Louis Mérante

[1] Born in Paris, Mérante was a pupil of Lucien Petipa, with whom he figured on the six-member select jury of the first annual competition for the Corps de ballet, held on 13 April 1860.

The jury included the director of the new Conservatoire de danse, as well as the former ballerina Marie Taglioni, its guiding spirit.

Following Sylvia Mérante choreographed Le Fandango, a ballet-pantomime that premiered November 26, 1877 and had as librettists for the mimed action the team of Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, who provided librettos to Offenbach and had recently delivered a libretto on a similarly Spanish theme to Georges Bizet—Carmen.

Edgar Degas included the figure of Mérante, in an immaculate white suit, with the traditional baton for beating time on the floorboards, in his 1872 painting Le foyer de danse.

The painting marked the beginning of Dégas' long infatuation with the ballet, but though he had sketched the individual dancers, and the practice room in the company's old premises in the Salle Le Peletier, with its great arched mirror, he was not permitted to attend a rehearsal in person.