Jean-Étienne Despréaux

Jean-Étienne Despréaux
Chantez, dansez, amusez-vous... Silhouette of Despréaux (1807)
Born	31 August 1748 Paris, Kingdom of France
Died	26 March 1820(1820-03-26) (aged 71) Paris, Kingdom of France
Occupation(s)	Ballet dancer Choreographer playwright
Spouse	Marie-Madeleine Guimard

Jean-Étienne Despréaux (31 August 1748 – 26 March 1820) was a French ballet dancer, choreographer, composer, singer and playwright.^[1]

Biography

The son of an oboist of the orchestra of the Académie royale de musique, he made here his début in 1763, four years after his brother Claude-Jean-François.

A remarkable dancer for his lightness in the high dance, he was applauded in several ballets :

1771: Pyramus and Thisbe, by La Serre, Rebel and Francœur
1773: Les Amours de Ragonde, by Destouches and Mouret
1774: Iphigénie en Aulide, by Du Roullet and Gluck
1774: Sabinus, by Chabanon and Gossec
1778: La Chercheuse d'esprit, a ballet by Maximilien Gardel.

He retired in 1781 with a 1,000 livres pension and married the famous ballerina Marie-Madeleine Guimard on 14 August 1789.

Charles-Maurice Descombes, in his 1856 Histoire anecdotique du théâtre, writes:

A widower for ten years of la Guimard, Despréaux just died. To his baroque writings I preferred his imitations of dancers, because it was pleasant. From the top of a small theater where the curtain was half down, he introduced on stage the index finger of each hand sporting a tunic, a shirt and shoes which formed small legs. Then, to the sound of ballet music, he performed steps so exactly that the audience recognized the kind and manner of the dancer or ballerina he wanted to evoke.

^[2]

Works

Despréaux wrote several parodies of operas that Louis XV particularly appreciated.

1777: Berlingue, parody of Ernelinde by Sedaine and Philidor
1778: Momie, parody of Iphigénie en Aulide by Gluck
1778: Romans, parody of Roland by Quinault and Lully
1780: Christophe et Pierre-Luc, parody of Castor et Pollux by Gentil Bernard and Rameau
1786: Syncope, reine de Mic-Mac, parody of Pénélope by Cimarosa
1801: Jenesaiki, ou les Exaltés de Charenton, parody of Béniovski ou les Exilés du Kamchattka by Boieldieu
1801: La Tragédie au vaudeville, en attendant le vaudeville à la tragédie, parody of Othello by Jean-François Ducis

He also made the opening prologue for the Théâtre de la Reine in May 1780.

But he is mostly known as the author of Mes passe-temps : chansons, suivies de l'Art de la danse, poème en quatre chants, calqué sur l'Art poétique de Boileau Despréaux,^[3] seminal work for choreography considered as an art in itself, and not as mere entertainment.

References

^ He has no family relationship with Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux.
^ Charles-Maurice Descombes, Histoire Anecdotique Du Théâtre, de La Littérature et de Diverses Impressions Contemporaines, Tirée Du Coffre d’un Journaliste, Avec Sa Vie à Tort et à Travers, vol. 1 (Paris: Henri Plon, 1856), 250.
^ Paris, Defrelle, Petit, 1806, 2 vol. ; 2e éd. Paris, l'Auteur, Petit, 1807 ; 3e éd. Paris, Crapelet, 1809.

Bibliography

Jacques-Alphonse Mahul, Annuaire nécrologique, ou Supplément annuel et continuation de toutes les biographies ou dictionnaires historiques, 1e année, 1820, Paris : Baudoin , 1821, (p. 82–83) [1]
Émile Campardon, L’Académie royale de musique au XVIIIe, Paris, Berger-Levrault et C^ie, 1884, vol. I, (p. 245–247).