A CENTURY’S CLOSE
We have lingered somewhat over these sketches of the eighteenth
century; let us hasten over that century’s close, for was it not
steeped in blood?
“Revolution,” did they not call the madness which seized France?
Heralded by fair promises of universal brotherhood, what did all the
fine talk of her “intellectuals” and “philosophs” end in? A state of
anarchy, national madness; in which no man’s life was safe, and no
woman’s honour.
War is horrible enough between nations. What, then, is universal war
between individuals, “men, _brother_ men?”
Strange, is it not, that while the dying century was performing
its dance of death, theatres should be open; operas, comedies, and
ballets be performed.
Before Guimard and her literary husband had begun to find their
fortunes affected by the advent of the popular madness called
Revolution, there were few theatres in Paris. Indeed, there were only
five of any importance giving daily performances in 1775 and of these
the Opera was of course the leading house as of old--the work of
Gluck, Grétry, Piccinni and Sacchini holding the bill in Opera, for
a period of some thirty years onward, the work of ballet composition
being mainly in the hands of Noverre and the brothers Maximillian and
Pierre Gardel.
It was from the end of that year, too, when Noverre’s “Médée et
Jason” was produced that the novelty of ballet-pantomime, having
come to replace the earlier opera-ballet, now became generally known
simply as ballet.
In 1781 the Paris Opera was the scene of a tremendous conflagration,
in which, owing to the presence of mind of Dauberval, one of
the leading dancers, in quickly lowering the curtain, during a
performance of the ballet, the audience were able to escape, but
several of the dancers were burnt, and Guimard herself, discovered
cowering in one of the boxes clad only in her underwear, was rescued
by one of the stage hands. The famous house was ruined, and the
company removed to a provisional house erected by the architect
Lenoir by the Porte St. Martin.
Ten years later, in 1791, a Royal decree establishing the freedom
of the drama did away with the former paucity of Paris in regard to
places of amusement, and in that year alone eighteen new theatres
were added to those already in existence, and old ones sometimes
changed their names.
The Opera was known as _L’Académie Royale de Musique_. Then the
King having displeased his people and fled to Varennes, it became
simply the _Opera_. Then the King having pleased his subjects they
graciously permitted a return to _L’Académie Royale_. Then, a month
later, in October, 1791, it became the _Opera-National_; and later
the _Théâtre des Arts_, all of which changes foreshadowed in a way
the advent of blind Revolution; and the next change of title to
_Théâtre de la République et des arts_; which yet was not its final
title. Meanwhile, what of the dancers?
Guimard had left the stage in 1790. Two years later the leaders
of the ballet were Mlle. Miller (later to become Madame Pierre de
Gardel), Mlle. Saulnier, Mlle. Roze, Madame Pérignon, Mlle. Chevigny.
Pierre Gardel, born in 1758 at Nancy, had been _maître de ballet_
at the Opera from 1787, and had produced “Télémaque,” “Psyché,” and
other ballets out of which he made a fortune. “Psyché” alone was
given nearly a thousand times! In most of them Madame Gardel appeared
and with remarkable success. At fifty, as at twenty, she was still
admired. She was an excellent mime, a graceful dancer in all styles,
seemed in each new _rôle_ to surpass herself, and Noverre, describing
her feet, said “they glittered like diamonds.”
Then there were the brothers Malter, the one known as “the bird,” the
other as “the Devil,” because he usually played the _rôles_ of demons.
Madame Pérignon, who succeeded Madame Dauberval (_née_ Mlle.
Theodore), was a dancer of talent, but was considerably surpassed
by Mlle. Chevigny of whom an eyewitness of her dancing remarked:
“_Quelle verve! quelle gaîté dans le comique! dans les rôles sérieux,
quelle chaleur! quel pathétique! Tout le feu d’une véritable actrice
brillait dans ses beaux yeux._”
Then there were Miles. Allard, Peslin, Coulon, Clotilde, Beaupré,
Brancher, Chameroy; Gosselin, who was, despite _embonpoint_, so
supple as to win the nickname “the Boneless”; Fanny Bias, and
Bigottini; and M. Laborie, who in 1790 had “created” the title-_rôle_
in “Zephyre;” Messieurs Lany, Dauberval; Deshayes, a marvel of
soaring agility; Henry, whose mobile figure recalled “le grand
Dupré”; Didelot, Duport; Auguste Vestris, with whom we have already
dealt; and Lepicq, known as the Apollo of the Dance.
Throughout the Revolution the theatres had been open, and had been
full. The people had gone mad with lust of blood and lust of power;
but the dancers continued to maintain their aplomb in difficult
_poses_, and pick their steps, more carefully amid the lit and
flowered splendours of the theatre, than statesmen could theirs upon
the blood-stained slippery mire of current “politics.”
France might hold its fantastic State ballet, the Fête of the
Supreme, indeed might go stark mad, and all Law and Order and Reason
be overthrown, but one man, the greatest world-man known to history,
was gathering strength to bring order out of chaos, to remake a
nation and a nation’s laws; to set the world a-wondering if he should
master it.
Strangest of all, perhaps, that he, the great Napoleon, should have
found time to flirt with a ballet-dancer--the famous Bigottini, of
whom the Countess Nesselrode in her letters said that the effect she
produced with her dancing and miming was so moving as to make even
the most hardened man weep.
But she seemed rather to have amused Napoleon, more especially when,
having told the President of the Legislative Chamber, Fontanes, to
send her a present, she received a collection of French classics;
and on being asked later by Napoleon--unaware of the nature of the
gift--if she was content with Fontanes’ choice, she exclaimed that
she was not entirely.
“How so?” asked Napoleon.
Bigottini’s reply must be given in the original.
“Il m’a payée en _livres_; j’aurais mieux aimé en _francs_.”
In spite of the library, Mlle. Bigottini became a millionaire--in
francs.
BOOK III: THE MODERN ERA
CHAPTER XXIV
THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
Though it had not died during the Revolutionary period, either in
Paris or London, the art of Ballet, from the death of Louis XV was
really of little artistic interest, and was to remain so until the
famous ’Forties of last century.
The dancers were mostly mechanical; the ballets uninspired; the
mounting meretricious; and it was not till the ’forties of last
century that a new and all-surpassing _danseuse_, Marie Taglioni,
came to infuse a new spirit into the art and found a tradition that
holds to-day.
In London Ballet was in almost the same state as in Paris, but not
quite, possibly because having been always imported at its best, it
had had less opportunity of becoming hide-bound by tradition at its
worst, as in the case of an old-established continental school. For
the continued production of soundly artistic ballet the existence of
a good school is a necessity, a school founded and sustained on right
principles. But in its continued existence there is inevitably danger
of ultimate stultification from the “setting” of the very tradition
it has created, unless there is a perpetual infusion of new ideas.
In Paris the new idea was not then encouraged, if it came counter to
the traditional technique of which the Vestris, father and son, were
the supreme exponents.
In London there was more freedom, because there was less of
tradition; and while we had to wait until the mid-’forties for the
productions which were to the Londoners of the early Victorian period
what the Russian ballet has been to Londoners in recent years, there
was some fairly sound work being done here from 1795 to 1840.
I have, among my books, a volume of libretti of ballets composed
by Didelot and produced at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, from
1796 to 1800. It contains “Sappho and Phaon,” _grand ballet
érotique, en quatre actes_; “L’Amour Vengé,” _ballet épisodique,
en deux actes, dans le genre anacréontique_; “Flore et Zephire,”
_ballet-divertissement_, in one act; “The Happy Shipwreck, or
The Scotch Witches,” a dramatic ballet in three acts; “Acis and
Galatea,” a pastoral ballet in one act; and “Laura et Lenza, or The
Troubadour,” a grand ballet in two acts, “performed for the first
time for the benefit of Madame Hilligsberg,” who played Laura.
“Laura and Lenza,” is of particular interest to us to-day, for among
the performers, in addition to M. Didelot, who played the troubadour
hero, Lenza, was a M. Deshayes--a capable dancer and producer of
ballet in London and Paris--and a Mr. d’Egville, bearer of a name
which is well-known in both cities at the present day.
“Flora et Zephire,” was the most popular, and was frequently revived
even as late as the ’thirties, when Marie Taglioni made her _début_
in it at King’s Theatre, for Laporte’s benefit, on June 3rd, 1830.
Both in Paris and London, however, during the first two decades of
the nineteenth century Ballet was comparatively undistinguished
and it was not really until the ’thirties that it began to assume
new interest. True, there were in Paris, some remarkable exponents
of advanced technique as regards dancing, but in the glamour of
technical achievement the greater idea of the art of Ballet was
somewhat obscured.
At the Paris Opera the _dieux de la danse_ were MM. Albert Paul
and Ferdinand, all of whom visited London from time to time and
the second of whom was known as _l’aérien_, a descriptive nickname
emphasised by the quaint criticism of a contemporary who wrote: “Paul
used to spring and bound upwards, and was continually in the clouds;
his foot scarcely touched the earth or rather the stage; he darted up
from the ground and came down perpendicularly, after _travelling a
quarter of an hour in the air_!”
M. Paul, by the way, later became a celebrated dancing-master at
Brighton, in good Queen Victoria’s early days.
Then, too, there was Paul’s sister who became Madame Montessu, hardly
less celebrated than her brilliant brother. Then, too, Mlle. Brocard,
who so won Queen Victoria’s girlish admiration that some of her dolls
were dressed to represent the pretty dancer in character. Brocard,
however, was more remarkable for her beauty than for her dancing.
Another famous artist of the period was M. Coulon, to whose careful
tuition the graceful, and _élégante_ Pauline Duvernay owed much of
her success, as did also the sisters Noblet--Lise and Alexandrine,
the latter of whom forsook the dance to become an actress.
Of Lise Noblet a contemporary chronicler wrote in 1821: “_Encore un
phénix! Une danseuse qui ne fait jamais de faux pas, qui préfère le
cercle d’amis à la foule des amants, qui vient au théâtre à pied, et
qui retourne de même!_” In 1828, she created, with immense success,
the _rôle_ of Fenella, in _La Muette de Portici_, and was described
as “_le dernier produit de l’école française aux poses géométriques
et aux écarts à angle droit_”; the same critic drawing an interesting
comparison between the old school and the rising new one, in adding:
“_Déjà, Marie Taglioni s’avancait sur la pointe du pied--blanche
vapeur baignée de mousselines transparentes--poétique, nébuleuse,
immatérielle comme ces fées dont parle Walter Scott, qui errent la
nuit près des fontaines et portent en guise de ceinture un collier
de perles de rosée!... Lise Noblet se résolut non sans combat--à
prouver qu’il y a au monde quelque chose de plus agréable qu’une
femme qui tourne sur l’ongle de l’orteil avec une jambe parallèle
à l’horizon, dans l’attitude d’un compas farée. Elle céda, à Fanny
Elssler, ‘Fenella’ de La Muette qu’elle avait créée, et lui prit en
échange--‘El Jales de Jérès.’ ‘Las Boleros de Cadiz’ ‘La Madrileña,’
et toutes sortes d’autres cachuchas et fandangos. Grâce à ces
concessions, Mdlle. Noblet resta jusqu’en 1840, attachée à l’ Opéra._”
These references to contrast of styles, to Scott, and to Spanish
dances are particularly interesting as illuminating the change which
was coming over the Ballet about 1820-1830. Mere technique as the
chief aim of Ballet was beginning to fail. It had become too academic
and needed the infusion of a new spirit of grace and freedom. It came
in a sudden craze for national dances, particularly Slav and Spanish,
and in the craze for Scott and all his works, which undoubtedly
became an influence on Opera and Ballet, as they did on the forces
which led to the growth of the great Romantic movement, of which
Hugo was to be hailed as leader and of which the effects passing
on through the Art and Literature of the ’fifties, ’sixties, and
’seventies, can still perhaps be traced to-day.
