoire and music of the pe-

18 He drew a costume for Mlle Sallé, who appeared at the court for the last time in 1751. From the same year date the first memoirs recording his activities at the Menus-Plaisirs. F–Pan O–1–

2288, O–1–2295.

19 Jean Monnet, Supplément au Roman comique, ou Mémoires pour servir a la vie de Jean Monnet, ci-devant directeur de l’Opéra-Comique à Paris, de l'Opéra de Lyon, & d’une Comé- die françoise à Londres, ecrits par lui-même (London, 1782), vol. 2, 47.

20 The Menus-Plaisirs du Roy was the Department of the Royal entertainments, which had the responsibility for organizing all such activities at the French court (Paris, Versailles, Fon- tainebleau, Choisy). See F–Pan O–1–3044.

21 In 1792, Boquet had been in service for 39 years and he received a wage of 6000 livres – according to the document État du traitement de toutes les personnes attachés aux Menus, tant en Appointements, que Gratifications, Habillements, Logement, Chaufage, Lumiere, Voitures et Domestique pendent l’année 1792. F–Pan O–1–2811.

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riod, and costume underwent – as I aim to show – similar changes. The influ- ence of comic genres such as Italian opera buffa and of various mixed genres from the Parisian fairground theatres on serious French opera has been high- lighted by several scholars.²² For these stages and genres, different conventions and, in consequence, different physical qualities of their costumes applied. If we examine these exchanges between ‘low’ (comic) and ‘high’ (serious) art forms, the inspiration, transformation and adaptation of costume practice from one genre/stage to another appears more clearly. In certain cases, the influence of ‘lower’ genres – particularly on the level of technique and expression – had a perceptible impact on the performance and costume of the higher genres. On the other hand, the serious genre maintained its highest position in the hierarchy of the arts, emphasizing elevated emotions and noble appearance. The theories of the arts in the period still clearly defined the differences between genres, although their subjects and modes of expression became more varied.

Many diverse factors influenced the development of costume through the eighteenth century – nothing happened in a vacuum. As will be made clear in the literature review, some of these factors, typically development in the visual arts or in fashion, have been explored by previous researchers, while others, such as the aesthetic principles and development of theatrical genres have been neglected. If we consider all these factors equally and relate them to the evidence of costume, the progress of the costume reform appears in all its complexity. In the following I present my approach to the topic, together with the aims this thesis pursues and questions it asks.

Research questions and approaches

The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the development of theatrical costume in the eighteenth century in its aesthetic, performance and social context, with particular focus on the development of the costume reform. In consequence, I aim to revise the current view on Boquet’s work, which has been presented as almost resistant to reform, and emphasize the development of his design as an exemplar for the proceedings of the reform.

Further issues appeared when determining the actual object of study. In convergence with the recent development of costume studies and, in particular, costume historiography, I decided to focus on costume’s materiality, that which performers felt on their bodies and the spectators experienced on stage – that is costume beyond image, design. Therefore, I needed to consider all the aspects that influenced its construction. Although Boquet’s work is the primary case in my thesis, he was never the only one to influence the final

22 Cf. Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau; Jacqueline Waeber (ed.), Musique et Geste en France: de Lully à la Révolution (Peter Lang, 2009); Marian Hannah Winter, The Pre-Romantic Ballet (London: Pitman, 1974) ; etc.

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product. The perspective must shift from the ‘author’ to the ‘object’, and investigate the various impulses that combine in it and shape it. In fact, theatrical costume in the early modern period (and arguably in any period) was not a product of just one individual’s mind and hands. There was an entire chain of impulses – social, aesthetic, dramaturgic and physical – shaping the costume.

Proceeding from the affirmation that costume is a self-standing stage object, carrying its own meaning and functions, its role in communicating with the spectators and its interaction with the performer, I will further examine the specificity of opera and ballet costume, which Boquet mainly created. Opera and ballet in France share a performing history – since the development of ballet de cour in the sixteenth century, through tragédie en musique to opéra- ballet and opéra-comique. Therefore, they have many aspects in common. On the other hand, their specific mode of expression (singing and dancing) necessarily lead to differences between them.

