NOVERRE, Jean Georges (1727-1810), an artist to whom the action and music of the modern ballet may almost be said to owe their existence, was born in Paris 29th April 1727. He first performed at Fontainebleau in 1743, and in 1747 composed his first ballet for the Opéra Comique. In 1755 he was invited by Garrick to London, where he remained two years. Between 1758 and 1760 he produced several ballets at Lyons, and published his Lettres sur la Danse et les Ballets. He was next engaged by the duke of Wurtemberg, and afterwards by the empress Maria Theresa, for whom he wrote many celebrated works at Vienna. In 1775 he was appointed Maître des Ballets at the Académie; this post he retained until the Revolution reduced him to poverty, which he endured with dignity until his death, at St Germain, in 1810.

Noverre’s life-work consisted in the reduction of the ballet to an artistic and consistent form by aid of intelligible pantomime, appropriate action, correct costume, and, above all, music well adapted to the sentiment and situations of the drama; and it is to his efforts in these several directions that the modern ballet owes the high esteem in which it has so long been held in Paris and elsewhere.