Anna Pavlova

Aims and tendencies of the nineteenth century—Maria Taglioni—Fanny Elssler—Carlotta Grisi and Fanny Cerito; decadence of the classic ballet.

The end of the Napoleonic wars marks the beginning of a new era of European art, particularly of the ballet. To this period belong the great ballet masters, Taglioni, Bournoville, Didelot, and the greatest of all, Marius Petipa; the great ballet composers, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Adam, Delibes, Nuitter, Dubois, Hartmann, Gade, Tschaikowsky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff; the celebrated ballerinas, Taglioni, Grisi, Elssler, GenÉe, Teleshova, Novitzkaya, Liadova, Muravieva, Bogdanova, Sokolova and Kshesinskaya. It seems as if the evolution of the art of dancing is always stopped by political disturbances; during the middle of the past century, which was marked by revolutionary movements, in which even Wagner participated, we notice a sudden indifference to dancing ideals on the part of the public. The history of evolution seems to proceed in certain cosmic waves of public sentiment and ideals. They grow, reach their climax and die.

The foundation that the French Academy, particularly Noverre, Vestris and Gardel, had laid for the ballet, developed during the nineteenth century into a solid and essential stage art. We find the beginning of a rivalry among the various schools, of which those of Paris, Milan, Vienna, Stockholm, Copenhagen and St. Petersburg stand in the first rank. Like music and drama, the ballet strives either towards the classic or romantic. The most conspicuous ballets of this period are La Sylphide by LÉo Delibes, Corsaire by Adam, Sakuntala by Gautier, La Source by Delibes, La Farandole by Dubois, Sylvia by Delibes, Gretna Green by Nuitter, Excelsior and Sieba by Manxotti, Flore et Zephire by Didelot, La Esmeralda by Perrot and Pugni, Iphigenia in Aulis by Gluck, Laurette by Galcotti, Ghiselle by Gautier and Adam, Abdallah by Bournoville and Paulli, Arkona by Hartmann, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Snow Maiden by Tschaikowsky, Baba Yaga by Balakireff, Scheherezade by Rimsky-Korsakoff, etc.

The main tendency of the nineteenth century ballet is to get rid of the mechanical contrivances, the monstrous etiquette and majestic solemnity and, like music, give it more coherence and better harmony with the plot. Between 1820 and 1850 it became an inseparable accompaniment to the opera to such an extent that the occupants of the gilded boxes preferred the thrill of the dancing to the music. The ballet represented at that time more than a stage filled with masses of elegant coryphÉes and a magnificent spectacle. The public interest began to centre in a few great dancers whose names were as familiar to the audiences as those of the prima donnas. The first phenomenon of this kind was the cult of Taglioni that spread with miraculous rapidity throughout the Occidental world.

I

Maria Taglioni was born at Stockholm in 1804 of an Italian father and Swedish mother and made her dÉbut in Vienna in 1822, in the ballet Reception d’une jeune Nymphe À la Court de Terpsichore, written by her father, M. Taglioni, who was a ballet master in the Swedish Royal Opera. Inspired by the ideas of Noverre, M. Taglioni laid a solid foundation for his daughter’s training in dancing. Though she was successful in her dÉbut in Vienna, the father did not think that she was sufficiently ripe for public appearances in a larger style, so he continued to instruct the girl himself and secured for her education other celebrities of the time. Even when she appeared five years later in Le Sicilien, in Paris, she did not arouse any enthusiasm. It was only in Les Bayaderes and, above all, in La Sylphide, that her art attained the utmost limits of spirituality and she was hailed as one of the most ethereal appearances that the European stage had ever seen.

Taglioni appeared in Paris in La Vestale, Mars et Venus, Le Carnaval de Venise, and many other ballets, which marked the beginning of her career. A French critic of that time writes: ‘Her talent, so instinct with simple grace and modesty, her lightness, the suppleness of her attitudes, at once voluptuous and refined, made a sensation at once. She revealed a new form of dancing, a virginal and diaphanous art, instinct with an originality all her own, in which the old traditions and time-honored rules of choreography were merged. After an appearance of a few days only on our boards, this charming mirage vanished to shine in great triumph at Munich and Stuttgart. But she came back, and an enthusiastic reception awaited her. And in the midst of these brilliant successes, taking the hearts of the people by storm, admitted to the intimate friendship of the Queen of Wurtemberg, she remained sweet, simple and reserved.’

Besides her choreographic training, Taglioni was a highly educated girl in every other respect, and was of the most charming personality and manners. The people, and even her many rivals, loved and adored her as a great artist and great woman. Though not pretty in any sense, as so many other dancers were, she was fascinating through her distinct spiritual appeal. This same note of spirituality manifested itself in her dance. Her admirers used to say that she looked in La Sylphide like some supernatural being always ready to take wing and soar up in the air. Her steps were pure and innocent, as were all her gestures and mimic expressions. Even in her romantic dances she failed to suggest any symptoms of voluptuous or sensual emotions. Throughout her life she remained as poetic as she was in her art.

