Jean-Étienne Despréaux Explained

Birth Date:	31 August 1748
Occupation:	Ballet dancer Choreographer playwright

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:^[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 lArt poétique de Boileau Despréaux,^[3] seminal work for choreography considered as an art in itself, and not as mere entertainment.

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) https://books.google.com/books?id=e_sMAAAAYAAJ&q=Despr%C3%A9aux+&pg=PP60
• Émile Campardon, L’Académie royale de musique au XVIIIe, Paris, Berger-Levrault et C^ie, 1884, vol. I, (p. 245–247).

External links

• Jean-Étienne Despréaux on Data.bnf.fr
• His plays on CÉSAR

Notes and References

1. He has no family relationship with Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux.
2. 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.
3. Paris, Defrelle, Petit, 1806, 2 vol. ; 2e éd. Paris, l'Auteur, Petit, 1807 ; 3e éd. Paris, Crapelet, 1809.