Though Noverre was writing this about 1760, we have to remember that he cannot actually have seen Prévôt, since he was only born 1727, and she retired in 1730. But he records an interesting tradition in complaining that the greater number of the composers of his time still followed the older canon of the opera, and composed passepieds because “Mdlle. Prévôt les courait”; for it shows that the technique of the dance had already begun to outgrow that of the composer. Musicians were following in their forerunner’s tracks; dancers were advancing on the road of invention. Indeed, we shall see that this was so when we come to consider the differences between the styles of Prévôt and her later successors. For the moment it suffices to record that Prévôt, star of the French opera from about 1700 to 1730, was famous for her elegance, for her “grace,” “lightness,” “precision,” as revealed in the comparatively slow dances of her period, when the technique was obviously not immature (or Rameau could not have noted such qualities in her dancing), but evidently had not yet developed in the direction of speed, or of tours de force such as some of the later dancers were to exhibit. The passepied, of which an old French dancer-poet wrote:
“Le léger passe-pied doit voler terre à terre,”
was a dance in three-four time, a species of minuet, performed, as the poet records, “terre à terre,” hence Noverre’s description:
“Mdlle. Prévôt les courait avec elegance.”
A modern versifier has—perhaps presumptuously—put the following lines into the dancer’s mouth:
PRÉVÔT SPEAKS
“Though others by Courante may swear
Or some the grave Allemande prefer,
Or vow for Gigues alone they care,