Dancers and their Contracts: A Sampling from the Italian Pantomime Ballet

Abstract

A comparison between various series of archive documents, inter alia contracts issued for the Teatro San Carlo at Naples between 1781-1782, and those issued for the 1791 Carnival season at Padua’s Teatro Nuovo, allows one to put forward hypotheses about ballet dancers’ contractual terms in Italy in the second half of Eighteenth Century. Analysis of the documents also reveals heretofore little-explored features of the Italian pantomime ballet, notably rehearsal periods, the breakdown of roles and duties between soloist and ensemble, the respective earnings of dancer and choreographer and in some cases, detailed instructions to the dancers concerning stage-props, costumes and accessories. Taken together, these features tend to support the view that in ballet pantomime performance, ensuring that the various elements formed a harmonious whole was in fact a priority.