In London she appeared first in 1830 in Didelot’s ballet Flore et ZÉphire and made an instantaneous success. On nights when she was announced to appear the London theatre was literally besieged. Thackeray immortalized her in his ‘The Newcomes,’ saying, ‘you can never see anything so graceful as Taglioni.’ She received in London £100 a night, and insisted on handsome sums for her family, as well as £600 for her father as ballet master, £900 to her brother and sister-in-law, together with two benefit performances. She was so much the fashion of the hour that women wore Taglioni hats, gowns, and coats, and even a stage coach was called after her.

With all her charm and refinement, Taglioni was in many respects an undeveloped girl emotionally, capricious and sentimental to her finger-tips. It is said that one evening when Perrot, her partner, happened to receive a greater amount of applause than she, she refused to continue the performance, and accused her surrounding stage people of having intrigued against her for malicious reason. She received immense sums of money, but she spent everything just as lavishly as it was received, not so much on herself as for her relatives, friends and the poor. She married Comte Gilbert des Voisins in 1832, but their married life was of short duration. There is a story that she met him some years later at a dinner at the Comte de Morny’s, when he had the effrontery to ask to be introduced to Maria Taglioni. She replied that she thought she had made the gentleman’s acquaintance in 1832, the year of her marriage. In 1837 she went to Russia and remained there for five years as prima ballerina of the Imperial Ballet.

Taglioni’s freedom and style had a great influence upon the development of the ballet at that juncture. Her dress, a long tunic of white silk muslin which reached almost to her ankles and fell in graceful folds from her figure, was the first of this kind. Through this she was able to reveal the plastic lines of her body, and thus made her movements free from the artificial stiffness that had prevailed before her. She was a reformer in many ways, and in this her father, as a practical ballet-master, was of material help. It was not until Fanny Elssler appeared in 1847 that Taglioni began to lose her hold upon the public. Little by little her art grew old-fashioned to the novelty-loving audiences, as the dancing of Elssler brought a new note of more romantic nature to the stage. Actually this change was nothing but a turn of public sentiment indicative of some new social fad. Trying to maintain her living by giving dancing lessons in various European capitals, she died in Marseilles in 1884, in great poverty, forsaken by all her previous adorers and frenzied audiences.

II

Of a very different nature were the art and personality of Fanny Elssler, the pretty Viennese girl, who in many respects followed the example of Taglioni. Emerson, who saw her dancing in Boston, exclaimed, ‘that is poetry!’ But Margaret Fuller, who sat next to him, replied, ‘Ralph, it’s religion.’ Turgenieff was so impressed by her art that he wrote to Balzac: ‘Her dance is the most magic novel that I have ever read. What a mystery of beauty! Her every step and gesture is a line of unwritten verse. Her lines are accentuated phrases, her poses illustrations to the intoxicating text. Her art haunts me.’

Born in Vienna in 1810, Elssler received an early and thorough musical education from her father, who was a copyist to Haydn. Her ballet training, which she received partly in Vienna, partly in Italy, was of the old order. It was the Cachucha that made her a favorite of the Milan and Naples audiences, but, as with Taglioni, it was La Sylphide that made Elssler’s final reputation. Elssler saw La Sylphide danced by Taglioni in Munich and it electrified her so that she made it a main aim of her ambition to surpass Taglioni, which she did.

A girl of receptive mind, good education and great talent, Elssler took notice of all the critical views of her future rival, as expressed by her contemporary ballet-masters, composers and dance critics. This enabled her to embody in her art and style the features which were less developed and most disliked by Taglioni. Taglioni was said to be poetic, but lacking in romantic warmth and dramatic sentiment. In this latter quality Elssler excelled. She made a special study of those gestures, poses and steps, which express by passionate emotions, and made appropriate use of them. The mechanical features of the dance interested her little, though occasionally she indulged in acrobatic tricks. Chorley, the English critic, writes of her: ‘The exquisite management of her bust and arms set her apart from everyone whom I have ever seen before or since. Nothing in execution was too daring for her, nothing too pointed. If Mademoiselle Taglioni flew, she flashed. The one floated on the stage like a nymph, the other showered every sparkling fascination round her like a sorceress. There was more, however, of the Circe than of the Diana in her smile.’

