TRAINING BALLET DANCERS.
"Well, now, I don't think that's so awful hard," said a fellow knight
of the pencil, one evening as we both leaned upon the rear row of
chairs in the old Theatre Comique at St. Louis, since destroyed by
fire, and bent our heads forward in an inquisitive look at the ballet
of "The Fairy Fountain," or something of that sort. The remark was
meant to apply to the evolutions of the premiere as she spun around
on one toe and threw a graceful limb up towards the roof of the house
every time she gave a whirl.
"If you don't," said I, "you just try it once, and you'll find out
exactly how hard it is."
I had made this retort wildly and without knowing, myself, anything
much about the difficulties of ballet dancing. It dawned on me that
here was an excellent field for inquiry, so having obtained the
permission of Manager W. C. Mitchell, who was running the Comique, to
go behind the scenes to interview the ballet master; next evening found
me early at the stage door. I was soon inside picking my way through
the labyrinth of scenery, stage properties, scene shifters, supers,
actors and people generally who crowd and jostle each other in this
mimic world, and I was in imminent danger every now and then of an
_impromptu_ debut before the public, and of finding myself standing
figuratively on my head before an unappreciative audience. At last the
ballet master--Sig. J. F. Cardella, a thin, wiry man who seemed to be
in the decline of life--was found in his tights, leaning in an easy
attitude against one of the "wings."
"_Bona sera, Signor_," I said in the best Italian I could muster.
"_Grazia_," returned the _maitre_ in the most welcoming manner in
the world, as he invited me to a quiet corner where we sat down on a
cracker-box.
The object of the visit was briefly explained, and Sig. Cardella
rattled off his answers in a ready and intelligible manner, the
sweet Italian accents falling from his tongue with the same rapidity
and precision that he twinkled his feet in the ballet when occasion
required. He said he had made his first appearance in the ballet
twenty years before, when he was twenty years of age. He had been put
in training, like other children, at the age of twelve years, in the
Theatre La Scala--the government school--which has given the world so
many famous dancers. Here he remained eight years.
"Children," said Cardella, "are admitted to this school as early as
ten years and as late as twelve, and there is a regular routine of
study that cannot be finished in less than eight years. It is long and
arduous, and especially difficult when it is understood that pupils in
this country arrive at stage honors in an immensely less time, in fact
in as many months as we are required to put in years of study in the
old country."
"I suppose La Scala is under the tuition of the very best masters,"
said I.
"Oh yes, indeed," responded the _maitre de ballet_, assuringly; "my
first teacher was the celebrated Blozis, and after him Ousse, both
French, and both great masters."
"But old?"
[Illustration: DONNA JULIAS' EYES.]
"Yes, old; but they had their stage triumphs, and the recollection of
these kept their limbs strong and their joints almost as supple as they
had been in their younger years, when they themselves went forth from
La Scala as premieres, to win the applause of the public."
"Boys and girls are admitted to La Scala?"
"Boys and girls; but all must pass a physical examination just as
applicants for army service are required to do. If they are fortunate
in having been endowed by nature with health and symmetry of form they
are received into the school and enter at once upon its rigorous course
of training. Oh, I tell you a ballet school is not the same here as it
is in the old country. There must be perfect silence; not a word from
the moment the master appears before the line of pupils, and after that
nothing but the motions of the hundred or more bodies and the beating
of the master's stick upon the floor."
"How long must they practice each day?"
"Well, before they are supposed to enter the academy at all, they must
have had one or two years' practice outside. In the academy they have
four hours' practice under the direction of the master every day; but
many of them do more work than this, especially the most ambitious.
I used to practice from eight to twelve hours daily, and even after
having left the academy I kept up my daily exercise for increasing the
limberness of the joints and the toughness of the cartilages. The more
practice, the nearer perfection."
"I suppose the pupils are divided into classes, are they not?"
[Illustration: OBERON AND TITANIA.
OBERON:--What thou see'st when thou dost wake
Do it for thy true love take.
_Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II., Scene 3._
]
"Yes; we have four lines of dancers in Italy. You have only three here.
We place our coryphees fartherest off from the premiere; you put them
alongside. The beginners at La Scala go into the coryphee class, from
which they are gradually advanced to the _secunda lina_, then to the
_prima lina_, and, afterwards, to solo parts, when they practically
become premieres."
