Jean-Baptiste Blache
Jean-Baptiste Blache de Beaufort was a German ballet dancer, and later ballet master, active in France.
Life and Career
A student of Deshayes, he learned the violin and cello, undertaking a largely provincial career. Working mainly from Bordeaux, where he succeeded Jean Dauberval, he had a brief tenure at the Opéra de Paris, there putting on The Barber of Seville and Les Fêtes de Vulcain. Among his best-known ballets are Les Meuniers, L'Amour et la Folie, La Chaste Suzanne, La Fille soldat, and Almaviva et Rosine.He retired in Toulouse and declined an offer from that theatre to become its ballet master. His eldest son, Frédéric-Auguste Blache revived his father's work at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin from 1816 to 1823, then at the Ambigu-Comique, where he revived the La Fille soldat. Frédéric-Auguste also wrote Polichinelle vampire, interpreted by Charles-François Mazurier and Jocko ou le Singe du Brésil. Jean-Baptiste's younger son, Alexis-Scipion, later himself became ballet master at Lyon, Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux and St-Petersburg.