Sleepwalker (La Somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur)
Bill Earl in George Balanchine’s La Sonnambula, 1960.
Photographed by Carl Van Vechten.
QUICK F A C T S
- ✦ Premiere: 1827, Paris
✦ Choreographer: Jean-Pierre Aumer
✦ Scenario: Eugène Scribe
✦ Original Title: La Somnambule, ou L’arrivée d’un nouveau seigneur
✦ Form: Romantic-era ballet-pantomime
✦ Legacy: Inspired Bellini’s La Sonnambula and, more than a century later, Balanchine’s ballet of the same name
Bill Earl in George Balanchine’s La Sonnambula, 1960.
Photographed by Carl Van Vechten.
S U M M A R Y
The ballet La Sonnambule is important because its story became the direct source for Vincenzo Bellini’s 1831 opera La Sonnambula and, more than a century later, helped inspire George Balanchine’s ballet La Sonnambula. Both the opera and Balanchine’s ballet are still performed today, giving this forgotten Romantic-era ballet an extraordinary legacy! Created in Paris in 1827, La Somnambule, ou L’arrivée d’un nouveau seigneur was a ballet-pantomime with a scenario by Eugène Scribe and choreography by Jean-Pierre Aumer. It belonged to an era fascinated by sleepwalking, dreams, mystery, and the strange boundary between what is real and what is imagined.
A rare glimpse into 19th-century opera: celebrated Italian tenor Amedeo Bassi performing as Elvino in La Sonnambula in Bologna, 1899.
Soprano Olga Peretyatko as Amina and bass Nicolas Courjal as Count Rodolfo in Vincenzo Bellini's opera La Sonnambula. Directed by Francesca Zambello at the Opéra de Lausanne, 2017–2018 season.
The ballet told its story through dance and pantomime rather than spoken dialogue, following characters caught up in the unsettling events surrounding a sleepwalker. Its subject proved remarkably powerful: only a few years after the ballet premiered, Bellini and his librettist adapted its story into the opera La Sonnambula. The opera transformed the tale into the famous story of Amina, a young woman whose sleepwalking leads to a terrible misunderstanding with her fiancé. Surviving prints from the original ballet, including an 1830 image of Madame Desargus portraying Therese, give us rare glimpses of the dancers who brought the Romantic story to life.
The original La Somnambule is now considered a lost ballet: its choreography has disappeared, leaving behind librettos, historical records, and performance illustrations. Yet its story traveled far beyond the original production. Bellini’s opera remains part of the international operatic repertoire, while Balanchine later created his own very different ballet, originally titled The Night Shadow, using music arranged by Vittorio Rieti from Bellini’s operas. In this way, a ballet that vanished from the stage continued to live on through opera and, more than a century later, ballet again—making La Somnambule one of the most fascinating forgotten links in ballet history.
Madame Desargus as Therese in Die Nachtwändlerin (The Sleepwalker), 1830.
Hand-colored print depicting the principal dancer of the German version of La Somnambule.
E N C O R E
✦ On Today’s Stage
The original La Somnambule is no longer performed because its choreography has been lost. But its story continues to live through Bellini’s La Sonnambula, which remains part of the opera repertoire, and through Balanchine’s later ballet La Sonnambula. A forgotten ballet from 1827 therefore still has a presence on stages today.
✦ Iconic Interpreters
One of the surviving glimpses of the original ballet is an 1830 print showing Madame Desargus as Therese in Die Nachtwändlerin, the German version of The Sleepwalker. Images like this are especially valuable because they preserve the appearance of dancers and characters from a ballet whose choreography has disappeared.
✦ Legacy
La Somnambule is a wonderful example of how a ballet can disappear while its story survives. Its tale passed into Bellini’s famous opera, and the idea of The Sleepwalker eventually returned to the ballet stage in Balanchine’s 1946 work. What began as a Romantic ballet-pantomime in Paris became part of a much larger history connecting 19th-century ballet, opera, and 20th-century choreography.