"But eight years," I suggested, "is a long time to be working without
any return in the shape of either money or glory?"
"Ah, there you are mistaken," Cardella answered, pleased to find that
newspaper men sometimes make mistakes. "The pupils at La Scala are paid
something from the time they enter the academy. They first, while mere
coryphees, get thirty francs a month; in the second line, sixty francs;
in the third, eighty; and when advanced to solo parts, two hundred
francs a month. At this they stop until they finish their schooling,
when they take places in the principal theatres, make the usual tour of
the provinces and of the continent, and finally settle down, if they
have not become famous, to some solid competency, just as I have done
myself."
"So much for the dancing boys and girls of Italy; but how about the
ballet in this country?"
"Oh, it is nothing like what Europe produces. You have no schools here
except the theatres, and girls when they come to learn the ballet, as
they have often came to me, ask: 'Do you think I can dance in a week
or two?' It is absurd the way they want to do. Why, in my country I
practised for eight years before I would be allowed to appear publicly
in the theatre, and had practised two years before that at home, and
yet these American girls think they can become good dancers in a week
or two."
"What do you say to such applicants?"
"I say, 'No, you can't dance in a week or two, nor in a month or two;
but if you want to practice for several months I can place you on the
stage.' And I say this because I know American girls can make good
dancers if they are in earnest and apply themselves hard; they can make
passable ballet girls even if they give only a fair share of their
attention to the study."
"What do you think of the American ballet?"
[Illustration: MEASURING FOR THE COSTUME.]
"It cannot be good, of course, as long as the public does not give it
the attention and patronage it requires to make it good. In the old
country the ballet is everything; in this it is comparatively nothing.
They make it subservient to everything else on the stage. Managers
do not care to pay for good troupes, and the troupes are consequently
small and poor."
"But is there not plenty of employment for good ballet dancers?"
"Always. Each company has few that can be ranked as soloists, and this
is because good dancers are not numerous. As I have suggested before,
the American girl is not sufficiently ambitious in this line; their
stage yearnings are mostly for speaking parts on the dramatic stage,
and they are not very devout worshippers at the shrine of Terpsichore."
"How are American ballet girls paid?"
"Pretty well; but nothing like what they got before the war. Madame
Gallati, who was my wife, before the rebellion, never got less than
$150 a week, and after the war was paid $100. Premieres now do not get
more than $75, and they are in very good luck when they get that much.
The coryphees and others get from $35 a week down as low as $15. And
out of this they must furnish their own wardrobes. They must lay out
from $5 a week upwards for their stage clothes, and when a ballet is on
that requires rich dressing the wardrobes may exceed their whole week's
salary; but then, you know, they can prepare for an emergency of this
kind by laying by a portion of the salary of the weeks in which no new
ballet is brought out. Some of the ballets run for a month, but the
usual run is two weeks."
"The _maitre_ does not always dance?"
"No, he dances very seldom; but he earns his money though. He is kept
busy two or three hours every day, Sunday included, teaching the old
and young ideas of the ballet, how to shoot out their limbs, pose,
pirouette, etc. It requires all the time I can give to it to prepare
a new ballet. Just as soon as a new one is put on the stage I begin
to train the girls in another one, and this training is kept up until
the day before the novelty is to be presented to the public. During
this time of preparation I have the entire troupe on the stage two
hours every morning, except matinee days, when, of course, there is no
rehearsal. I show them the steps and they have to practice them. They
are supposed to practice some at home, but, of course, the majority of
them never do so."
"Have you many applicants now-a-days?"
"Not very many. Once in a while a girl or two will apply, but nearly
all of them are unworthy in point of physique to be received, and so
are sent away. I do not care so much for nice features, for the ugliest
can be embellished sufficiently to look handsome before the foot-lights
but good forms are indispensable, and particularly strong, symmetrical
limbs. The applicants come from all grades and classes of life, and not
a few are young girls of good but obscure connection, who have ambition
to win glory and money and all that sort of thing from the public, and
who fondly imagine that the ballet girl lives a butterfly existence,
instead of being the hardworking, temptation-beset creature that she
really is."
