# Franz Hilverding

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{{short description|Austrian choreographer and dancer}}
'''Franz Anton Christoph Hilverding''' (1710–1768), a.k.a '''Hilferding''', was an [Austria](/source/Austria)n [choreographer](/source/choreographer) and [dancer](/source/dancer).    

<big><u>Career</u></big>  

For a time Hilverding served as the director of the Imperial Theatre in [St. Petersburg, Russia](/source/St._Petersburg%2C_Russia). Hilverding, simultaneously as his contemporaries Jean Baptiste de Hesse, and own assistant [Gaspare Angiolini](/source/Gasparo_Angiolini), contributed to the development of the [Ballet d'Action](/source/Ballet_d'Action),  for which [Jean Georges Noverre](/source/Jean_Georges_Noverre) would get lasting credit with the publication of his Letters on Dancing and Ballets.   Ballets d'action emphasized a cohesive dramatic and expressive element to performances, with costumes, plot, and movement all serving the purpose of the story.  

Hilverding studied in [Paris](/source/Paris) from 1734 and 1736, and may have been inspired by the ballerina [Marie Sallé](/source/Marie_Sall%C3%A9), who was one of the first to explore this notion of cohesive dramatic ballets. He started creating dramatic ballets as court choreographer in [Vienna](/source/Vienna) in the 1740s, many using the stories of mythological lovers.  Hilverding reworked [Rameau](/source/Rameau)'s Le Turc Généreux (1758) from [Lés Indes Galantes](/source/Les_Indes_galantes),  which is immortalized in a print by [Bernardo Bellotto](/source/Bernardo_Bellotto) entitled [https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=1400651&partid=1&output=Terms%2F!!%2FOR%2F!!%2F17021%2F!%2F%2F!%2Fballet%2F!%2F%2F!!%2F%2F!!!%2F&orig=%2Fresearch%2Fsearch_the_collection_database%2Fadvanced_search.aspx&currentPage=5&numpages=10 Le Turc Généreux. Ballet Pantomime executé à Vienne sur le théâtre de la cour, le 26 Avril 1758], in the [British Museum](/source/British_Museum).  

Invited by [Czarina Elizabeth](/source/Czarina_Elizabeth) in 1758, he became court choreographer in [St Petersburg](/source/St._Petersburg%2C_Russia).  He brought his dancers with him to Russia, and did much to progress the talent of the Russian dancers.  He tried to use Russian themes in his ballets, and depicted Russia as the "Defender of Virtue" in his "Virtue's Refuge."  Hilverding returned to Vienna in 1764 and staged "Le Triomphe de l'Amour" which starred [Marie Antoinette](/source/Marie_Antoinette) and her brothers [Ferdinand](/source/Ferdinand%2C_Duke_of_Breisgau) and [Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria](/source/Archduke_Maximilian_Francis_of_Austria).

== Sources ==
* [Christopher Duggan](/source/Christopher_Duggan_(historian)). ''The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796''. (Boston: [Houghton Mifflin Company](/source/Houghton_Mifflin_Company), 2008) p.&nbsp;5.
* Au, Susan.  "Ballet and Modern Dance".  London:  Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1988, 2002.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hilverding, Franz}}
Category:18th-century Austrian people
Category:People from the Archduchy of Austria
Category:Austrian male ballet dancers
Category:Austrian choreographers
Category:Expatriates in the Russian Empire
Category:Dancers from Vienna
Category:1710 births
Category:1768 deaths
Category:18th-century Austrian ballet dancers
Category:18th-century Austrian dancers

{{dance-bio-stub}}
{{Austria-bio-stub}}

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Franz Hilverding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Hilverding) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Hilverding?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.