If one considers costume’s relation to dress and fashion, fine arts, performing arts and its aesthetics, social context, and to the body, the complex character of this object is revealed. One can understand the various meanings it communicates, and how, as well as its role within the performance and society. In early eighteenth-century opera and ballet, these meanings related to the social representation of nobility, aesthetic codification of the genres and characters, fashion and material culture. All these aspects transformed quite radi- cally with the changing social order, the development of art forms and institutions. Studying the visuality and materiality of costume helps not only to re- veal the relationship with the spectators, but also to the bodies of the performers and their movement on stage. The way of designing and creating also reveals the specificity of this object, since it often differed from that of everyday dress. Furthermore, if one examines the process of costume making in various theatre institutions and genres, as well as the number of people who were involved in that process (the author/poet of the piece, the designer, the performer, the stage director, the tailor, the seamstress), the differences between spoken theatre and opera, opera and ballet emerge.

This is the overarching research question the thesis asks:

• What did the costume reform consist of, and how was it manifested in different stages of the studied period?

A series of sub-questions help to investigate the problem in greater detail:

• What were the aesthetic premises driving the visual form of theatrical costume, how did they relate to the social rules of propriety and artistic genres?

• What was costume’s dramaturgical role in the performance?

• How did it relate to the body of the performer and to his/her movement?

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In order to answer the research questions, I have placed costume within a larger cultural context, combining the history of ideas, the history of the arts and the history of dress, which helps us to understand the complex nature and development of costume in the eighteenth century. The broader historical frame of this context, which had already started in the sixteenth century, reveals that the various impulses through which costume was formed – social, aesthetic, dramaturgical – had different weight through time. This analysis prepares the ground for looking into the development of the costume reform in the second half of the eighteenth century and placing Louis-René Boquet’s work within that movement.

My thesis is situated within the field of costume research.²³ This field lies on the crossroads of three established disciplines: theatre studies (including spoken drama, dance and opera), fashion/dress studies and art history. My work is rooted in theatre and dance studies, as the theatre is where the costume

‘acts’, and dance, together with opera, are the main art forms which I am investigating. In this thesis I combine the analysis of the aesthetic debates that, among other things, shaped the design, performance analysis through preserved textual sources, visual analysis of the designs and the focus on the materiality of the costumes. Quite obviously, the costume is and was a material object made of fabric, thread, paper, metal, and so on. All these materials and the way they were put together had direct implications on the performance of the actors and on the perception of the spectators. This approach and partly also the method are inspired by the field of cultural studies and anthropology – the studies of material culture – which emphasize the importance of dress as an object within people’s lives.²⁴ However, these studies naturally tend to deal with extant objects, the agency of which they investigate. In my case, this is rather difficult, or even impossible, given that the material per se – costumes made after Boquet’s designs – have not survived.

Since I have not been able to base my analysis on an examination of the stuff, I have had to adjust the methodology of material culture research to the sources I deal with. I use an extended concept of materiality and costume,²⁵ which includes both the design and the material, understood as something that was designed, worn and looked at, so it can be retrieved by combining the various sources and then analysed from the point of view – and with the tools

23 Authors and publications which belong to this area, amongst others, and which inspired my approach include: Anne Verdier, Histoire et poétique de l’habit de théâtre en France au XVII^e siècle (Vijon: Éditions Lampsaque, 2006); Aoife Monks, The Actor in Costume (Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Donatella Barbieri, Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture and the Body (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2017); Veronica Isaac, ‘Dressing the Part’:

Ellen Terry (1847–1928) – Towards a Methodology for Analysing Historic Theatre Costume (PhD thesis, University of Brighton, 2016).

24 Cf. Daniel Miller, Stuff (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), particularly chapter ‘Why Clothing is not Superficial’, 12–41; Heike Jenss and Viola Hofmann (eds.), Fashion and Materiality:

Cultural Practices in Global Contexts (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2020).