Much of the popularity of the Spanish and Slav dances during the
early part of the nineteenth century was due to their frequent
performance by Pauline Duvernay, Pauline Leroux and the Elsslers.
There were two Elsslers, sisters, the elder of whom, Thérèse, was
born in 1808, and Fanny in 1810, both at Vienna.
Thérèse was less brilliant a dancer than her sister--whom she
“mothered” always--but had a charming personality. She eventually
gave up the stage to marry, morganatically, Prince Adalbert of
Prussia, and was afterwards ennobled.
[Illustration: Fanny Elssler
(_From an old engraving_).]
[Illustration: Carlotta Grisi
(_From a lithograph_).]
At the outset of her career Fanny achieved distinction, or had it
thrust upon her, by becoming an object of the “grande passion,” on
the part of l’Aiglon, the Duc de Reichstadt, Napoleon’s ill-fated
son. But it was said that the rumour was only put about by her astute
manager, in order to get the young dancer talked about, and as an
advertisement the manœuvre succeeded admirably.
Both sisters, after acquiring a favourable reputation in Germany,
came to London, and it was here, in 1834, that Véron, the manager of
the Paris Opera, came over to tempt them to appear in Paris with a
salary of forty thousand francs, twenty thousand each. Thinking to
impress the young Viennese with an example of Parisian magnificence,
Véron gave a dinner-party in their honour at the Clarendon, in Bond
Street, to which the best available society was invited, and the
menu, the wine and the equipage were of unparalleled quality. At
dessert an attendant brought a silver salver piled high with costly
presents for the ladies of the company--pearls, rubies, diamonds,
superbly set--a miniature Golconda. But somehow it all fell a trifle
flat. The Elssler girls, true to their simple German training, drank
only water with their dinner, and with dessert merely accepted, the
one a hatpin, and the other a little handbag; and they would not
agree to sign their contract until the day of Véron’s departure!
Both in Paris and London the sisters were triumphantly successful,
and when in 1841 they toured through America they met with a
reception that was sensational. It was “roses, roses all the
way”; and in some of the towns triumphal arches were erected. At
Philadelphia their horses were unharnessed and their carriage drawn
by the admiring populace, headed by the Mayor!
Fanny was an especial favourite, and when the sisters left New
Orleans, some niggers, who were hoisting freight from the hold of an
adjacent steamboat--and niggers are notoriously apt at catching up
topical subjects--thus chanted, as the vessel bearing the dancers
left the wharf:
“Fanny, is you going up de ribber?
Grog time o’ day.
When all dese here’s got Elssler fever?
Oh, hoist away!
De Lor’ knows what we’ll do widout you,
Grog time o’ day.
De toe an’ heel won’t dance widout you.
Oh, hoist away!
Day say you dances like a fedder,
Grog time o’ day.
Wid t’ree t’ousand dollars all togedder.
Oh, hoist away!”
Fanny Elssler was at her best in the ballet of “Le Diable Boiteux,” the
plot of which is founded on Le Sage’s famous romance. An enthusiastic
contemporary described her in the following quaint terms: “_La_ Fanny
is tall, beautifully formed, with limbs that strongly resemble the
hunting Diana, combining strength with the most delicate and graceful
style. Her small and classically shaped head is placed on her shoulders
in a singularly elegant manner; the pure fairness of her skin requires
no artificial whiteness; while her eyes beam with a species of playful
malice, well-suited to the half-ironical expression at times visible in
the corners of her finely curved lips. Her rich, glossy hair, of bright
chestnut hue, is usually braided over a forehead formed to wear, with
equal grace and dignity, the diadem of a queen, or the floral wreath of
a nymph; and though strictly feminine in her appearance, none can so
well or so advantageously assume the costume of the opposite sex.”
As a dancer she excelled in all spirited dances, such as the
_Fandango_, and the _Mazurka_, while in the _Cachucha_ and the
_Cracovienne_, she stirred her audience to a frenzy of admiration.
Thérèse Elssler retired from the stage in 1850. Fanny, a year later,
married a rich banker, withdrew, and died in 1884.
CHAPTER XXV
CARLO BLASIS
The Dance and Ballet had made progress during the past two centuries
and had reached the point when, unable to attain to greater
perfection of technique, it needed some fresh artistic inspiration.
Italy, however, had long been degenerate as regards the Dance, her
whole artistic ambition having expressed itself in Opera and an
unrivalled excellence in vocal technique. So that towards the end of
the eighteenth century and for half the nineteenth, her singers were
unmatched throughout the world.
The introduction of French dancers and the production of some of
the ballets of French composers turned the attention of the lovers
of _bel Canto_ to the possibilities of the sister art. Noverre
had produced some of his ballets at Milan, and his methods and
artistic taste gradually spread through Italy, his influence being
further extended by several of his Italian pupils, such as Rossi and
Angiolini.
It was not, however, until Carlo Blasis came to preside over the
Imperial Academy of Dancing and Pantomime at Milan, 1837, that the
Italian ballet began to assume any importance, and the Milan Academy,
becoming recognised as the first in Europe, came in turn to influence
Paris, London and other capitals of the world. Indeed, it is hardly
too much to say that probably every opera house which has been
established a century owes something directly or indirectly to the
genius of Carlo Blasis, who in his enthusiasm for, and appreciation
of, the Dance and Ballet, and in his ability to write thereon
was another Noverre, but with an even wider range of talent and
scholarship.
In the history of art there can be few records of such amazing power
of assimilation, combined with a high standard of achievement. We
have but to glance at a list of his works, to realise this. While
the theory and practice of dancing were his leading theme, one to
which he returned again and again, few things failed to stimulate his
interest and his pen.
“_Observations sur le Chant et sur l’Expression de la Musique
Dramatique_” were a series of essays contributed to a London paper.
He wrote considerably on the art of Pantomime. He contributed
biographies of Garrick and of Fuseli to a Milan periodical; and
another of Pergolesi to a German paper. A dissertation on “Italian
Dramatic Music in France,” was another of his subjects. He left
in manuscript works on François Premier; on Lucan and his poem of
Pharsalia; on Alexander the Great; on the Influence of the Italian
Genius upon the World; on the then Modern Greek Dances; on “_La
Grande Epoque de Louis XV en France, en Italie, et en Angleterre_”;
a “Lexicon of Universal Erudition”; while perhaps the greatest of
his works--according to contemporary criticism--was “_L’Uomo Fisico,
Intellettuale e Morale_,” a book of some thousand pages.
His education had been of a kind that should incline him to take,
as Bacon did, “all knowledge,” for his province. Madrolle, the
famous French publicist of his period, described Blasis as “a man
of the most comprehensive mind that he had ever known,” and further
declared him “a universal genius.” Indeed, though he achieved fame
as a _maître de ballet_, he seems really to have been a sort of
super-maître of all the arts.
He was born at Naples on November 4th, 1803, the son of Francesco
Blasis and Vincenza Coluzzi Zurla Blasis, both, it is said, of noble
descent. The family claimed an ancestry reaching back beyond the
reigns of Tiberius and Augustus, when there were patricians known
as the Blasii. Machiavelli mentions the same family, and various
monuments in Italy and Sicily bear the name of De Blasis.
When Carlo was two years old, his father, who had forsaken the
ancestral profession of the sea for literature and music, took
his family from Naples to Marseilles, where the _De_ was dropped,
for political reasons, and the name became simply Blasis. Having
studied the tastes and tendencies of his children somewhat carefully
Francesco determined to give his son Carlo a thorough grounding
in the classics and the fine arts. His daughter Teresa was taught
singing and the pianoforte; and his younger daughter Virginia, who
was born at Marseilles, was destined to Opera. It must be set to the
credit of the fond father’s discernment and influence that each of
his children achieved distinction in their own sphere and day.
The education of Carlo, we are told in a contemporary biography,
“was at once literary and artistic and theatrical.” He showed such
enthusiasm and ability in his studies that it was said that he might
easily have become a painter, a composer of music, or a dancer and
ballet-master. He finally chose the last as his profession owing
to the fact that it offered more lucrative prospects as well as
combining all the varied opportunities for artistic expression which
his young soul craved. In other directions, however, his general
education was not neglected, and the subjects he studied all came to
be employed in the profession he had chosen, rendering him valuable
assistance in dancing, pantomime and the composition of ballets. In
later life when asked how he came to get through such masses of work
as he did he used to declare: “_Le temps ne manque jamais à qui sait
l’employer_,” and to add Tissot’s saying: “_Dormons, dormons, très
peu; vivons toute notre vie, et pendant trois semaines que nous avons
à vivre, ne dormons pas, ne soyons pas morts, pendant quinze jours._”
Indeed, he _lived_ every minute of his incessantly active life, and
in his later years seldom worked less than fifteen hours a day.
As a lad he studied music, in all its branches, with his father.
Drawing, painting, modelling, architecture, geometry, mathematics,
anatomy, literature and dancing he studied with some of the best
available masters of his period, at Marseilles, Rome, Florence,
Bordeaux, Bologna and Pavia; and when he came to practise his
profession as ballet-master and composer, he was able not only to
evolve the plot of the ballet, and explain every situation, teach
every step and gesture and expression, but to furnish designs for the
costumes, scenery, and mechanical effects.
He was avid of learning, and absorbed something of value from all
with whom he came in contact. He haunted the artists’ studios and
made a special point of visiting all he could in any town in which
he happened to stay, Thorwaldsen, Longhi and Canova being among the
more prominent of the sculptors and artists whom he came to know. He
became a connoisseur and collector of paintings, sculpture carvings,
cameos, jewellery, old instruments; had a remarkable library, not
only of books in Greek, Latin, Italian, French, English, German and
Spanish, but an interesting collection of music, from Palestrina to
his own time, his library and gallery being valued at somewhere about
ten thousand pounds.
He started his professional career and travels at the age of twelve,
when he appeared as a dancer in the leading theatre at Marseilles,
then at Aix, Avignon, Lyons, Toulouse; finally settling with his
family for some time at Bordeaux, where he had a very successful
_début_ and where--under the able direction of Dauberval, of whom
we have already heard--most of the best dancers in France appeared
preparatory to an engagement in Paris.
Blasis then received an invitation to the capital, where his _début_
was so extraordinarily successful that he was promptly placed in
the front rank, and for a time studied under the famous Gardel, who
thought so highly of him that he selected for him as partner in
several ballets, Mlle. Gosselin, one of the leading dancers at the
Opera, followed by Mlle. Legallois, a dancer of the classic school.
On account of intrigues and cabals--which are not, alas, unusual in
the theatrical profession, or in any other perhaps--Blasis left the
Opera and was next engaged at Milan, first going on a successful
tour, during which he composed various ballets, notably “Iphigénie en
Aulide,” “La Vestale,” “Fernando Cortez,” “Castor and Pollux,” “Don
Juan” and “Les Mystères d’Isis.”
His appearance at La Scala, Milan, was triumphant, and he remained
there for fourteen seasons, as dancer and ballet-composer. Then
followed a successful Italian tour. Painters, sculptors and engravers
as well as various poets celebrated his progress, and one Venetian
painter, having seen him dancing some _pas de deux_ with his
famous partner Virginia Leon, in which they entwined and enveloped
themselves in rose-coloured veils--presumably very much as Mordkin
and Pavlova did in the “L’Automne Bacchanale,” made sketches of the
various graceful groupings and afterwards introduced them into the
decorations of an apartment in the house of a rich Venetian nobleman.
