Shakespeare ballets from Noverre to Taglioni

Shakespeare's plays have been the principal inspiration for literary ballet plots in the history of dance. Several sources affirm that the first Shakespearean 'ballet d'action' was 'Cleopatra' by Jean-Georges Noverre (1765). In 1785, his pupil Charles LePicq created a 'Macbeth' ballet in London and in the same year, the tradition of the innumerable adaptations of 'Romeo and Juliet' began in Venice. In Milan, Salvatore Viganò created several extensive and elaborate 'coreodrammas' in the early nineteenth century. The Parisian Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin presented a 'Hamlet' ballet with a happy ending in 1816; the Paris Opera followed about two decades later with a highly eclectic version of 'The Tempest' (Adolphe Nourrit/Jean Coralli, 1834), a play that was adapted even more freely four years later by Filippo Taglioni. This paper will look into a number of significant Shakespeare ballets which were created in various dance metropolises (especially London, Paris and several Italian cities) during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. It will examine possible reasons for the choice of sources and for the often significant changes made by the librettists and choreographers.