Piano sheet music. Cesare Pugni: The Diana and Acteon pas de deux from ballet Esmeralda

The Diana and Acteon pas de deux from ballet Esmeralda on Youtube
Esmeralda was created by Jules Perrot and Cesare Pugni for the Ballet of Her Majesty’s Theatre in London and is based on the famous novel Notre-Dame de Paris (aka The Hunchback of Notre Dame) by Victor Hugo. After its successful publication in 1831, Hugo’s novel was first adapted to the stage in an opera by French composer, Louise Bertin in 1836 under the title La Esmeralda. The libretto for Bertin’s opera was written by Hugo himself, in which he made drastic changes so the story focused primarily on Esmeralda rather than Quasimodo. Bertin’s opera, however, was not a success, but its libretto ultimately gave way to the story that would be told in subsequent opera and ballet adaptations of Hugo’s novel. The novel was first adapted into a ballet at La Scala, Milan by Antonio Monticini in 1839. Monticini’s version differed greatly from Perrot’s, primarily due to a common tradition in Italian ballets at the time, where the functions of mime and dance were separated – the principal roles were played by mimes, while Fanny Cerrito, who was Prima Ballerina of La Scala at the time, only appeared in the dances.