There can be no doubt that the appeal of Blasis’ work to artists was
greatly due not merely to his technical excellence as a dancer but to
the fact that--steeped as he was in the study of music, sculpture and
painting--his work was a living expression of a classic art-spirit.
Again and again in his writings he emphasises the necessity the young
dancer is under of studying not only music, but drawing, painting
and sculpture. In one interesting passage, especially, he remarks:
“It is in the best productions of painting and sculpture that the
dancer may study with profit how to display his figure with taste
and elegance. They are a fountain of beauties, to which all those
should repair who wish to distinguish themselves for the correctness
and purity of their performances. In the Bacchanalian groups which
I have composed, I have successfully introduced various attitudes,
arabesques and groupings, the original idea of which was suggested
to me, during my journey to Naples and through _Magna Grecia_, on
viewing the paintings, bronzes and sculptures rescued from the ruins
of Herculaneum.”
The publication at Milan, of his first work, in French, _A
Theoretical, Practical and Elementary Treatise on the Art of
Dancing_, brought Blasis into prominent notice throughout the
Continent and in London, owing to press notices and demands for
translations of a work that was unrivalled of its kind and is
valuable to-day.
In 1826 Blasis came to London, where, at the King’s Theatre,
Haymarket, he was triumphantly received as dancer, actor and
ballet-composer. He remained here for some time, and in 1829-1830
published his still more important work, in English, namely, _The
Code of Terpsichore_ in which the whole subject of dancing is
dealt with exhaustively. The book was “embellished” with numerous
line-engravings, accompanied by music, composed by his sisters,
Virginia and Teresa Blasis, and was dedicated to Virginia, then Prima
Donna of the Italian Opera at Paris. The work was an instant success
and did much to further the aim which Blasis had in all his writings,
namely, the raising of the art of the Dance and Ballet nearer to a
level with the other imitative arts.
[Illustration: Carlo Blasis
(_From a lithograph_).]
The _maître_ now divided his time between England and Italy,
sometimes appearing as a dancer, sometimes producing ballets of his
own composition; or yet again as journalist and author, contributing
articles to leading reviews, or seeing some fresh volume through the
press, always occupied in propagating his school and principles,
demonstrating his method, and putting into practice wherever he went
every new improvement or suggestion which could advance the cause
he had at heart; always encouraging and inspiring all those of his
profession with whom he came in touch, with a newer and higher idea
of the possibilities of theatrical dance and ballet. It was now said,
indeed, that “all who followed the same profession became either his
disciples or imitators.”
His triumphs as a dancer, however, were unhappily cut short during an
engagement at the San Carlo, Naples, by an accident which occurred
during rehearsal, some unaccountable injury to the left leg, for
which every remedy was tried without avail. Though he was not unable
henceforth to perform the simpler and more natural movements he found
himself handicapped by a certain stiffness that made anything like a
_cabriole_ or _entrechat_ impossible, and wisely decided to retire
rather than diminish the fame he had already acquired as a dancer.
Hereafter it was as a composer of ballets and as a widely informed
writer on the arts that he elected to occupy himself, and in Italy,
France and England--notably at Drury Lane--his productions both
on the stage and in the Press, won him increasing recognition and
respect.
In 1837 Blasis was appointed by the Italian Government Director of
the Imperial Academy of Dancing and Pantomime at Milan, where the
reforms he introduced and the new artistic ideal he created shortly
raised it to the position of the leading Academy of the world.
By the end of the eighteenth century dancing and ballet at the Paris
Opera, had grown, as we have seen, a stiff, formal, dull affair.
Carlo Blasis’ rule at the Milan Academy, which put new life into the
art, had a tremendous influence throughout the Continent, so much so
indeed that Russia, Austria, France, and even England _all_ to-day
owe something to the traditions of style and efficiency his genius
laid down at that time.
The system of training he instituted then is still much the same in
present-day opera-houses, from which most of the famous dancers are
drawn. Pupils entered the Milan Academy at an early age. No one was
admitted before the age of eight years, nor after twelve, if a girl,
or fourteen, if a boy. They were to be medically examined, and be
proved to have a robust constitution and to be in good health. They
had to be children of respectable parents; and, when admitted, were
to remain in the school, devoted to its service and to the service of
the theatre for eight years. For the first three years they were to
be considered as apprentices and receive no salary; those who were
qualified for performance in the theatre came to receive progressive
salaries. Their daily practice in the school was for three hours in
the morning, from nine to twelve, at dancing; after which they were
to be exercised in the art of pantomime for one hour.
To-day the training is just as severe and much the same. For the
Russian ballet pupils enter the Academy at Petrograd at the age
of nine and remain till eighteen. Madame Karsavina, one of the
most finished dancers in the world, has told us how, even now, she
continues to practise a couple of hours or more every day.
A well-known Italian _maître de ballet_ at a famous West End theatre
once told me that he always practised dancing from two to three hours
a day, and “pantomime” or “mime,” as it is usually called, from one
to two hours. Mlle. Génée, too, has stated that she practises from
two to three hours daily. Such practice is necessary, not merely to
a pupil, but to a finished and successful dancer to keep the limbs
absolutely supple and enable the artist to give that impression of
consummate ease in performing the most difficult steps, which is the
true test of the really great dancer; while the study of “miming”
is equally necessary, since it is the art which gives life and
expression to the dance.
Before a dancer has achieved the distinction of becoming a “star,” it
may be safely reckoned that she has had from eight to ten years daily
drudgery, and that her earlier years have been without financial
reward, and may even have involved her parents or relatives in
considerable expense for her training or apprenticeship. Given the
physique, the instinct for dancing, and the intelligence, what then
must the prospective “star” expect before she can become a _première
danseuse_, or even a “seconde”?
Go into any large school where “toe-dancing” is taught and what will
you see? A large, barely furnished room, on one or two, or perhaps on
all sides of which is fixed a bar or pole, some four feet from the
ground. Here, having already been thoroughly grounded in the “five
positions,” which every dancer learns, the pupils, perhaps a dozen or
more in number, ranging from eight upwards, will be found at “side
practice,” as it is called, going through the various “positions”
and steps, while one hand rests on the bar. Here she goes through
the fatiguing and endless training known as practice “on the bar,”
learning “_battements_,” which consist in moving one leg in the air,
now forward, now back, while the other, on tip-toe, supports the
body; learning the even more difficult _ronds de jambes_, or circles
made by one leg while resting on the other; learning all the while
to get the legs free and supple, to keep the shoulders down and the
elbows loose, before proceeding to the more complex steps and poses.
After incessant drilling at the bar comes the “centre practice,” in
which many of the same positions and steps are repeated with new and
more difficult ones, away from the bar; until little by little after
months, indeed, it may be years, of incessant practice, the young
dancer becomes qualified to take a place in the minor ranks of the
ballet where, in watching the more finished work of the _première
danseuse_, she is further inspired to yet more arduous practice
in the school or at home, in the hope of achieving a perfection
that shall bring her similar rewards--a princely income, unlimited
bouquets, and the clamorous applause of an adoring audience.
All this is severe enough training; but the dancer’s training always
has been severe. The hard thing, from the ballet composer’s point of
view is--that the individuality and artistic spirit of the dancer is,
only too often, crushed by the training or at least subordinated to
an exaltation of mere technique. Technique is a necessity, of course.
But it was in the power of such men as Noverre and Blasis to inspire
in their disciples something more than an emulation for technical
efficiency, and to give them an artistic ideal which made the
drudgery of their training seem worth while as a means of attaining
to greater ease of artistic expression. Blasis’ influence undoubtedly
ran like a quickening spirit through the capitals of Europe and led
the way to that great revival of romantic ballet which marked the era
of the ’forties and found its fullest and most poetic expression in
the idealism of Taglioni.
CHAPTER XXVI
MARIE TAGLIONI (“SYLPHIDE”)
The great theatrical sensation of the mid-’forties was the famous
_Pas de Quatre_, composed of Lucile Grahn, Fanny Cerito, Carlotta
Grisi, and Marie Taglioni, the last-named making a welcome return
to the stage after an absence of some years. This was in 1845.
Taglioni’s reappearance and a dispute between the dancers as to the
order of their _entrée_ gave the event a handsome advertisement.
In the end the difficulty was settled by Lumley, the manager of the
Opera, deciding that, as Mlle. Taglioni herself was indifferent as to
when she made her entrance, they should appear according to age, the
youngest first; and in consequence Lucile Grahn led the quartette,
a crescendo of applause finishing in a terrific climax as Taglioni,
greatest of them all, appeared, and, as one witness declared, “the
whole house went clean mad.”
Marie Taglioni, greatest of the four, was the first to give the
impulse towards the creation of that new school which the others
represented. The technique of all four was virtually the same, that
which had always been traditional. In the foundations of their art
all were of the old school. All had been thoroughly drilled in the
eternal “five positions.” But in the spirit of this art all were as
new for their period, and by contrast with the eighteenth-century
school, as Camargo had been when she first quickened that school
by the introduction of a fresher inspiration and new miracles of
execution; and as Sallé had been when she had striven to replace the
convention of pannier and cuirasse for classic hero and heroine, with
a costume nearer to Hellenic truth and beauty. And of the four who
made theatrical dancing in the ’forties of last century what it was,
Taglioni was the pioneer.
She was one of a family of Taglionis. There was Louise, who had won
distinction at the Opera under the Empire, and who had a sister so
beautiful that when she left the stage to marry an Italian gentleman
and settle down at Venice, it came to be a proverb, “To see Venice
and the beautiful Contarini.” Marie was the niece of these two.
Born at Stockholm in 1804, she was the daughter of Philip Taglioni
(1777-1871), a ballet-master from Milan, and a Swedish mother, _née_
Anna Karsten, whose grandfather had been a famous actor and singer
at the Swedish Court. In these two strains probably we have one of
the secrets of Marie Taglioni’s art, for, while from the Italian side
she would have inherited that passion for technique which is innate
in the Latin races, from the maternal she would have received the
impulse towards a poetic and dreamy idealism which is characteristic
of the North.
Add to this the fact that her father was not only a really
accomplished teacher of dancing but was steeped in the romantic
legends and poetry of Scandinavia, and we are better able to
understand how it was the stiff formalism and poetic conventionalities
of Ballet in the pre-Taglioni period had to succumb to the new breath
of inspiration which was to set all London and Paris raving of its
beauty in the ’forties, and fire even so temperate and cynical an
observer as Thackeray to enthusiastic expressions of admiration of
Marie Taglioni in “Sylphide.”
As a child she was unprepossessing to look at and had physical
defects. It is said that when the famous dancing master, Coulon, was
consulted as to the teaching of the child, he exclaimed: “What _can_
I do with that little hunch-back?”
Nevertheless, her father intended that she should become a dancer,
and, taking her in hand himself, a dancer she became; with the result
that--to adapt the expression of an ingenious French critic--between
them they ultimately _taglionised_ the Ballet.
Marie made her first appearance at Vienna in 1822, in a ballet
bearing the lengthy title, “Réception d’une jeune nymphe à la cour de
Terpsichore.” Her father had arranged a _pas_ for her _début_, but in
her confusion, it is said, she forgot it, and substituted another of
her own invention, which proved a triumphant success.
From Vienna she went to Stuttgart, where the Queen of Würtemberg
became so attached to her that she treated her like a sister, and was
seen to shed tears on the occasion of Taglioni’s last appearance at
the Stuttgart Opera House. She next proceeded to Munich, where she
was equally well received by the royal family, finally making her
_début_ at Paris on July 23rd, 1827, in a ballet called “Le Sicilien.”
