Appia, Jaques-Dalcroze, and Hellerau, Part Two: ‘Poetry in Motion’

In the first part of this feature, published in NTQ 2, Richard C. Beacham described how the pioneer of modern stage lighting, Adolphe Appia, and the creator of eurhythmics, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, came to collaborate in 1906 – in the development of the Hellerau ‘garden-city’ project. Here, they planned to provide an opportunity for active artistic participation in a specially designed performance space. The author takes up the story with the beginning of classes at Hellerau in 1911, and preparations for the two festivals which followed – including the revelatory production of Gluck's Orpheus. The First World War brought the collaboration to an end – but not before it had put into practice for the first time many of the scenic and interpretive principles of modern staging. Richard C. Beacham published a study of Appia's earlier work in Opera Quarterly (Autumn 1983), and plans to complete the present NTQ feature with an assessment of ‘The Legacy of Hellerau’. His forthcoming full-length study of Appia will be published by Cambridge University Press.