Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold, better known as Ferdinand Hérold, was a French composer. He was celebrated in his lifetime for his operas, of which he composed more than twenty, but he also wrote ballet music, works for piano and choral pieces. He is best known today for the ballet La Fille mal gardée and the overture to the opera Zampa.
Hérold, engraving after Louis Dupré
The composer's birthplace, in the Paris street now named after him
Hérold in 1813: medallion by his fellow student David d'Angers
La Clochette, an early operatic success for Hérold, 1817
La Fille mal gardée is a comic ballet presented in two acts, inspired by Pierre-Antoine Baudouin's 1765 painting, La réprimande/Une jeune fille querellée par sa mère. The ballet was originally choreographed by the Ballet Master Jean Dauberval to a pastiche of music based on fifty-five popular French airs. The ballet was premiered on 1 July 1789 at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France under the title Le ballet de la paille, ou Il n'est qu'un pas du mal au bien.
Nadia Nerina (as Lise) and David Blair (as Colas) in the Pas de ruban from the premiere of Frederick Ashton's version of La Fille mal gardée, London, 1960
Pierre-Antoine Baudouin's painting Le reprimande/Une jeune fille querellée par sa mère.
Announcement for the premiere of La Fille mal gardée at the Pantheon, London, 1791.
Mme. Théodore Dauberval, creator of the role of Lise. Paris, 1761.