Her appearance was an immediate success, and was followed by fresh
triumphs in “La Vestale,” “Fernando Cortez,” “Les Bayadères” and
“Le Carnaval de Venise,” this first engagement terminating on
August 10th. One critic of her time writes enthusiastically of the
effect she created with: “_sa grâce naïve, ses poses décentes et
voluptueuses, son extrême légèreté, la nouveauté de sa danse, dont
les effets semblaient appartenir aux inspirations de la nature au
lieu d’être les résultats des combinaisons de l’art et du travail
de l’école, produisirent une sensation très vive sur le public.
Le talent d’une virtuose qui s’éloigne de la route battue par ses
devanciers, trouve des opposants que la continuité des succès ne
désarme pas toujours: il n’y eut qu’une voix sur Mlle. Taglioni: tout
le monde fut enchanté, ravi._”
The Ballet had grown formalised, stale. Taglioni came as spirit from
another sphere to infuse new vitality and idealism into its wearied
splendour, and she provided jaded opera lovers with a new thrill.
After her Parisian _début_, she was re-engaged for the following year
and returned in the April of 1828 to win further admiration in “Les
Bayadères,” and “Lydie” and “Psyché”; then, the year after, in “La
Belle au Bois dormant,” a fifteen years’ engagement being finally
offered to her at the Opera, with intervals of absence sufficient to
enable her to pay visits to Germany, Russia, Italy and England, when,
in every country, she achieved fresh triumphs.
Her London _début_ at the benefit of Laporte, manager at Her
Majesty’s Theatre, took place on June 3rd, 1830, in Didelot’s ballet
of “Flore et Zephire.”
A contemporary account of her dancing says: “Taglioni unquestionably
combines the finest requisites for eminence in her art. The union
she displays of muscular ability with the most feminine delicacy of
frame and figure is truly extraordinary. A charming simplicity, the
principal characteristic of her demeanour on the stage--an utter
absence of that false consequence and _bombast_ of carriage and
manner which have so peculiarly marked too many artistes of our time;
and a native grace and matchless precision in her movements, even
those in which the most astonishing difficulties are conquered, and
which yet appear to demand of _her_ no effort, leave us delighted
with the _fairyism_ of the lovely being before us ... and enchant
us into forgetfulness of the unwearied perseverance and application
by which, in aid of the lavish gifts of Nature, such unrivalled
excellence has been attained.”
Every contemporary account of Taglioni insists always on that one
note, the _idealism_ of her art. The late Mme. Katti-Lanner, who saw
her dance, told me once that she appeared like some fairy being
always about to soar away from the earth to which she seemed so
little to belong.
Was it not Victor Hugo who inscribed a volume which he sent to her:
“_à vos pieds--à vos ailes_”?
It was but natural then that she should be the ideal exponent of the
title-_rôle_ in that graceful Ballet “Sylphide,” which was produced
at Paris on March 14th, 1832.
The importance of the new influence brought to bear on the art
of Ballet by the advent of Taglioni and the contrast between the
older and the newer schools was well defined by Théophile Gautier
who, writing of “Sylphide” said: “_Ce ballet commença pour la
chorégraphie une ère toute nouvelle et ce fut par lui que le
romantisme s’introduisit dans le domaine de Terpsichore. A dater
de la ‘Sylphide,’ les ‘Filets de Vulcain,’ ‘Flore et Zephire’ ne
furent plus possibles: l’Opéra fut livré aux gnomes, aux ondins, aux
salamandres, aux elfes, aux nixes, aux willis, aux péris et à tout
ce peuple étrange et mystérieux qui se prête si merveilleusement aux
fantaisies du maître de ballet. Les douze maisons de marbre et d’or
des Olympies furent reléguées dans la poussière des magasins, et l’on
ne commanda plus aux décorateurs que des forêts romantiques, que des
vallées éclairées par le joli clair de lune allemand des ballades de
Henri Heine...._”
The poet Méry remarked of the new dancer: “_Avec Mlle. Taglioni la
danse s’est élevée à la sainteté d’un art._” That is just what she
achieved. Dancing, which had become a mechanical display of technical
_tours de force_, was restored to the dignity--or sanctity--of an art.
But her influence extended further. She enlarged the perspective of
the stage effects. The stiff formalism of “classic” scenes, of neat
temples and trim vistas gave place to mysterious lakes and umbrageous
forests, vast spaces that stirred the imagination and prepared the
mind for the _entrée_ of visionary dancers.
The story of “Sylphide” is of the love of a sylph for a handsome
young Highland peasant, who is haunted by visions of her in his
dreams and memories of the vision on awaking, so much so that the
heart of his own betrothed is broken and his brain is turned by the
manifestation of his aerial love, who herself becomes the victim
of an unhappier fate by a terrible spell cast on her by infernal
powers and woven during a witches’ sabbath, which forms one of the
more impressive scenes of the ballet. The plot was adapted from
Charles Nodier’s story, _Trilby_, by Adolphe Nourrit, and the music
by Schneitzhöffer was pronounced “excellent” by Castil-Blaze, who
remarked that it was an “_Œuvre infiniment remarquable dans un genre
qui peut devenir important lorsqu’un homme de talent et d’esprit
veut bien l’adopter_.” He also reports of the first production of
“Sylphide” in Paris, that it had a _succès merveilleux_.
Elsewhere Taglioni’s success was no less remarkable. Indeed,
wheresoever she went she achieved a triumph. At Petrograd such
tempting offers were made by the Emperor and Empress that she
prolonged her stay for three years, and left laden with gifts from
their Imperial Majesties. At Vienna, on one occasion, having been
called before the curtain twenty-two times, when she finally got
away from the Opera House her carriage was drawn to her hotel by
forty young men of the leading Austrian families. In London she was
worshipped by the public, and was one of the special admirations of
the youthful Queen Victoria, some of whose dolls (as in the case of
Brocard, Pauline Leroux, and other dancers) were dressed to represent
the characters Taglioni played, and may be seen to-day in the London
Museum.
[Illustration: Marie Taglioni
(_From a lithograph dated 1833_).]
[Illustration: The Pas de Quatre of 1845
(_Lucille Grahn, Fanny Cerito, Carlotta Grisi, and in the centre
Marie Taglioni_).]
Taglioni was married to Gilbert, Comte de Voisins, in 1835, but the
marriage was not a happy one and was dissolved in 1844. She retired
for a little time, but returned to the stage again and appeared in
London, with triumphant success, in 1845.
The climax of a great season came in July of that year, when, at
the request of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, the _Pas de Quatre_, to
which reference has already been made, was arranged for the four
great dancers, Taglioni, Cerito, Carlotta Grisi and Lucile Grahn. One
critic remarked that the appearance of four such stars on the same
boards and in the same _pas_ was “truly what our Gallic neighbours
call _une solennité théâtrale_, and such a one as none of those who
beheld it are likely to witness again.”
It was, he declared rightly, “an event unparalleled in theatrical
annals, and one which, some two score years hence, may be handed down
to a new generation by garrulous septuagenarians as one of the most
brilliant reminiscences of days gone by.”
Without being a septuagenarian, or being in a position to remember an
event about which to grow garrulous, all who have studied theatrical
history at all can freely endorse the remark. Probably never in any
theatre was seen such excitement as there was on this occasion.
Contemporary testimony, when authoritative, is always valuable in
such cases, and as there is no better account of the famous “Pas de
Quatre” than that given by the _Illustrated London News_ of that day,
July 19th, 1845, it may be quoted at length with advantage.
Speaking of the curiosity which so unusual an event must necessarily
excite, and which led him to “hurry” to the theatre, the writer
declared that:
“curiosity and every other feeling was merged in admiration
when the four great dancers commenced the series of picturesque
groupings with which this performance opens. We can safely say we
have never witnessed a scene more perfect in all its details. The
greatest of painters, in his loftiest flights, could hardly have
conceived, and certainly never executed, a group more faultless
and more replete with grace and poetry than that formed by these
four _danseuses_: Taglioni in the midst, her head thrown backwards,
apparently reclining in the arms of her sister nymphs. Could such
a combination have taken place in the ancient palmy days of art,
the pencil of the painter and the song of the poet would alike have
been employed to perpetuate its remembrance. No description can
render the exquisite, and almost ethereal grace of movement and
attitude of these great dancers, and those who have witnessed the
scene, may boast of having once, at least, seen the perfection of
the art of dancing so little understood. There was no affectation,
no apparent exertion or struggle for effect on the part of these
gifted artistes; and though they displayed their utmost resources,
there was a simplicity and ease, the absence of which would have
completely broken the spell they threw around the scene. Of the
details of this performance it is difficult to speak. In the
_solo_ steps executed by each _danseuse_, each in turn seemed to
claim pre-eminence. Where every one in her own style is perfect,
peculiar individual taste alone may balance in favour of one or the
other, but the award of public applause must be equally bestowed;
and, for our own part, we confess that our _penchant_ for the
peculiar style, and our admiration for the dignity, the repose, and
exquisite grace which characterise Taglioni, and the dancer who
has so brilliantly followed the same track (Lucile Grahn), did not
prevent our warmly appreciating the charming archness and twinkling
steps of Carlotta Grisi, or the wonderful flying leaps and
revolving bounds of Cerito. Though, as we have said, each displayed
her utmost powers, the emulation of the fair dancers was, if we may
trust appearances, unaccompanied by envy.
“Every time a shower of bouquets descended, on the conclusion of
a _solo pas_ of one or other of the fair _ballerines_, her sister
dancers came forward to assist her in collecting them; and both
on Saturday and Tuesday did Cerito offer to crown Taglioni with a
wreath which had been thrown in homage to the queen of the dance.
We were also glad to see on the part of the audience far less of
partisanship than had been displayed two or three years since, on
the performance of a _pas de deux_ between Elssler and Cerito. The
applause was universal, and equally distributed. This, however,
did not take from the excitement of the scene. The house, crowded
to the roof, presented a concourse of the most eager faces, never
diverted for a moment from the performance; and the extraordinary
tumult of enthusiastic applause, joined to the delightful effect of
the spectacle presented, imparted to the whole scene an interest
and excitement that can hardly be imagined.”
Yet another triumph for Ballet was scored in the following season,
July, 1846, when Taglioni’s appearance in “La Gitana” having been
hailed with quite extraordinary enthusiasm, there came a piece of
managerial enterprise equalling that of the famous _Pas de Quatre_.
A new ballet by Perrot, “Les Tribulations d’un Maître de Ballet,” was
arranged for production and during the performance a _pas_ was to
have been introduced, combining the matchless three--Grahn, Cerito
and Taglioni, supported also by the niece of the last named, Louise
Taglioni; and St. Leon, husband of Cerito; and Perrot, husband of
Carlotta Grisi.
This _pas_ for the leading dancers was intended to form part of
a _divertissement_ entitled “Le Jugement de Pâris,” which the
aforesaid _maître de ballet_ was supposed to be arranging and to be
having “tribulations” about. But on putting the _divertissement_
into rehearsal the idea was found to be so attractive and to assume
such importance as to overshadow the rest of the production and the
“Jugement de Pâris” was therefore detached and staged as a separate
ballet in itself with the happiest result.
The _pas_ so isolated was of course the famous _Pas des Déesses_, the
goddesses naturally being the fair rivals Juno, Minerva and Venus,
impersonated by the three great _ballerines_, who contended for the
apple thrown by the Goddess of Discord, and awarded by Paris to the
most beautiful of the three.
Needless to say, with such dancers, the production found favour with
audiences and critics, one of whom wrote:
“The idea of this _pas_ is an excellent one; for it is an important
qualification in choregraphic compositions, that the dancing should
appear to be a necessary result of the action--that an intelligible
idea should be conveyed by it, and a story kept up throughout.
