Les mariés de la tour Eiffel (The Marriage on the Eiffel Tower) is a ballet to a libretto by Jean Cocteau, choreography by Jean Börlin, set by Irène Lagut, costumes by Jean Hugo, and music by five members of Les six – Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre. The score calls for two narrators. The ballet was first performed in Paris in 1921.
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The ballet had its genesis in a commission to Jean Cocteau and Georges Auric, from Rolf de Maré of the Ballets suédois. Cocteau's original title for his scenario was The Wedding Party Massacre.[1] It has been suggested that Raymond Radiguet, the young writer close to Cocteau at the time, made some contribution to the libretto.[2]
Running short of time, Auric asked his fellow members of Les six to also contribute music, and all of them did except Louis Durey, who pleaded illness.[1]
It was staged by the Ballets suédois at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on 18 June 1921, the principal dancers being C. Ari, J. Figoni, and K. Vahlander. The orchestra was conducted by Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht.[3] The narrators were Jean Cocteau and Pierre Bertin.[3]
It had a brief moment of fame and even scandal, but then fell into oblivion, although it was given in New York in 1923. A new production opened there in 1988.[2]
The story of the ballet is somewhat nonsensical:
When asked what the ballet was about, Cocteau replied: "Sunday vacuity; human beastliness, ready-made expressions, disassociation of ideas from flesh and bone, ferocity of childhood, the miraculous poetry of everyday life."[5]
On 29 July 1923, in a letter, Francis Poulenc described the work as "toujours de la merde ... hormis l'Ouverture d'Auric" ("yet more shit ... apart from Auric's Overture").[6]
The sections of the ballet are:
The score was unpublished until the first full recording of the work in 1966, which was supervised by Darius Milhaud.[1]
The ballet has also been recorded more recently by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Geoffrey Simon.
In 1987, Marius Constant arranged the music for an ensemble of fifteen instruments: wind quintet, string quintet, trumpet, trombone, harp and two percussion.[3] This version of the music has been recorded by the Erwartung Ensemble under Bernard Desgraupes, with Jean-Pierre Aumont and Raymond Gerome, narrators.[7]
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