25 I am grateful to Mårten Snickare for proposing this concept.

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– of material culture. The loss of the physical material could be compared to the loss of the ephemeral theatrical event, which we have to deal with as theatre historians.²⁶ A more creative approach to research needs to be assumed in order to gain further knowledge about the material and its use within the theatrical event.

Most of the direct sources available for the study of Boquet’s work are vis- ual (drawings and watercolours) – which I call a prescription for the costume – and textual – real descriptions in the inventories.²⁷ The intriguing visual quality of the first group of sources meant that Boquet’s work and life have mainly been studied by art historians. However, the second group possesses the potential for a material-cultural study, which has not yet been fully explored. My work combines these two groups, because they are versions of the same thing – the actual costume – but recorded in different media, at different stages of the making process. While considering the specific nature of these media, and by analysing them in combination, it is possible to offer a fuller picture of the costume – as an aesthetic idea and in practice. My investigation has extended even beyond the historical sources, bringing them back to life through experimental reconstruction of both materials and bodily practices. In this phase, I combined archaeological methods with that of embodiment, used in theatre and performance research.

The combination of sources and approaches feeds into the historiographical research in a productive way. This new methodology, formulated in my thesis, provides a more nuanced understanding of how the costume worked materi- ally and aesthetically, how it could have felt and could have expressed various desires and power relations on stage.

Past and present of costume research

The history of costume is generally rather understudied, and a descriptive rather than a critical approach has prevailed until quite recently. While publications of the former character have appeared since the early decades of the twentieth century, it is only since the beginning of the twenty-first century that new approaches have emerged. Theories and methods proper to the field of costume studies are currently under development, including specialized conferences and the foundation of a research journal, enabling wider academic discussion.²⁸

26 Cf. Christopher Balme, The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 2008), 7.

27 Here I thank Hanna Walsdorf for her help with the formulation of the two types.

28 The international platform Critical Costume, promoting research and practice on the interdisciplinary study of costume, was founded in 2013 by Dr Rachel Hann and Sidsel Bech by con- vening the CC2013 conference at Edith Hill University. The costume scholars are also conven- ing within the Scenography Working Group of the IFTR. The first issue of the research journal,

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In this section I review, first, previous publications treating the costume of the eighteenth century and the work of Louis-René Boquet. Second, I turn to publications in costume studies which do not treat this particular period, but offer a more theoretical discussion of this topic, new approaches and method- ologies which helped to shape the theory and method of my own research.

Previous research in eighteenth-century costume

Costume historians often focus on a particular art form or stage; they are studying spoken theatre, opera, ballet or other forms. While the development and form of costume for various art forms indeed differed, it is important to acknowledge and emphasize both their differences and potential points of contact. The overarching terms ‘theatre’ and ‘theatrical costume’, common to all performing arts, have sometimes been reduced to referring only to the spoken theatre, which has then offered a simplified picture of costume’s development.

Mainly (although not exclusively) spoken theatre is treated by Diana De Marly in her study Costume on the Stage 1600–1940 (1982), which still is a point of reference for costume researchers today.²⁹ However, her approach could also be due to her focus primarily on the English stage, its particular history and hence the specific availability of sources.

French research in costume history focused from its beginning on all art forms, including opera and ballet – as French archives preserved a large number of sources from diverse performing art forms. French art historian André Tessier published the first thorough biographical study of Boquet in a series of three articles in La revue de l’Art in 1926,³⁰ inspired by the uncompleted project of the Brothers Goncourt from the end of the nineteenth century.

Tessier discovered Boquet’s death certificate in the Archives de la Seine and thus established the designer’s full name, the year of his birth and date of death.³¹ Thanks to the position Boquet held within the Menus-Plaisirs, mentioned in the document, and subsequent meticulous research in the archive, Tessier was able to write a rather detailed biography including notes on his sons (also artists), which still remains the main point of reference. He de- scribed Boquet’s various tasks within the Menus-Plaisirs and the Opéra and,

Studies in Costume & Performance, edited by Donatella Barbieri and Sofia Pantouvaki, was published in 2016.