Without this, dancing, however beautiful in itself, loses half
its charm to those who look for something more in it than mere
power and grace of motion. Here there is a purpose in the varied
attitudes and graceful evolutions of each _danseuse_, as she is
supposed to be endeavouring to outstrip her rivals, and vindicate
her right to the disputed apple; and the effect is a charming one,
independently of the interest and excitement that must inevitably
attach to the combined performance of such unequalled artists
as these. The _Graces_, enacted by Louise Taglioni, Demississe,
and Cassan; _Cupid_, by that graceful child, Mdlle. Lamoureux;
_Mercure_, by Perrot, etc., etc., are all numbered amongst the
_dramatis personæ_ of the _ballet_, and a more charming combination
could hardly be met with.
“Taglioni is, however, the principal ‘star’ at the present moment.
Those who have visited Her Majesty’s Theatre predetermined to find
her marvellous talent diminished, and to ‘regret’ her reappearance
on the English stage, have come away enchanted, despite themselves,
at that marvellous union of unrivalled agility, with the most
perfect grace and elegance, in which no dancer has as yet equalled
her. If there is any change perceptible, she seems to have advanced
in her art--in person, an increase of _embonpoint_ has proved
decidedly favourable to her appearance. It is, no doubt, in the
_danse noble_ that she excels; but in every style of dancing the
_je ne sais quoi_ of peculiar refinement and grace, for which she
is remarkable in her style, distinguishes her. As long as Taglioni
continues to dance, she will continue to excite an enthusiasm of
applause, as the famous Guimard, styled in 1770, ‘La Reine de la
Danse,’ had done before her. A peculiar gentleness and amiability
of look, and a dignity of manner which never abandons Taglioni, is
in admirable keeping with the style of her dancing; and, if we may
believe report, these do not belie her real character.”
As a matter of fact, the appearances and “report” did _not_ belie her
character, for Taglioni always won the respect and love of all she
met. She had done so abroad, where crowned heads and royal families
had made a friend of her, enchanted with her sweetness and modesty,
and won to equal respect by her innate dignity of character.
It was the same in London, where, it is said, she received not
only the generous homage of her stage colleagues and was offered a
superb testimonial at the close of the season of 1846, but also met
with special favour from Queen Victoria herself, who was as much a
connoisseur of good dancing as she was of virtuous conduct.
It may have been by reason of this that Taglioni was appointed
teacher of dancing and deportment to some of the younger members
of the English Royal Family; and later undertook the tuition of a
few favoured young dancers. Yet Fortune did not favour her always,
and she died at Marseilles on April 25th, 1884; like Guimard, also
neglected and in poverty. But while there is one to read the records
of the stage her name will survive as one of the founders and supreme
exponents of the idealistic school of Ballet.
TAGLIONI (“SYLPHIDE”)
“Slim, virginal, upon the stage she springs:
And joy forthwith relumines weary eyes
That, looking ever on dull mundane things,
Long had forgot youth’s heritage of joy:
Slim, virginal, clad in resplendent white
With floral coronal and fluttering wings
She stands serenely poised; then, swift to rise,
Gleams like a sunlit dove in sudden flight:
So, once again, return to our dulled sight
Dreams of a golden age without alloy.
“How many sages sought in ancient time
Some magic stone transmuting all to gold;
Elixirs rare have many yearned to find,
Recalling refluent youth ere life depart;
How many strove to conjure from the air,
From water, earth or fire with subtle art
The elemental beings therein divined!
“But thou, with art more potent and sublime,
Transmutest all! None seeing thee is old!
All hearts forlorn, from dross of woe are freed!
And in the magic glamour of thy grace,
Hope’s listless wings win strength once more to fare
Towards that Ideal whose lineaments we trace
Importally incarnate in--‘Sylphide!’”
CHAPTER XXVII
CARLOTTA GRISI (GISELLE)
Seldom is a good dancer also a born singer; and still more rarely do
both talents develop simultaneously to such a point that there can be
any serious doubt as to which to relinquish in favour of the other.
Yet such was the happy fate of Carlotta Grisi, the cousin of the two
famous singing sisters, Giuditta and Giulia Grisi.
Carlotta at one time showed such promise of becoming a vocalist
that no less a person than the great Malibran advised her to devote
her life to singing. But when Perrot, the famous ballet-master, who
had received his _congé_ from the Paris Opera, saw her, when she
was earning her living as a dancer at Naples, he was clever enough
to suggest that she should develop _both_ talents, fully intending
that under his encouragement and tuition she should become at least
a finished _danseuse_, for he saw in the future of such a pupil
an opportunity of securing his own return to the Opera. Moreover,
although--as a famous _maîtresse de ballet_ of our time once
described him to me--“ogly as sin,” he managed to become her husband!
Carlotta Grisi was born in 1821 at Visnida, in Upper Istria, in
a palace built for the Emperor Francis II. When a mere child of
five years old she was dancing, with other children, at the Scala,
Milan, where she danced with such grace that she was nicknamed _La
petite Heberlé_, a Mlle. Heberlé then being a very popular star.
Subsequently she toured with a company through Italy appearing at
Florence, Rome, Naples, and it was here she met and became the pupil
and then wife of Perrot.
Brief visits to London, Vienna, Milan, Naples followed, the young
dancer gathering fresh triumphs at each, until finally she made her
Parisian _début_ at the Renaissance on February 28th, 1840. Here
she appeared both as singer and dancer in “Le Zingaro,” but on the
closing of the theatre she went in February, 1841, to the Opera, and
achieved an instant success in “La Favorita.” From that moment her
career was one of continued triumph.
In June of that year she appeared in “_Giselle, ou les Willis, ballet
en deux actes, de MM. de Saint Georges, Th. Gautier et Coralli,
musique de M. Adam, décors de M. Ciceri_,” as it is described on my
copy of the original libretto. Carlotta’s appearance in it was _the_
artistic sensation of the Continent.
“Giselle” is founded on one of those romantic legendary themes in
which Germany was once so rich, and tells of the fate of a village
girl who falls a victim to the mysterious _Willis_, or spirits of
betrothed girls who in life were passionately fond of dancing, who
have died ere marriage, and are doomed after death to dance every
night from midnight to dawn, luring whom they may to the same fate.
This, and the story of shattered hope and love forlorn, which bring
about poor little Giselle’s destruction, are the two leading themes
of a ballet which, touching both the heights of gaiety and depths
of tragedy, is rich in every element that can interest or charm,
and presents many dramatic situations that demand from a supremely
accomplished dancer a power of mimic expression, intensity and poetic
sympathy that are rare. Carlotta Grisi was ideally equipped, and she
was _par excellence_--Giselle. A revival of the second act, under the
title of “les Sylphides,” was given by the Russian dancers at the
Coliseum a few seasons ago.
Gautier’s admiration for Grisi was enthusiastic. “_Qu’est-ce que
Giselle?_” he asked the day after the first performance, thus
answering his own question: “_Giselle, c’est Carlotta Grisi, une
charmante fille aux yeux bleus, au sourire fin et naïf, à la démarche
alerte, une Italienne qui a l’air d’une Allemande à s’y tromper,
comme l’Allemande Fanny avait l’air d’une Andalouse de Séville....
Pour la pantomime, elle a dépassé toutes les espérances. Pas un geste
de convention. Pas un mouvement faux. C’est la nature prise sur le
fait._”
Another of her admirers described Carlotta in the following quaint
terms: “... a blonde beauty; her eyes are of a soft and lovely
blue, her mouth is small, and her complexion is of a rare freshness
and delicacy.... Her figure is symmetrical, for, though slight,
she has not that anatomical thinness, which is so common among the
_danseuses_ of the Académie Royale. Her grace is not more surprising
than her aplomb. She never appears to exert herself, but can execute
the most incredible _tours de force_ with a perfect tranquillity.”
Grisi’s success in London was stupendous. She appeared here at Drury
Lane, and later at Her Majesty’s, for the Opera seasons. On her
farewell appearance in “The Peri” (by Théophile Gautier, Coralli
and Burgmüller) at the end of the season in November, 1843, the
_Illustrated London News_ gave the following note:
“Carlotta Grisi took her farewell of an English audience on
Saturday night (i.e. November 18th, 1843) in the popular ballet of
‘The Peri,’ when a brilliant company was present to bid adieu to
their favourite dancer. On the entrance of Mdlle. Grisi, there was
one unanimous burst of applause, and each movement of her graceful
figure was the signal for renewed approbation. When the famous
leap was given, cries of _encore_ re-echoed from every part of the
house, and once again the favourite, with a spirit undaunted,
leaped into the arms of the lover in the ballet. The applause
continued undiminished until the fall of the curtain--then the
enthusiasm became a _furore_, and the name of ‘Grisi’ was uttered
by a thousand voices. She soon appeared, led on by Petipa, and in
looks more expressive than words, spoke her thanks for the kindness
which she has received and merited. Wreaths and bouquets were
plenteously showered on the dancer, and our artist has attempted a
representation of the enthusiastic scene.
“After the performances, Mr. Bunn gave an elegant supper in the
grand saloon of the theatre to about seventy of his friends
and patrons. The entertainment was intended as a complimentary
leave-taking to Carlotta Grisi, on her quitting London to fulfil
her engagements in Paris. After proposing the health of Carlotta
Grisi, Mr. Bunn presented that lady with a superb bracelet of black
enamel, richly ornamented with diamonds, as a slight _souvenir_ of
her highly successful career at Drury Lane Theatre. Attached to the
bracelet was the following inscription: ‘_Présenté à Mlle. Carlotta
Grisi, la danseuse la plus poétique de l’univers, avec les hommages
respectueux de son directeur A. Bunn, Théâtre Royal, Drury Lane,
18th November, 1843._’”
A contemporary enthusiast, writing of her in 1846, said: “Her
name is henceforth inseparably connected with the charming and
poetic creations which her own grace and beauty have immortalised:
‘Giselle,’ ‘Beatrix,’ ‘La Péri,’ have attained a celebrity equal
to that of ‘La Sylphide’ and ‘La Fille du Danube,’ and the most
devoted admirer of Taglioni can scarcely refuse a tribute of homage
to the bewitching elegance of Carlotta Grisi. Wherever she goes,
her reception is the same; if she is idolised in Paris, she is
adored in London. The impression produced by her performance of ‘La
Péri,’ at Drury Lane, in 1843, will not be easily forgotten, and her
more recent triumph in the ‘Pas de Quatre’ is still fresh in the
recollection of the _habitués_ of the Opera. Nor must we omit her
last creations of Mazourka in the ‘Diable à Quatre’ and ‘Paquita.’ It
is impossible to describe the fascinating _naïveté_ of her manner,
the arch and lively humour of her pantomime, and the extraordinary
precision and grace of her dancing!” High praise, certainly! But,
evidently not exaggerated, for all contemporary accounts of Grisi are
equally enthusiastic.
Carlotta’s married life was not entirely happy. She had many
admirers, and her husband had a temper, and though she always kept
the former at a discreet distance, the latter was not so easily
managed, and after a few years of marriage, which had apparently
been entered upon more as a matter of mutual interest than mutual
affection, she and her husband agreed to separate. Grisi left the
stage in 1857 at the climax of her success, and retired to live
quietly in Switzerland, where she died only a few years ago.
CHAPTER XXVIII
FANNY CERITO (“ONDINE”)
Of the great quartette, Cerito was the especial pet of London
audiences, among whom she was always known as the “divine” Fanny.
This but echoed the pretty worship of her good old father to whom
she was always “La Divinita,” and who in the heyday of her success
used to go about with his pockets stuffed with her old shoes, and
fragments of the floral crowns which had been thrown to her on the
stage.