A graphic description of Elssler is given by Gautier. ‘Clad in a skirt of rose-colored satin clinging closely to the hips, adorned with deep flounces of black lace, she came forward with a bold carriage of her slender body, and a flashing of diamonds on her breast. Her leg, like polished marble, gleams through the frail net of the stocking. Her small foot is at rest, only awaiting the signal of the music to start into motion. How charming she is with the large comb in her hair, the rose behind her ear, her flame-like glance, and her sparkling smile! At the extremity of her rose-dipped fingers tremble the ebony castaÑets. Now she darts forward; the castaÑets commence their sonorous clatter; with her hands she seems to shake down clusters of rhythm. How she twists! how she bends! what fire! what voluptuousness of motion! what eager zest! Her arms seem to swoon, her head droops, her body curves backward until her white shoulders almost graze the ground. What charm of gesture! And with that hand which sweeps over the dazzle of the footlights would not any one say that she gathered all the desires and all the enthusiasm of those who watch her?’

It was a pity that such a bitter rivalry was created between Elssler and Taglioni by theatrical managers, which became a source of fierce controversy throughout Europe. We are told by the writers of that time that a veritable war of sentiments between the Taglionists and Elsslerists lasted for years. Now the one, now the other party claimed victory. Each party claimed to have the highest art in the individual style of its idolized dancer. It was a conflict between two movements rather than two artists: here the classic idealism, there the romantic realism. Elssler at the end remained the winner, but not for a long time, as the political unrest that swept Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century distracted the public attention from the ballet. After a successful tour in America, Elssler returned to Milan, when the La Scala opera, which was supported by the Austrian government, began to feel keenly the political pulse of the time. Elssler was to appear in Perrot’s ballet Faust, when she beheld the members of the ballet wearing a medal that represented the new liberal Pope, who was strongly pro-Italian, while Elssler was an Austrian. To her it seemed a demonstration directed against her fatherland and she refused to go on the stage unless the demonstration stopped. The audience was informed of the trouble behind the scenes, and from this time on Elssler’s career was finished. Vainly trying her luck in Russia and England till 1851, she realized the sentimental opposition of all the audiences to her art and retired forever. She spent her life in comfort, as the American tour alone had netted her a sum of five hundred thousand dollars. She died in 1884 in Vienna, a few months after the death of her rival, Taglioni.

III

The star that followed Taglioni and Elssler was Carlotta Grisi, born in a village of Istria and educated in Milan by Perrot. She was a medium between the poetic Taglioni and romantic Elssler. Her favorite ballets were La Peri and Ghiselle (the libretto of the latter by ThÉophile Gautier and the music by Adolphe Adam). She was excellent in fairy rÔles, in which she showed a marvellous conception of imaginary motions and gestures. Her fragile figure was favorable to similar rÔles and in these her mimic expressions were superb. She danced in England with success, but somehow failed to arouse the enthusiasm that greeted her contemporary Fanny Cerito. Grisi married her former teacher Perrot, who composed for her many ballets.

Cerito distinguished herself in Ondine and La VivandiÈre, and was for a long time a favorite of the French audiences. A French critic writes of her: ‘A good many of our readers will probably remember Saint-LÉon, the distinguished and popular ballet-master. Originally an eminent violinist, it was out of love for the fairy-like Cerito, whom he married, that he first gave himself up to the enthusiastic study of dancing. Mme. Cerito bewitched the public with her exquisite dancing, while Saint-LÉon delighted them with his skill upon the violin and the dignity and distinction of his compositions.’

There were several French, Italian or Austrian ballet dancers who distinguished themselves at home, but none of them succeeded in attracting much the English or American public’s attention. Katty Lanner and Madame Weiss danced with some success in London, and enjoyed a high reputation in Vienna. The characteristics of all the Vienna dancers of this age were their decadent manners and their pretty, plastic poses. Vienna developed more conspicuous operetta dancers than real ballet dancers. Katty Lanner achieved a particular grace and agility in the Le Papillon, by Emma Livry.

Of the French and Italian ballet dancers that appeared during the second half of the nineteenth century most conspicuous are Leontine Beaugrand, Mlle. Subra, Rosetta Mauri, Mlle. Bernay, Mlle. Petipa, and Rita Sangalli. Though local critics praised one or other of these as rivals of Taglioni and Elssler, the fact is they were all either mere acrobatic imitators, decadent impressionists, or conventional figures. The ballet shrinks into a secondary position, as the vogue for opera and orchestral music occupies the foremost attention of the public. Stage dancing degenerates into shows of insignificant meaning. With our best will we can find nothing that would seem worthy of the attention of the French critic who writes of Beaugrand: ‘Before long the public will learn to love this strange profile—so like a frightened bird’s—and criticism will have to reckon with this aspiring talent. She has not yet put forth all her strength. It was not until she appeared in the part of CoppÉlia that she wholly revealed what was in her, and that the full extent of her grace and poetic feeling was unfolded to the public.’

One season later the expected virtuoso vanishes from the public eye and a new aspirant takes her place. Considering one after the other, one finds little crisp and spontaneous beauty in the steps and gestures of the ballerinas of the last part of the past century. The umbrella-like stiff dress of the classic ballet has only a momentary semi-sensuous appeal. In the long run it becomes unÆsthetic and unpractical, since it hides the natural lines of the human body.