About the work
Paquita is a two-act ballet choreographed by Joseph Mazilier to music by Édouard Deldevez, with a libretto by Paul Foucher and Mazilier. It premiered at the Paris Opéra (Salle Le Peletier) on 1 April 1846, with Carlotta Grisi in the title role.
Plot
In Saragossa under Napoleonic occupation, the young Roma woman Paquita saves the French officer Lucien d'Hervilly from an assassination plot by a corrupt governor. She is ultimately revealed to be of noble birth and related to Lucien's family, clearing the way for their marriage.
Cultural significance
The original Paris run stayed modest, with only around forty performances, but Marius Petipa's 1881 Saint Petersburg revival, for which Ludwig Minkus added further music, secured Paquita's lasting fame: the resulting Grand Pas classique remains part of the international ballet repertoire, while full reconstructions of Deldevez's original 1846 ballet only reappeared in the twenty-first century.