From the time of her birth at Naples, in 1821, he had guarded her,
and his pride in her talent and her triumphs was but natural, seeing
how young she was, how early she won fame, and how great was her
charm.
She made her _début_ at the San Carlo, Naples, in 1835, in a ballet
called “The Horoscope.” She then toured, appearing at most of the
Italian cities. Even before she had left Italy she had earned, on her
_début_ at Milan, the complimentary title of “the fourth Grace,” one
of the many “fourth” Graces the world has seen since ancient classic
days!
After Italy there followed a couple of years at Vienna and then,
strangely enough, reversing the customary order of things, her London
_début_ was made some years before she appeared in Paris. She was
seen regularly in London for some seasons from 1840 onwards.
In May, 1841, she appeared at Her Majesty’s, in the “Lac des Fées,”
with great success; in June “Sylphide” was revived for her, and on
August 12th she took her benefit, to which people flocked from all
parts of London and, notwithstanding the usual deserted state of
town at such a time, the audience was one of the biggest and most
fashionable on record. Then she went on a brief visit to Liverpool,
and then returned for a time to Vienna.
It was in the two ballets, “Alma” and “Ondine,” that the beauteous
Fanny achieved her greatest triumphs, in the former representing
a fire-spirit, in the latter, a water-nymph given, as was Hans
Andersen’s little Mermaid, mortal life and form.
She appeared in “Alma,” a ballet by Deshayes, on its first production
in London during July, 1842, on the night when the famous “Persiani”
row took place, and which was said to be worse than several similar
riots in the previous year at the Opera. Mme. Persiani had been “too
ill to sing,” and the audience had been incredulous. Comparative
quiet was at length secured by the respected manager, Lumley,
and, as a journal of the time quaintly records: “A beautiful,
sylph-like Cerito, danced in the splendid ballet of ‘Alma,’ and by
her inspiration hushed the stormy elements with a repose that ought
always to reign when genius and talent are supreme.”
Another chronicler speaks of the “new and glittering ballet of
‘Alma,’ which reflects the greatest credit on the inventor, M.
Deshayes,” and adds: “We have no hesitation in saying that this is
the ballet of all ballets, and carries our memory back to our young,
innocent and merry days of juvenility, when care was not care,
and tears not tears of woe, to the days of bright sunny smiles,
when fairies in our eyes _were_ fairies, and when the brilliant
realisations of the doings of ‘Cherry and Fair Star’ were real,
existing things of creation, and part and parcelling of our then
dreamy nature and being. Such is the new ballet of ‘Alma.’ It is one
of the best ever put on the opera boards.” That this impression was
created was due certainly to the talent, both as actress and dancer,
of Cerito, for whom the ballet had been specially composed.
Apropos of her great popularity in London a contemporary record
mentions an interesting “fact which will bear testimony at once to
her perfect embodiment of the poetry of motion and her excellent
private character,” namely, that “The Queen Dowager of England was
lately graciously pleased to bestow on her a splendid enamel brooch,
set with diamonds, and accompanied by a most flattering message.”
“Alma” was succeeded in the following year by “Ondine,” also composed
specially for her, by Perrot, with admirable music by Pugni, and
produced at Her Majesty’s on June 22nd, 1843. The plot is somewhat
like that of Hans Andersen’s story, “The Little Mermaid,” and the
production gave Cerito fine opportunities for expressive miming
as well as dancing, one of the great moments of the ballet being
the scene in which the little Naiad realises at last the mortal
life which has been given her, when, for the first time she sees
her shadow cast by the moonlight; and then came one of the chief
sensations of the ballet--Cerito’s dancing of the famous _pas de
l’ombre_, a thing of such beauty that the audience wished it a joy
for ever.
Cerito made her Parisian _début_ with success in 1847, in a ballet
called “La Fille de Marbre,” composed by St. Leon.
A French critic, speaking of her personal attractions, described her
as “_petite et dodue ... les bras ronds et d’un contour moelleux, les
yeux bleus, le sourire facile, la jambe forte, le pied petit, mais
épais, la chevelure blonde, mais rebelle_.” A charming little picture.
[Illustration: Fanny Cerito and St. Leon]
[Illustration: Lucille Grahn and Perrot]
Another critic wrote: “Short in stature and round in frame, Cerito
is one example of how grace will overcome the lack of personal
elegance, how mental animation will convey vivacity and attraction to
features which, in repose, are heavy and inexpressive. With a figure
which would be too redundant, were it not for its extreme flexibility
and abandon, Cerito is yet a charming _artiste_, who has honourably
earned a high popularity and deservedly retained it.”
Some idea of her style as a dancer, as well as of her personal
appearance, is afforded by another contemporary who described her as
“bondante and abondante.”
Among her other successes were “La Vivandière” and “Le Diable au
Violon.” For the last-named the violin was played by St. Leon, the
violinist and ballet-master, whom she married. She separated from
him in 1850. In April, 1854, she won a striking success in a ballet,
“Gemma,” which she had composed in collaboration with Théophile
Gautier--a great admirer of her--and she retired later in the same
year.
CHAPTER XXIX
LUCILE GRAHN (“EOLINE”)
Lucile Grahn was born at Copenhagen, June 30th, 1821, and is said to
have been so delighted with a ballet to which she was taken when only
four years old, that she forthwith insisted on learning to dance, and
made her regular theatrical _début_ as Cupid when she was seven!
For a time she left the stage in order to pursue her studies as a
dancer. After seven years of the usual and always taxing training she
reappeared, at the age of fourteen, first in “La Muette de Portici,”
following with success in a ballet of her own composition, “Le Cinq
Seul,” then creating the _rôle_ of the Princess Astride, in a ballet
entitled “Waldemar,” and followed with the title-_rôle_ in “Hertha,”
both Scandinavian in subject.
Then she proceeded to Paris, and after studying a while under Barrez,
was recalled suddenly to Copenhagen to take part in a fête arranged
in honour of the Queen of Denmark, and so did not make her Parisian
_début_ until she appeared at the Opera in “Le Carnaval de Venise,”
in 1838, in which she achieved an immediate success, only excelled
in the following year when she captured all Parisians’ hearts in the
ballet which Taglioni had already made famous--“Sylphide.”
Unhappily, in the spring of 1840, her career was interrupted by an
accident while rehearsing a _variation_ which she was to perform at
the benefit of Madame Falcon, the singer; and in consequence of
inflammation of the knee she was laid up for some time in spite of
the most careful attention. She never appeared at the Paris Opera
again; but in the next few years her recovery was sufficient to allow
of her achieving many successes in London, as well as taking part in
the famous Quartette.
In 1844 she appeared in “Lady Henriette” at Drury Lane, and in the
following Spring was engaged for the entire season of the Italian
Opera at Her Majesty’s, where she won the most dazzling of her
successes in a ballet entitled “Eoline,” produced in April, 1845.
A contemporary critic records the production in the following
amusingly naïve terms: “The ballet ‘Eoline,’ with its poetic story,
and its lovely feminine features (_sic_), was the great hit of the
first night, spite the difficulties of complicated scenery and
mechanical effects. The ballet worked wonders, and Lucile Grahn
exhibits nightly the most delightful grace and modesty of deportment,
in addition to certainty and aplomb of position, reminding one of
Canova’s masterpieces of sculpture.”
Grahn made a great success as Catarina in “La Fille du Bandit,”
during May, 1848. According to one critic it “exhibited her talents
in a higher degree than anything she has previously appeared in. As
the bandit’s daughter she assumes a dignified bearing, like that of
one born to command, and supports it throughout whether in dancing or
action ... and the grace of her solos commands numerous encores.”
Yet greater success followed in “Le Jugement de Pâris,” the honours
therein, however, being shared with Cerito and Taglioni. This
appearance was in connection with one of the most striking sensations
of the theatrical season of 1848 (certainly the most remarkable in
the history of ballet, save for the famous _Pas de Quatre_ of three
years before), namely, the _Pas des Déesses_, which was performed in
the presence of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
Even the Russians of our day never evoked greater excitement or
enthusiasm than that which greeted the appearance of these three
great dancers of the ’forties in one ballet. A contemporary critic,
contrasting the production with that of the former _Pas de Quatre_
remarked that “for poetry of idea and execution the _Pas des Déesses_
has decidedly the advantage,” and goes on to say: “Besides this,
though the attention is principally directed to the three great
_danseuses_, yet the grouping is rendered far more effective by the
addition of other actors.
“The _Pas des Déesses_ has another recommendation; it is longer, and
the intervals while the three ‘stars’ are resting themselves, are
filled up by the charming butterfly steps of Louise Taglioni, and the
most incredible feats on the part of St. Leon and Perrot. In fact,
all here surpass themselves--of Taglioni, Grahn, Cerito, each in turn
seems to obtain the advantage--though, of course, the palm is finally
adjudged by each spectator accordingly as his taste is originally
inclined. For ourselves, as critics, obliged to put away all previous
predilections, we are compelled to confess that each in her peculiar
style, in this _pas_, reaches the _ne plus ultra_ of her art, and
each is different.
“Though the styles of Taglioni and Lucille Grahn at first sight
would seem to be identical, yet they have both their own peculiar
characteristics. The buoyant energy of Grahn contrasts with that
peculiar quietness that marks Taglioni’s most daring feats, while
Cerito, who by her very smallness of stature, seems fitted by nature
for another style of dancing, bounds to and fro, as though in the
plenitude of enjoyment. We have never seen either of these great
_danseuses_ achieve such wonders as in this _pas_. The improvement
of Lucile Grahn is, above all, marvellous; she introduces a step
entirely new and exquisitely graceful; and, though it must be of most
difficult achievement, she executes it with an ease and lightness
which gives her the appearance of flying. It is a species of _valse
renversée_ on a grand scale. One of the most effective moments with
Cerito is that in which she comes on with St. Leon, executing a
_jetés battus_ in the air, and, at the same moment, turning her head
suddenly to catch a sight of the much-desired apple. This never fails
to elicit thunders of applause, and an encore.
“As for Taglioni, after taking the most daring leaps in her own easy
and exquisitely graceful manner, she flits across the stage with a
succession of steps, which, though perfectly simple, are executed
with such inconceivable lightness and such enchanting grace, as
invariably to call forth one of the most enthusiastic encores we
ever remember to have witnessed; in fact, from beginning to end
of the _divertissement_, all the spectators are kept in a state
of excitement, which finds vent in clappings, in shoutings, and
_bravas_, occasionally quite deafening.”
The reference to the styles of Taglioni and Lucile Grahn as being
almost “identical” is made additionally interesting by the discerning
manner in which the critic contrasts the “buoyant energy of Grahn”
with that “peculiar quietness” that marked Taglioni’s most daring
efforts.
Both had studied in the traditional school and to that extent were
bound to be somewhat similar. Their differences were due to physique
and temperament, Grahn, the fair Dane, was somewhat heavier in build,
had always been stronger and was also younger than Taglioni, who,
weakly in childhood, had always been of more _raffinée_ build and
temperament, and was now perhaps a shade less energetic than in the
days when she had delighted London with her earliest appearances some
fifteen years before. Still, that “peculiar quietness” had always
distinguished her and was that very quality which had made her so
ideal an exponent of “Sylphide.”
Lucile Grahn, who was tall, slim, with blue eyes and blonde hair, was
said, as regards her dancing, to possess “less strength than Elssler,
less flexibility than Taglioni, but more of both than anyone else.”
She appeared in London each season until 1848, when the arrival of
Jenny Lind created such a craze for Opera--and for Jenny Lind--that
Ballet temporarily lost its attraction for London audiences. She
comes close to our own times, for she died at Munich in the spring of
1907.
