Jean-Baptiste Blache

Jean-Baptiste Blache de Beaufort (17 May 1765, in Berlin – 24 January 1834, in Toulouse) was a German ballet dancer, and later ballet master, active in France.

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 (1806) and Les Fêtes de Vulcain (1820). Among his best-known ballets are Les Meuniers (1787, admired by Arthur Saint-Léon), L'Amour et la Folie, La Chaste Suzanne, La Fille soldat, and Almaviva et Rosine (1806).

He retired to Toulouse and declined an offer from that theatre to become its ballet master. His eldest son, Frédéric-Auguste Blache (1791- ?) 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 (1823) and Jocko ou le Singe du Brésil (1825). Jean-Baptiste's younger son, Alexis-Scipion (1792-1852), later himself became ballet master at Lyon, Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux and St-Petersburg.


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