"And they all want to get on the stage in a very short time?"
"Yes, the invariable question is, 'Can I dance in a few weeks?' and
then they want me to show them the 'steps' and to let them try to
duplicate them. I tell them there is no use; if they want to dance they
must, as the Irishman says, begin at the beginning. You can't know
music without learning the notes; you can't read without knowing the
A B C; and so with the ballet, you can't dance without first having
acquired its alphabet."
[Illustration: M. B. CURTIS, IN SAM'L OF POSEN.]
"How do you generally start a pupil out?"
"They have got to go to what we call the 'sideboard' practice
first; that is, they must take hold of something for a rest, and go
through the first five steps"--and here the _maitre_ got up from the
cracker-box, and taking hold of a "wing," placed his feet heel to heel,
turned them out straight without bending the knees into an unsightly
attitude, and said this was the first step; the four others were much
the same as the attitudes taken at different times by elocutionists,
one foot being pushed forward and then another. "Then I show them how
to do this," and he began twisting one leg after another backward and
forward until I thought he would twist both off, but he didn't. "After
that," continued Sig. Cardella, "which in this country takes about a
month, but in La Scala takes six months, I begin to show them a step or
two at a time, and gradually lead them up until they know a little."
"But now and then we see a very fresh and green foot, if I may use the
expression, on the stage."
"Oh, of course; we've got to make up a fair number for a troupe
sometimes, and I then allow a girl to go on, whom I think smart
enough not to make a fool of herself. You see although the American
girl is smart and sharp, and pretty original in many other things,
she is entirely imitative in dancing. She watches the other girls,
and although she may not even be fairly grounded in the fundamental
principles of ballet dancing, she frequently faces an audience and does
well--sometimes astonishingly well in fact. Some of these girls climb
up out of the ranks very fast; others who are lazy and give too much
time to flirting and drinking wine, remain in the same line, usually
the last, for years, and are really in a ballet master's way all the
time."
"How are ballet girls as a class?"
"Some of them," said Cardella, with a shake of his head and an
expression of pity on his face, "are a little fond and foolish at
times."
"And they have their admirers who bother them, in and out of the
theatre, and send them pretty presents, big boquets and such?"
[Illustration: A PREMIERE BEFORE THE AUDIENCE.]
"Oh well, now, I know very little about that. Some of them have
families to support, and manage to wear better clothes and more jewelry
than their salaries could pay for. I could tell you lots of funny
incidents about ballet girls, billet-doux and Billy boys, but you see
that nigger act is nearly through, and I've got to go and look after
my girls." And with an "_Adio, Signor!_" and a wave of his hand, he
withdrew.
I went up to the Alcazar on Monday night to see Bonfanti dance. I
have a great respect for Bonfanti. She is a woman of character. When
she first danced here the town was wild about her, and one young man,
the son of rich and proud parents, offered her his hand in marriage.
She hesitated for awhile, but he argued that because he was rich and
his parents proud was no reason that he should be made unhappy by her
refusal to marry him. She thought it over and came to the conclusion
that he was right. So Mlle. Bonfanti became Mrs. Hoffman forthwith. The
hue and cry raised by the Hoffmans was so violent that the young man
could not stand it, and took his wife to Europe. His family allowed him
little or no money, and he, having been very unpractically educated,
could find no means of support. He was delicate and he fell ill and
died. Then Bonfanti, or Mrs. Hoffman, came to New York to claim her
rights as the wife of the son and heir of the Hoffmans, but they
behaved in a way that wounded her pride--for ballet dancers as well
as Hoffmans have pride--and she declined to accept any aid from them
whatever. "As long as I have my feet to dance with," she said, "I can
take care of myself, and I want none of their money." So she went
back to the ballet, and has been dancing ever since. I couldn't help
thinking as I looked at her the other night, that scions of proud New
York families had often made worse matches. She has a good and still
handsome face, and she dances as gracefully as ever. She is modest even
when pointing at the foot-lights with one toe and at the chandelier
with the other. Bonfanti is not one of the grinning dancers. Her face
wears a rather sad expression, and she only smiles in acknowledgment of
the applause of the audience. The competition with Lepri makes her do
her best, and it is a regular dancing match every night.