CHAPTER XXX
THE DECLINE AND REVIVAL
Following what may be called “the Taglioni era” came a period of
comparative dullness. There _were_ successors who charmed their
audiences in London, in Paris, in Rome, Vienna and America. There was
the brilliant Caroline Rosati; the stately Amalia Ferraris; dashing
Rita Sangalli--who married a Baron; dainty Rosita Mauri; Petipa,
Fabbri, and others whose name and fame were brilliant but transient.
But these, you will say, were all foreigners. Had we no English
ballet dancers? Well, it may safely be said that Ballet in England
was never more thoroughly English, or more thoroughly banal, than for
some twenty years before and after the Taglioni period.
From 1850 onwards it was the period of the Great Utilities, of which
Ballet was not one! Save for a few good examples later at the old
Canterbury Music Hall, with Miss Phyllis Broughton as _première
danseuse_, at Weston’s Music Hall, Holborn, and at the Alhambra under
Strange’s management, and some good productions at the Crystal Palace
arranged by M. Leon Espinosa, it was practically a close time for
artistic dance and ballet for something like a quarter of a century.
The state of public disfavour into which the art had fallen is
well seen from the interesting extract from the _Era Almanack_ of
1872, in which one reads: “Judging from Mr. Mapleson’s extensive
productions the ballet was another sheet anchor on which he relied.
Madame Katti Lanner, a Viennese _danseuse_ of great repute, was, with
other foreign artists, engaged for the _express purpose of reviving
an interest in the old-fashioned, elaborate ballet of action_. The
experiment was boldly made, but failed; and it is clear that all
modern audiences care for is an incidental _divertissement_ which
may mean something or nothing. As for a story worked out by clever
pantomime, people refuse to stay and see it, and the deserted
appearance of the theatre while ‘Giselle’ and other ballets were
in progress was a significant hint that incidental dances only are
appreciated by opera-goers of the present day. The ballets invented
by Madame Katti Lanner were ‘La Rose de Séville,’ ‘Hvika’ and one or
two nameless _divertissements_. She danced in them all, and in the
first act of ‘Giselle.’”
Thus, London audiences from, roughly, 1850 to 1870, had not that
burning interest in the art of ballet which they had displayed for
the twenty years or so preceding 1850; indeed, they had little or
no interest in it. In Paris conditions were much the same. There
were dancers of some ability and transient popularity, as we have
noted, but no ballet and no dancer appeared of outstanding merit
such as those of the great periods of the eighteenth century, the
mid-nineteenth, or such as we have seen to-day. Even dancing, apart
from ballet, was of comparatively little interest.
In London, with the ’eighties came the dear old Gaiety and another
_pas de quatre_, that in “Faust Up-to-Date,” a very different one
from that of the ’forties, not the toe-dancing of classic ballet, but
step-dancing of the characteristic and admirable English school; and
it was a very bright and inspiring dance done with tremendous _verve_
by the Misses Florence Levey, Lillian Price, Maud Wilmot, and Eva
Greville.
Supreme, however, as an exponent of the English school of dancing
was, unquestionably, Kate Vaughan, who, with Sylvia Grey, Alice
Lethbridge, Letty Lind, and others of that period, and for well into
the ’nineties, were the delight of London.
Kate Vaughan herself was one of the most distinguished dancers
England has ever had--distinguished for incomparable grace, finish,
and characteristically English refinement of manner. There were
no ragged edges to her work. Her art was--as all good art must
be--deliberate; her every pose and movement beautiful, and always
instinct with the quintessence of a special and personal charm that
never failed her to the end. I saw her dance, shortly before her
death, at a concert given on behalf of one of the various charities
which arose out of the Boer War; and all the art and all the charm
which had made Kate Vaughan a stage influence in her time were as
amply evident as when she had first delighted us some twenty years
before.
With the ’eighties came the rise of the Ballet as a regular London
institution, on the founding of those two veteran Vaudeville houses,
the Empire and the Alhambra, where for about a quarter of a century,
practically without interruption, Ballet was the chief item on their
always varied and attractive programmes. Of course, there was in
1884 the famous production of Manzotti’s great ballet “Excelsior” at
Her Majesty’s Theatre; but it was not really until the opening of
the two aforenamed houses that we had a real revival of Ballet in
London apart from the Opera, and without that State-aid which the art
receives on the Continent.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE ALHAMBRA: 1854-1903
Both the Alhambra and the Empire were alike in having had a somewhat
varied career before they became the rival “homes of English ballet.”
There was something like a craze for music-halls in the early
’sixties of last century, and it was probably partly due to this that
the Alhambra, which had been opened in 1854 as a Panopticon of the
Arts and Sciences (with a Royal Charter granted by Queen Victoria in
1850) failing of its more ambitious purpose, ceased (unsuccessfully)
to instruct, and sought (with better success) only to amuse.
First it was given over to more or less unorthodox religious services
on the Sundays and to boxing contests and wrestling on the week days!
Then for a time it came under the direction of a then well-known
theatrical manager and speculator, the late Mr. E. T. Smith, who
called it the Alhambra, and in 1870 secured a regular music-hall
licence. The place was still not very successful. It became a circus
for a short time.
Then it was taken over by a Mr. William Wilde, of Nottingham, who
introduced Leotard, the famous gymnast, about whose wonderful grace
and daring London went mad, so much so that on his return visit in
1866, under the late John Hollingshead’s management, he received a
salary of £180 a week.
Then Mr. Frederick Strange, who had been connected with the Crystal
Palace, became manager and introduced ballet, his most notable
production being one called “L’Enfant Prodigue,” which was adapted
from Auber’s opera. Mr. Jules Riviere was the conductor of the
orchestra; and among those who became responsible for the arranging
of the ballets were the brothers Imré and Bolossy Kiralfy, assisted
by their sister Aniola, one of their most successful productions
being one entitled “Hungary.”
At this period the old quarrel between the young “music-halls”
and the “legitimate” theatres was growing serious. A ballet might
be produced so long as it was called and was, in effect, a mere
_divertissement_. Anything else, a musical sketch, or opera--in which
words were said or sung--was held an infringement of the rights of a
regular theatre, and when John Hollingshead, as stage director during
1865-1867, produced in 1866 a pantomime called “Where’s the Police?”
the management were fined by a magistrate some two hundred and forty
pounds. Apart from ballet and such a production as this pantomime,
there was, of course, plenty of the “variety” element, contributed by
such performers as Leotard, the Farinis, and the Foucarts, gymnasts;
and various vocalists known to their period.
With the dawn of the ’seventies came a new taste for ballet and “Les
Nations” was staged at the Alhambra with a Mlle. Colonna and other
dancers, including Esther Austin (a sister of Emily Soldene) in the
cast; and a “Parisian Quadrille” became a feature of the production.
Then came a season of “Promenade” Concerts, and during the
Franco-Prussian war the conductor, Mr. Jules Riviere, gave the “War
Songs of Europe,” those of the French and Prussian nations evoking
such passion that free fights occurred, and the theatre lost its
music-hall licence; and the Directors of the Alhambra Company
promptly secured a regular theatre licence from the Lord Chamberlain!
So on April 24th, 1871, the place was opened as the Alhambra
Theatre, with an evening’s entertainment including a farce, “Oh,
My Head!”; a comic opera, “The Crimson Scarf”; and two ballets,
“The Beauties of the Harem” and “Puella.” Then followed another
ballet “The Sylph of the Glen”; and then “A Romantic Tale,” by J. B.
Johnston, and an extravaganza, “All About the Battle of Dorking.”
In September of the same year the Vokes, a famous family of dancers,
made their appearance, the programme including “The Two Gregorys,”
a comic ballet, and “The Mountain Sylph,” and “The Beauties of the
Harem,” in which a Mlle. Sismondi appeared with much success. The
Christmas pantomime which followed, with the title “Harlequin Prince
Happy-go-Lucky, or Princess Beauty” (a title quite in the good old
pantomime style), included a ballet, with such performers as Mlles.
Pitteri, Sismondi, and another well-known dancing family, the Elliots.
There was a change of management in March, 1872, when John Baum,
from Cremorne Gardens, took up the reins and produced Offenbach’s
“Le Roi Carotte,” with M. Jacobi as musical director, and ballets
as a feature of the production. Then followed “The Black Crook,”
and Offenbach’s beautiful opera, “La Belle Hélène,” and then, in
December, 1873, “Don Juan,” in each of the last two Miss Kate Santley
playing “lead.”
In the spring of next year came “La Jolie Parfumeuse,” followed in
the autumn with a ballet, “The Demon’s Bride,” and “Whittington,” an
_opéra bouffe_, in which the honours were shared by Miss Kate Santley
and Miss Julia Mathews.
In the autumn of 1875, with Mr. Joseph A. Cave as Manager and
producer, came “Spectresheim,” and a comic ballet, “Cupid in
Arcadia,” in which the Lauri family and “The Majiltons” appeared.
A succession of farces, pantomimes, extravaganzas, light opera and
ballets followed, the more noteworthy productions being Strauss’s
“Die Fledermaus,” produced at the Alhambra on January 9th, 1877.
As an example of the lavish manner in which the audiences of those
days were catered for, the programme for that evening is interesting.
There was none of the “9 to 11” business about the theatres then. The
“gallery boy” paid his sixpence, or the “pittite” his two shillings
expecting a run for his money--and got it! The majority of theatres
began their performance at 7.15 p.m.; and those that did not, started
even earlier, sometimes as early as six o’clock, and often with four
or five productions. On January 9th, 1877, the programme at the
Alhambra was as follows:
7.15. “A Warning to Parents.” A Farce.
8.0. “Die Fledermaus.” Opera Comique by Johann Strauss.
10.0. The Celebrated Girards. Eccentric Dancers.
10.15. “The Fairies’ Home.” A New Grand Ballet.
“Die Fledermaus” had an excellent cast, including Miss Emma
Chambers--a very popular soubrette of the time--and Mr. Harry
Paulton; while in the ballet were a Mlle. Pertoldi, a very handsome
_danseuse_ of statuesque proportions, a Mlle. T. de Gillert, a clever
mime, and among lesser lights Mlles. Sismondi, Melville, Rosa and
Richards, who were for several years to be more or less prominently
associated with the Alhambra ballet.
In September of the same year was staged Offenbach’s _opéra bouffe_,
“Orphée aux Enfers,” with handsome, golden-tressed Cornélie d’Anka
as the chief attraction; the same programme including the ballet of
“Yolande,” “invented and designed” by Alfred Thompson, with music
by Mons. G. Jacobi, and dances by Mons. A. Bertrand, from the Paris
Opera, who was later to become more closely associated with Alhambra
productions. The principal _danseuses_ were Mlles. Passani, Pertoldi,
de Gillert and M. A. Josset.
It has been stated that it was “towards the end of 1877” that the
late Mr. Charles Morton--one of the ablest theatrical managers London
has known--took charge of the Alhambra, and that he started his
connection therewith by reviving one of his former great successes,
namely, “La Fille de Madame Angot.” He may have become connected with
the theatre towards the end of 1877, but apparently the first time
his name appeared on the programme as Manager was early in January,
1878; and not with “Madame Angot” as his first production, but with
“Wildfire,” a “Grand, Spectacular, Fairy, Musical and Pantomimic
Extravaganza” (as it was described) by the then very popular
_collaborateurs_, H. B. Farnie and R. Reece--an extra extravagant
extravaganza in three acts and fourteen tableaux!
This remarkable production had a strong cast, including Harry
Paulton, J. H. Ryley, two charming singers, Miss Lennox Grey
and Miss Pattie Laverne; and among the _danseuses_ in the
_divertissement_--Mlles. Pertoldi, de Gillert and Sismondi.
