page_title: Les Deux Pigeons (ballet)
section_title: The plot
hierarchical_section_title: Les Deux Pigeons (ballet) / The plot
context_page_description: Les Deux Pigeons is a ballet originally choreographed in two acts by Louis Mérante to music by André Messager. The libretto by Mérante and Henri de Régnier is based on the fable The Two Pigeons by Jean de La Fontaine. The work was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 18 October 1886. The premiere cast included Rosita Mauri as Gourouli and Marie Sanlaville as Pépio.
  Frederick Ashton later created a new ballet to Messager's music under the title The Two Pigeons.
context_section_description: In the original scenario, set in 18th-century Thessaly, the hero Pépio (danced then by a woman) is discontented with life at home and with the company of his fiancée Gourouli. Their relationship is symbolised by their pas de deux at the start in imitation of two pigeons they have been observing, quarrelling with small irritated movements of the head and then coming together to make up. When a group of gypsies visit their village, Pépio is seduced by the energetic czardas that they dance and flirts with the dusky Djali, eventually leaving his love behind to join in their wanderings. Gourouli's grandmother advises her to follow him disguised as a gypsy, thus providing the ballerina with a dual role. In the first act she had appeared in a pink wig; in the scene at the camp Rosita Mauri danced with her own long black hair unbound and streaming about her. By such means, this elemental Gourouli makes all the men fall in love with her, and she bribes one of them to make Pépio's life miserable. When a storm breaks, the gypsies rob Pépio and flee. He returns home chastened and must ask for forgiveness.
  Ashton's version of the ballet is set in Paris, with anonymous leading roles (Young Man and Young Girl). At the start, a French painter is revealed trying to paint a restless model, his lover, who is sitting on an ornate cast-iron chair. The session is interrupted by the entry of the model's friends and his responsiveness to other female company underlines his restless spirit. A troupe of gypsies that he sees through the garret window, misunderstanding a gesture of his, now crowd in and a quarrel develops over possession of the chair between the model and a hot-blooded Carmen with whom the painter is flirting. Perceiving that they are not welcome, the gipsy leader leaves the studio and the painter dashes off to join them, bewitched by their unfamiliar and seemingly exotic lifestyle. However, his intrusion into their community is resented and he is thrown out of the encampment. Returning to the lover he had left behind, they are reconciled and sit together on the ornate chair that has dominated the room.
  Two live pigeons are used to represent the lovers; they have a theme of their own in the music. Seen together during the first act, while the artist and his lover dance together, the young man's dissatisfaction and temporary desertion of the girl are represented by one pigeon flying alone off stage before the interval. The painter's return in the next act is prompted by a pigeon coming to land on his shoulder. When the lovers are reunited both pigeons perch above them on the chair.
  Premiere cast list:
  Gourouli – Rosita Mauri
  Pépio – Marie Sanlaville
  Gertrude – Mlle Montaubry
  Djali – Mlle Hirsch
  Reine des Tziganes – Mlle Monnier
  Zarifa – M. Pluque
  Franca-Trippa – M. de Soria
  Un tzigane – Louis Mérante
  Le capitaine – M. Ajas
  Un serviteur – M. Ponçot
caption: Jules Chéret's poster for the two-act production
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