Jean-Étienne Despréaux


Jean-Étienne Despréaux was a French ballet dancer, choreographer, composer, singer and playwright.

Biography

The son of an oboist of the orchestra of the Académie royale de musique, he made here his début in 1763, four years after his brother Claude-Jean-François.
A remarkable dancer for his lightness in the high dance, he was applauded in several ballets :
He retired in 1781 with a 1,000 livres pension and married the famous ballerina Marie-Madeleine Guimard on 14 August 1789.
Charles-Maurice Descombes, in his 1856 Histoire anecdotique du théâtre, writes:

Works

Despréaux wrote several parodies of operas that Louis XV particularly appreciated.
He also made the opening prologue for the in May 1780.
But he is mostly known as the author of Mes passe-temps : chansons, suivies de l'Art de la danse, poème en quatre chants, calqué sur l'Art poétique de Boileau Despréaux, seminal work for choreography considered as an art in itself, and not as mere entertainment.