ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the genesis of Le Tombeau as a piano work, its partial orchestration and its subsequent reconception as a ballet for the Ballets Suedois. Neoclassicism has already been a background theme in consideration of the postwar La Valse, L'Enfant and implicitly Bolero; in a looser stylistic sense, the idea was germane to treatment of the past in the prewar Daphnis and Valses nobles. Ravel's music is viewed in association with the classically inspired, if idiosyncratic, designs of Pierre Laprade (1875-1931) and Jean Borlin's choreography. The Dancing Times carries a photograph of the young Tania Stepanova, in classic white tutu, floral 'Alice' band and ballet shoes, sur les pointes, captioned 'A Preobrajenska pupil in L'Eventail de Jeanne at the Opéra'. In the same journal, Franc Scheuer worried that the Opéra was becoming a 'museum for past repertory', but conceded that the revived Eventail had a 'perennial and unfailing appeal'.
