Le Spectre de la Rose

Le Spectre de la rose
Karsavina and Nijinsky, 1911
Choreographer	Michel Fokine
Music	Hector Berlioz's orchestration of Carl Maria von Weber's Aufforderung zum Tanz as L'Invitation à la Valse
Libretto	Jean-Louis Vaudoyer
Based on	Théophile Gautier's poem "Le Spectre de la rose"
Premiere	19 April 1911 Théâtre de Monte-Carlo
Original ballet company	Diaghilev's Ballets Russes
Characters	The Young Girl The Rose
Design	Léon Bakst
Setting	The Young Girl's Bedroom, about 1830
Created for	Tamara Karsavina Vaslav Nijinsky
Genre	Fantasy
Type	Neo-Classical ballet

Le Spectre de la rose (English: The Spirit of the Rose) is a short ballet about a young girl who dreams of dancing with the spirit of a souvenir rose from her first ball.Jean-Louis Vaudoyer based the ballet story on a verse by Théophile Gautier.

Michel Fokine choreographed the ballet to the music of Carl Maria von Weber's piano piece Aufforderung zum Tanz (English: Invitation to the Dance) as orchestrated by Hector Berlioz in 1841. Léon Bakst designed the original Biedermeier sets and costumes.

The ballet was first presented in Monte Carlo on 19 April 1911. Nijinsky danced The Rose and Tamara Karsavina danced The Young Girl. It was a great success. Spectre became internationally famous for the spectacular leap Nijinsky made through a window at the ballet's end.

In 1911, Ballet Russes producer Sergei Diaghilev hoped to present Nijinsky's ballet L'Après-midi d'un faune (English: Afternoon of a Faun). It was not ready for the stage, so he needed another ballet to take its place. That ballet was the idea of writer Jean-Louis Vaudoyer. In 1910, he had sent an idea for a ballet to Ballets Russes set and costume designer Léon Bakst. His idea was based on Le Spectre de la rose, a verse by Théophile Gautier, and Afforderung zum Tanz, a work for piano by Carl Maria von Weber. Diaghilev liked Vaudoyer's idea. He thought it could easily take the place of Faune. He put Vaudoyer's idea into development at once. Diaghilev liked the idea of a ballet based on Gautier's Spectre because it could be tied to the centennial of Gautier's birth.

In 1819, Carl Maria von Weber wrote a work for piano called Afforderung zum Tanz. He also wrote a program for this work about a young man and woman who meet, dance, and part at a ball. The quiet music at the opening of Afforderung leads to some beautiful (and busy) waltz tunes before the work ends with the opening music. In 1841, Hector Berlioz Afforderung. This version of the music was used for a short ballet in Weber's opera Der Freischütz at the Paris Opéra. It was the Berlioz version of the original piano piece that was used for the ballet Le Spectre de la rose.