ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Il ratto delle Sabine, an original ballet d'action created by LePicq and Martn y Soler in 1780 for the San Carlo. This ballet, among the very few surviving complete works of Neapolitan provenance from the late eighteenth century, is the primary lens through which a more detailed understanding of the style and content of the ballet d'action as cultivated in Naples can be achieved. The ballet d'action was accorded an unprecedented status, supplanting the native grottesco style and establishing itself on a comparable level with the longstanding performance of tragedy in the capital city. The former was exemplified by the performance of Gluck's operas and the escalating departure from the Metastasian dramatic paradigm beginning in the early 1770s. The placement of ballet within the theatrical vision and dialectic of affect in Planelli's Dell'opera in musica likewise provided an interpretative framework for the ballet d'action and LePicq's staging of Noverre's and his own original compositions.