29 James Laver, Costume in the Theatre (London: Harrap, 1964) and Diana De Marly, Costume in the Theatre 1600–1940 (London: BT Batsford, 1982). These historiographical works are cited for instance by Aoife Monks and Veronica Isaac.

30 André Tessier, ‘Les habits d’opéra au XVIII siècle: Louis Boquet, dessinateur et inspecteur général des Menus-Plaisirs’, La revue de l’Art, Vol. 49, No. 272 (January 1926): 15–26; No.

273 (February 1926): 89–100; No. 274 (March 1926): 173–184.

31 ‘Du mercredi 7 décembre 1814, acte de décès de Louis-René Boquet, ancien inspecteur des Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, âge de 97 ans, né à Pans, décedé ce matin à une heure, rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, n° 3. veuf d’Angélique Sageret.’ Tessier, ‘Les habits d’opéra au XVIII siècle’, La revue de l’Art, Vol. 49, No. 272 (January 1926): 4.

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at the end of his study, briefly evaluated his designs, dividing them in two distinct ‘styles’: ‘Boquet Louis XV’ and ‘Boquet Louis XVI’, the latter ap- proximately corresponding to the period of the reform. Tessier suggested that Boquet was following the new ideas, however this statement was not pursued by other writers. Few other biographical works mention Louis-René Boquet.³²

In 1931, Carlos Fischer published an overview of the costume designers of the Paris Opéra. His survey starts even before its foundation – with the designs for the ballet de cour, and proceeds chronologically until the end of nineteenth century.³³ His thorough examination of the Parisian archives focused on the designs for opera and ballet, occasionally going into administrative sources or theoretical writings – starting from Noverre. Fischer focused on the designers’

styles and the description of their drawings, rather than considering their ide- ological standpoints, social context or the differences between costumes for opera and ballet.

The same French designs attracted the attention of English ballet historians.

The prolific dance writer Cyril Beaumont published a book entitled Five Cen- turies of Ballet Design (1939)³⁴ as a companion to his previous publication Design for the Ballet (1937). The introduction is followed by a brief history of design for ballet, in which Beaumont reproduces prints, drawings and paintings of stage sets, scenes from performances and costume designs from various European archives, sometimes accompanied by extensive quotes from dance theoreticians of the given period who comment on costume. Similar publications include Design for Ballet (1978) by Clement Crisp and Mary Clark,³⁵ and James Laver’s Costume in the Theatre (1964), which together with De Marly’s book, are among the most often cited publications about costume history, and which include discussion of opera and ballet costumes as well.³⁶

Given their focus on costume design for (mainly French) opera and ballet, these authors necessarily included Boquet’s work. However, as mentioned above, they focused on the rococo style of Boquet’s designs, and his relation to the conventions, demonstrated through the established sets of attributes that identified the characters. They did not consider his involvement with the reform, nor the relation of the costume to the dramaturgy or performing practice.

Only Fischer, who dedicated an entire chapter to the designer, mentioned the contact between Noverre and Boquet, but as suggested, he had no evidence that allowed him to analyse their collaboration.

32 Frithjof van Thienen, ‘Louis René Boquet’, Miscellanea I. Q. van Regteren Altena (Amster- dam, 1969), 198–203, figs. 376–378; Laurent Caron, Deux siècles d’Histoire: les Boquet (Be- sançon: The author, 1982).

33 Fischer, Les costumes de l’Opéra.

34 Cyril W. Beaumont, Five Centuries of Ballet Design (London: The Studio Publications, 1939).

35 Clement Crisp and Mary Clark, Design for Ballet (1978).

36 James Laver, Costume in the Theatre (1964).

Petra Dotlačilová

Costume in the Time of Reforms

Costume in the Time of Reforms

Costume in the Time of Reforms

Petra Dotlačilová

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of abbreviations

Introduction