Jean-Antoine Petipa

[1] Aged 8 he was in the revived production of the ballet Psyché by Pierre Gardel, put on at the Opéra de Paris five years earlier.

His débuts are only known from the programme of ballets and in a petition addressed by his father to the minister of the interior in 1799 with a view to obtaining one year's leave for his children, who were studying at the Opéra's dance school.

Shortly afterwards young Petipa was enrolled in the troupe of Filippo Taglioni which criss-crossed Europe from 1807 after the closure of many Parisian theatres by imperial decree.

In January 1814 Petipa and his troupe put on a series of productions at Brussels, then moved to Paris on the reopening of the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin.

Premier danseur in the new troupe, Antoine Petipa began creating ballets such as Les Six ingénus (music by Alexandre Piccinni) and Le Berger de la Sierra Morena (1815).