Next month came a triple bill, starting at 7.20 with a farce,
“Crowded Houses”; then, at 8, “La Fille de Madame Angot,” with
Mlles. Cornélie d’Anka, Selina Dolaro and Lennox Grey as the bright
particular stars; followed, at 10.30, with “Les Gardes Françaises,” a
grand military ballet; with Mlles. E. Pertoldi and T. de Gillert as
the leading artists, the dances being arranged by Mons. A. Bertrand,
the whole production proving very successful.
Much of its success--as in the case of the two or three preceding
spectacles--was attributable largely to the beauty of the staging and
the splendour of the costumes, apropos to which it should be noted
here that it was first in 1877 that M. and Mme. Charles Alias first
began to make costumes for the Alhambra, and were associated with it
in several subsequent productions until the end of 1883.
It was not, however, until 1884, when the Magistrate’s licence for
music and dancing was again recovered, that M. Alias (to whom I am
indebted for several details of the theatre’s history) regularly took
up the position of Costumier to the Alhambra, in which capacity he
had entire control of the costume department--a very important factor
in spectacular production--and supplied every dress worn on the stage
for a period of about thirty years. Considering that there were some
nine or ten complete changes of management during that time it speaks
volumes for his ability and the excellence of the work done by M.
Alias that his services should have been retained through so lengthy
a period.
To return, however, to the days when the Alhambra was not a
“music-hall” but a theatre, with the Lord Chamberlain’s licence, and
was giving _opéra comique_ and _opéra bouffe_ as well as ballet.
Charles Morton’s next production, in April, 1878, was another
Offenbach revival, namely, “The Grand Duchess,” with Mlle. Cornélie
d’Anka, Miss Rose Lee and J. D. Stoyle (“Jimmy” Stoyle), Pertoldi and
T. de Gillert in the cast, M. Bertrand (by now engaged as “resident”
ballet-master) introducing two ballets, one Hungarian and the other
Bohemian.
In the following June came the production of Von Suppé’s comic opera,
“Fatinitza,” adapted by Henry S. Leigh, with the late Aynsley Cook,
Miss Rose Lee, John J. Dallas and other popular stars in the cast. It
was preceded by a farce, “Which is Which,” and followed by a “grand
Indian” _ballet d’action_ by the late J. Albery, entitled “The Golden
Wreath,” arranged by Bertrand, with music by Jacobi, and with Mlles.
G. David, E. Pertoldi and T. de Gillert as dancers. It was, from
all accounts, a very gorgeous production. Indeed, so successful was
it that when Offenbach’s “Geneviève de Brabant” was staged in the
autumn, this ballet was “still running.”
The sensation of the following spring was the production of “La Poule
aux Œufs d’Or,” a “new grand Spectacular and Musical _féerie_,” by
MM. Denhery and Clairville, adapted to the English stage by Frank
Hall, with a very strong cast including such well-known favourites
as Constance Loseby, Emily Soldene, Clara Vesey, Violet Granville,
the celebrated French duettists Bruet and Rivière, Aynsley Cook, E.
Righton (“Teddy” Righton), with Pertoldi and de Gillert as leading
_danseuses_.
In the autumn came a revival of Offenbach’s “The Princess of
Trebizonde,” with Miss Alice May, Miss Constance Loseby, Miss Emma
Chambers, Mr. Charles Collette, Mr. Furneaux Cook, in the cast, the
opera being followed by “Le Carnaval de Venise,” a ballet in which
that fine, statuesque dancer and expressive mime, Mme. Malvina
Cavallazi--later to become so great a favourite with the Empire’s
audiences--was supported by Mlle. de Gillert and other Alhambra
favourites, and for which, as in the case of many ballets at this
period--the gorgeous costumes were from designs by Faustin.
This was succeeded by Lecocq’s comic opera “La Petite Mademoiselle,”
of which the English libretto was by Reece and Henry S. Leigh, a
very brilliant cast including the late Fred Leslie, Harry Paulton,
Constance Loseby, Emma Chambers and Alice May, the opera being
preceded by a farce and followed by a ballet, “Carmen,” dances by
Bertrand and music by Jacobi.
On December 22nd, 1879, came the production of “Rothomago,” a “Grand,
New, Christmas Fairy Spectacle,” arranged by H. B. Farnie from the
French, in four acts and _seventeen tableaux_! It was the day of big
adjectives and big productions.
This apparently started the modern fashion of requiring a positive
syndicate of musical collaborators, for the late Edward Solomon was
responsible for the music of the First Act, P. Bucalossi for the
Second, Gaston Serpette (composer of “Les Cloches de Corneville”) for
the Third, no less than three ballets being contributed by Jacobi.
The cast included Constance Loseby, Mlle. Julie, Emma Chambers, Harry
Paulton, Pertoldi, de Gillert, Rosselli; the costumes were designed
by Mr. C. Wilhelm, and executed, as were so many of the costumes for
these earlier productions, by Madame Alias, Miss Fisher and Mrs. May.
The spring of 1880 was marked by the successful production of
Offenbach’s “La Fille du Tambour-Major,” with an excellent cast
including Constance Loseby, Edith Blande, Fanny Edwards, the
fascinating Fanny Leslie--who later became so popular a “variety
artiste”--Fred Leslie, and Fred Marvin. It was followed by a gorgeous
Egyptian ballet “Memnon,” in which Mlle. Pertoldi, Miss Matthews--a
very handsome English dancer--and Mlles. Rosa and Marie Muller
(pupils of Mme. Katti Lanner) were the chief attractions, not to
mention Ænea, known as the “Flying Wonder.”
Mr. Charles Morton left the Alhambra in 1881, and a striking success
was achieved by the new manager, Mr. William Holland, with “Babil and
Bijou,” the cast including Miss Rosa Berend, Miss Constance Loseby,
Harry Paulton, and Harry Monkhouse; while in the two grand ballets
arranged by Bertrand and for which the dresses were designed by
Mr. Wilhelm, were to be seen Mlle. Pertoldi, and Mme. Palladino, a
_petite_ and fascinating dancer who later was to become one of the
leading favourites at the Empire.
In December, 1882, the theatre was burnt down, and on rebuilding
various successful productions were staged. The house, however, did
not really enter upon its most triumphant phase until October, 1884,
when it became the Alhambra Theatre of Varieties, with ballet now as
its main attraction.
The first of the productions was “A Village Festival,” a new grand
ballet of Olden Times, with Mlle. Palladino as the _première
danseuse_. It was followed in the December with another, a very
successful ballet, “The Swans,” with Mlle. Palladino and a Miss
Mathews, a very popular dancer in her day. On the Christmas Eve
yet another was staged, “Melusine,” a new fantastic ballet, in
which a Mlle. Sampietro was supported by Miss Mathews. “Nina the
Enchantress”; “Le Bivouac”--a military spectacle; “Cupid;” “The
Seasons”; “Nadia”; “Algeria”; “Dresdina”; “Enchantment”; “Antiope”;
“Ideala,” a “pastoral divertissement”; “Irene”--a fantastic
ballet; “Our Army and Navy”--patriotic spectacle; “Astrea,” were
progressively successful productions.
“Asmodeus”; “Zanetta” followed, bringing us to June, 1890, and these
too, were notable for some gorgeous stage effects which drew “all
London,” and for the dancing of principals such as the two already
mentioned, and of Mme. Cormani, Signorina Legnani, Signorina Bessone,
Mme. Roffey and Signor de Vicenti, the last named being for many
years associated with the Alhambra productions.
“Salandra,” given for the first time on June 23rd, 1890, was a
remarkably fine production, and with the late Charles Morton as
Acting Manager, Vernon Dowsett as Stage Manager, Mr. T. E. Ryan for
Scenic Artist, Signor Casati as _maître de ballet_, M. and Mme.
Alias responsible for the costumes; and a superb orchestra of fifty
instrumentalists under Mons. G. Jacobi, the Alhambra’s new era of
growing prosperity was now assured.
The ballet was in five tableaux, and involved some striking changes
of scene. The heroine, Salandra (Signorina Legnani) was a Gipsy
Queen, and the opening scene introduced various Tzigane dances.
There was an exciting wrestling match, and a lively hunting dance in
the third tableau; a charming fair scene in the last, and the whole
production exhibited to the full those characteristics of brightness,
efficiency of performance, and splendour of stage effect, which were
long to mark the Alhambra as a house of distinction and one high in
popular favour.
For Christmas of that year “The Sleeping Beauty” proved attractive,
and was followed in 1891, by “On the Roofs,” a “pantomime
ballet” by the famous Lauri troupe. “Oriella,” a new fantastic
ballet--described as “the most beautiful of all” then produced at
the Alhambra--followed; then a musical pantomime by Charles Lauri,
“The Sculptor and the Poodle”; then a comic ballet, “The Sioux,” by
Charles Lauri and his troupe, with music by Mr. Walter Slaughter; and
in September, 1892, came “Up the River,” a very popular production
invented by the late John Hollingshead (who was now Manager) in which
the rural and riverside scenery by Mr. T. E. Ryan was very much
admired; the scenic effects--including a remarkable storm--being
admirably managed; the ballet capitally performed; and M. Jacobi’s
flowing and richly orchestrated music proving better than ever.
“Temptation,” a “new, grand fantastic ballet, in three tableaux,”
invented and arranged by Signor Carlo Coppi, with scenery by Ryan,
and music by M. Jacobi, was a big and very successful production, in
which a Signorina Elia, as _première_, made a hit.
The production of “Aladdin” by John Hollingshead on December
19th, 1892, called forth tributes of praise for the enterprising
and ingenious Manager. The familiar story was well kept to, the
situations were telling, and the four changes of scene were effected
without once lowering the curtain, while the last, “The Veil of
Diamonds,” was amazing. A tableau curtain of glass was introduced,
composed of some 75,000 glass facets held together by _twenty-four
miles_ of wire, and illuminated by various electric and other lights
of different colours, the whole achieving one of the most wonderful
effects ever seen on the stage, one not easily forgotten.
The cast was a strong one, Signorina Legnani--a finished dancer of
the typical Italian school--as the Princess; Mlle. Marie, a charming
little dancer and clever mime, as Aladdin; Signorina Pollini, as the
Spirit of the Lamp; that fine actor and dancer, Mr. Fred Storey, as
the Magician; with good support from Mme. Roffey, Miss Hooten, the
Almonti Brothers, and, of course, a wondrous array of beauty among
the Alhambra _corps de ballet_. Mr. Bruce Smith had provided artistic
scenery; Mr. Howard Russell was the designer of the costumes--as for
several of the Alhambra ballets--which were admirably turned out as
usual by M. and Mme. Alias; and M. Jacobi had once again surpassed
himself in the music, that for the beautiful “chrysanthemum” scene
and a waltz in A, in the finale, proving especially popular.
Another great success was achieved in the production of “Chicago,” in
March, 1893, a lively, up-to-date production, which later ran into a
second edition. “Fidelia,” adapted from “Le Violon du Diable,” was a
romantic ballet that also went into a second edition. The Alhambra
by now had as Business Manager, Mr. Albert A. Gilmer, with Mr. A. G.
Ford as Stage Manager, though Signor Casati, as _maître de ballet_,
M. G. Jacobi, as conductor and composer of the music, were still
continuing in their accustomed spheres.
Yet another success achieved under the same able direction was
“Don Quixote,” with Mr. Fred Storey as a brilliant exponent of the
title-_rôle_, and Signorina Porro as the Dulcinea, La Salmoiraghi as
the niece, and Mr. Fred Yarnold, as the Sancho Panza, other parts
being well filled by Miss Julia Seale (a handsome and clever dancer
and mime long associated with the Alhambra), Mme. Roffey, Miss Hooten
and the Almontis.