Dancing and dying for Napoleon: The Schwarzenberg Ball in Paris
On July 1 of the year 1810 Napoleon Bonaparte attended a great ball, which was organized by the Austrian Embassador Prince Karl I. Philipp of Schwarzenberg (1771-1820) to honour Bonaparte織s marriage with the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. Among the invited guests we could find Pauline of Schwarzenberg (born d織Arenberg, 1774-1810), wife of the older Karl織s brother Joseph II. Prince of Schwarzenberg (1769-1833). She was not only present, but also began the ball dancing in a solo quadrille with Eug癡ne de Beauharnais, the stepson of Napoleon, joined by the Queen of Naples, wife of Napoleon織s elder brother Joseph, Marie Julie Bonaparte (born Clary) and Prince Paul Anton Esterh獺zy. In my paper I will give not only the account of this ball, which ended by a tragic death in fire of Pauline of Schwarzenberg and 19 other people, but I will also introduce some interesting facts concerning the repertoire of the ball and archive material, surviving at esk羸 Krumlov Castle (Pauline織s diary, dance dress and shoes of her young daughter Marie Pauline, who escaped the fire etc.).
Helena Kaz獺rov獺 is a Professor at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (AMU) and has been Head of the Department of Dance since 2011. In 1997 she founded the Baroque Dance Ensemble Hartig (), whose dancers are mostly former or current students of AMU. Her interests include the history and theory of dance, ballet and dance aesthetics, and she specialises in the reconstruction and revitalisation of dances from written and graphic notation, choreography and movement culture of the eighteenth century. She has danced and created dances, or advised on period movement style and gesture, for numerous performances, including Baroque dances for various music festivals, film and TV, and works by Bononcini, H瓣ndel, and Gluck. She staged the Rococo ballet La guirlande 梗紳釵堯硃紳喧矇梗 of Joseph Starzer in the castle theatres at esk羸 Krumlov and Mnichovo Hradi禳t. Her publications include Barokn穩 tanen穩 formy/Baroque Dance Forms (AMU 2005), and Barokn穩 balet ve stedn穩 Evrop/Baroque Ballet in Central Europe (AMU 2008).