Australia Dancing - Femmes de bonne humeur, Les

Femmes de bonne humeur, Les

Seymour, Maurice: Tamara Grigorieva in costume for 'Les Femmes de bonne humeur', Ballets Russes, 1930s

Les femmes de bonne humeur (The Good-Humoured Ladies) was choreographed by twenty-one year old Leonide Massine for the Diaghilev Ballets Russes in 1917. Music by Domenico Scarlatti was arranged and orchestrated for the ballet by Vincenzo Tommasini, who was also responsible for the libretto based on Carlo Goldoni's Le Donne di Buon Umore. Design was by Leon Bakst. The choreography of this ballet was in keeping with the commedia dell'arte style of Goldini's drama, displaying stylish wit in its use of idiosyncratic movement and gesture to create strongly individual characterisation. Janet Sinclair credits Les femmes de bonne humeur with introducing 'an entirely new strand into the choreographic fabric of the twentieth century: a strand which was developed not only in the creation of many more works by Massine himself (Le Tricorne, La Boutique fantasque, Pulcinella, Les Matelots, Le Beau Danube, Gaite parisienne, Mam’zelle Angot, etc), but also in a whole series of ballets in the same genre by other choreographers, of which perhaps the most successful have been Lichine's Graduation Ball, Cranko's Pineapple Poll, and more recently David Bintley's Hobson's Choice'. The original cast included Lydia Lopokova, Lubov Tchernicheva, Enrico Cecchetti and his wife Guiseppina, Stanislas Idzikowski, Leon Woizikowsky, Sigmund Novak and Massine himself.

The work was restaged by Massine for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, and was performed in Australia by the Covent Garden Russian Ballet and the Original Ballet Russe during their tours of 1938-39 and 1939-40. The Australian premiere took place on October 13, 1938, featuring Tamara Grigorieva in Thernicheva's original role as Constanza and Irina Baronova as Mariuccia, the role originally performed by Lopokova.

Les femmes de bonne humeur has been restaged by a number of companies since the Ballets Russes performances, most notably by the Royal Ballet in 1962.

Bibliography:

Vicente Garcia-Marquez, The Ballets Russes: Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo 1932-1952 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990); Janet Sinclair, 'Les Femmes de bonne humeur', in Martha Bremser (ed.),International Dictionary of Ballet Vol 1, pp 305-307 (Detroit: St James Press)

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