Degas at the Opéra, Portrait of Eugénie Fiocre a propos of the Ballet “La Source,” 1867–1868

KAYWIN FELDMAN: Look closely: Just between the horse’s front legs are two delicate pink slippers. If not for this one detail, we would never know this is an image of a ballet. KIMBERLY JONES: In fact, what we see here is Eugénie Fiocre, the ballerina, along with two other dancers who play her handmaidens, as they are sitting probably during a break, during a rehearsal. They’re not actually mid-performance. She looks melancholy. She has a distant gaze. So rather than showing her as this starlet, this] sparkling allure of this beautiful dancer, he shows her remarkably down-to-earth, very accessible and approachable. KAYWIN FELDMAN: Eugénie Fiocre, the seated woman in blue, was a well-known and well-compensated figure in the opera world, who moved among Paris society. In painting her portrait, Degas grappled with how to make this contemporary dancer appear timeless. Always experimenting, he devised a novel approach. KIMBERLY JONES: The painting is ultimately a very weird hybrid. It is part portrait, it’s part celebrity image, it is part historical document, and part genre scene. SFX MUSIC KAYWIN FELDMAN: The ballet being rehearsed was La Source, or The Spring. You are hearing music from act one. The ballet garnered attention largely for its extravagant stage sets featuring what you see here: rocks, plants, and a real waterfall. And it even included a live horse. Degas captured that spectacle in his painting. KIMBERLY JONES: So Degas is taking that into account, but it’s really the subject, his sitter, Eugénie Fiocre, this beautiful ballerina who was up-and-coming, who Degas clearly admired so much that he drew her portrait twice, and did another painting of her actually from a photograph. So he was quite the admirer. KAYWIN FELDMAN: Notably absent? Any hint of a theatrical performance. Degas has cropped out the edge of the backdrops, the floodlights, even the stage itself. Instead we focus on Mademoiselle Fiocre.