La Vivandière or Markitenka (1844)
Choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon, Fanny Cerrito
La Vivandière (Markitenka in Russian-language sources) is a one-act ballet made for Her Majesty's Theatre in London in 1844, choreographed jointly by Arthur Saint-Léon and Fanny Cerrito to a score by Cesare Pugni, with Cerrito and Saint-Léon dancing the leads, Kathi the vivandière (canteen-woman) and Hans. It belongs to the wave of Romantic-era ballets built around star ballerinas of the 1840s and, like much of the period's repertory, travelled quickly across Europe and into the Imperial Russian theatres.
What is danced
The article does not narrate the ballet's choreography or plot in any detail, so no scene-by-scene movement description can be drawn from it. What it does establish clearly is the survival and afterlife of one specific number: a Pas de Six from Saint-Léon's original staging, which Saint-Léon himself recorded in his own dance-notation system, La Sténochorégraphie, and published as a worked example in a Paris manual in 1848. This makes the Pas de Six one of the very few pieces of choreography from the 1840s London/Paris ballet world for which a contemporary notated record exists, rather than a later reconstruction from memory or written description alone.
Context
The ballet dates from the height of the Romantic ballet era in London and Paris, with Fanny Cerrito as one of its reigning ballerinas and Arthur Saint-Léon working simultaneously as her dancing partner and as choreographer. The work's rapid transfer to the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, first via Jules Perrot's 1855 restaging as Markitenka and later via Marius Petipa's 1881 revival, is typical of how Western European ballets of the period were absorbed into and kept alive by the Russian imperial companies long after they had left the Western repertory.
Staging history
Saint-Léon revived his own production for Her Majesty's Theatre in 1845, 1846 and 1848. Jules Perrot restaged it for the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg under the title Markitenka in December 1855, with Maria Surovshchikova-Petipa as Kathi and Perrot himself as Hans; Marius Petipa mounted a further revival for the Imperial Ballet in 1881. Separately, the notated Pas de Six had a life of its own: it was reconstructed with Pugni's original music by dance-notation scholar Ann Hutchinson Guest in 1975, staged by Pierre Lacotte for the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet in 1978 (where it remains in repertory), and has since been mounted by companies internationally and released on DVD/Blu-ray.
How to watch it
Because the surviving, widely performed fragment is the Pas de Six rather than the full ballet, most audiences encounter this work as a discrete ensemble showpiece on a mixed bill rather than as a narrative evening. Watch for the ensemble patterning and partnering conventions typical of a mid-19th-century divertissement number, and be aware that what is staged today by companies such as the Mariinsky descends from a specific written notation source, not an unbroken performance tradition.
Structure
- Pas de SixA six-dancer number from Saint-Léon's original 1844 production, notated by him in La Sténochorégraphie and later reconstructed with Pugni's original music.
Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.
Credits
- composer: Cesare Pugni