The ballet from "Robert le Diable"

Degas, Edgar (1834-1917)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

1872

Height:

66.0 cm  (26 in.)

Width:

54.3 cm  (21 3/8 in.)

Technique / Medium:

oil on canvas

Description

Depiction from the view of the audience: both the tops and other parts of some musical instruments (bassoons, violoncello) as well as musicians of the opera orchestra are visible; on the stage scene of Meyerbeer's opera "Robert le Diable".
When Degas made this painting in 1871, Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Robert le Diable was forty years old and feeling its age—as reflected by the man at center, indifferent to the action and directing his binoculars at the audience. But Degas was fond of the opera, and particularly of the scene depicted here, from the third act, in which dead nuns are resurrected and greet one another amid the ruins of a moonlit monastery. The painting was exhibited in early 1872, the date inscribed on the canvas; Degas later executed a larger version (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, see RIdIM item 587) for Jean-Baptiste Faure, who starred in the opera.

Iconclass

48C84
the ballet, ballet performance

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Bassoon [3795]
Violoncello [3582]

Musical works

Meyerbeer, Giacomo -- Robert le diable

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

RIdIM record id

3752