Critic and dance historian Andre Levinson writes, "The academic dance had been an agreeable exercise to watch. Now, [ballet] clarified matters of the soul. Ballet was a divertissement (an entertainment, a distraction). It became a mystery." Kisselgoff writes, "... the preoccupation with the supernatural that characterized so much of 19th-century ballet could be traced to the success of the "Ballet of the Nuns" in Meyerbeer's first production at the Paris Opéra".