Ballet's Golden Age 1830-1845 (1957)

My dear friend, I seem destined to seek beauty in all its forms and under every aspect. Each night when I visit the ballet, I find myself entranced by all types of female perfection. Like Sultan Mohammed, who in his melancholy poem wrote, "I have 400 wives and know nothing of love." As the curtain rose, she was greeted with thunders of applause. What airiness, what rhythmic movements, what noble gestures, what poetic attitudes, and above all, what a sweet melancholy, what lack of restraint, yet how chaste. At length, she glides in on a sunbeam and is received with rapturous applause. There was then a general glitter of upraised lorgnettes. The old marquis is using small telescopes, with which certain critics in the pit were also particularly intent on observations. The man of fashion has a horror of anything artistic, which must be listened to, respected, or requires an effort to be understood. He has little use for the sublimities. He wants the ethereal pirouettes of Mademoiselle Granh, the adorable flutterings of Mademoiselle Carlotta, or the alluring shape of Mademoiselle Cerrito. Madame Elssler is tall, supple, and well-formed. Her legs, elegant and well-turned, recall the slender but muscular legs of Diana, the virgin huntress. She runs through the whole gamut of human emotions, rises to the most sublime heights of dramatic art. A noble pride and innocence, energy, tears, grief, love, intoxicating joy. Costly presents were lavished upon her. Great personages came to do her homage. And the experience of being drawn through the streets in her carriage by a delirious throng of admirers soon became to her almost commonplace. But behind all the acclaim, all the applause, lay years upon years of patient work, years of discipline. And as we search back to the romantic beginnings of ballet history, we can imagine the shrill commands of the ballet master echoing in our ears. 1 2 3 4 And 1 2 And 1 2 And 1 2 3 4 And 1 2 3 4 And 1 2 And 3 And 4 Rond de jambe, eight front, eight back. 1 2 And Up and down each time you pass first position. And very good. That's it. And up and back. In, one, two. One, two. And back, and back. And up. Back. And stay Madam Celeste scored a triumph in the role of the dumb Arab boy. As the Times critic expressed it, Madam Celeste quits burlesque and becomes a dancer of high order. But the endless rehearsal continued. There was the studying, the practicing, the exercising. Right. And up. Attitude. And stay, stay. Move. He was a great teacher. He used to say, "Ah, madam, how can you remain cold in the midst of love you inspire? You must love as a woman, stripped of wings, of crown, of power. You must sacrifice yourself for this period. And once having understood this with the brain, then you must divine it with the heart. Yes?" You should have seen Madam Cerito last night go chair. She may be as short and round as any other Neapolitan dancer, but there's no gainsaying her charms, to say nothing of her great technical abilities. She also appeared in the divertissement, performing a Spanish dance with such abandon that she nearly caused a scandal by twice stopping short directly below the emperor's box. At first she dances timidly and reluctantly. Then carried away by her instinct as a woman and a spirit, she bounds lightly and dances with so seductive a grace, such overpowering fascination that her imprudent lover goes toward her with outstretched arms, his eyes burning with desire and love. A fatal madness takes hold of him. He pirouettes, bounds, follows her in most hazardous leaps. The frenzy to which he gives way reveals his secret desire to die with his mistress, to follow his beloved to the tomb. But 4:00 strikes. Dawn has come. And with it the sun brings deliverance and salvation. Flee visions of the night. Vanish, pale phantoms. Marie Taglioni was one of the greatest dancers of all time. Both her father and grandfather were famous dancers. In fact, it was Filippo Taglioni who first introduced the Sylphide in Paris in 1832 with Marie, his daughter, dancing the title role. Madame Taglioni's powers of elevation were amazing. Above all, she was possessed of that mysterious power of seeming to remain quite still in midair and then to slowly descend as though she were defying the laws of gravity. It was said that she had perfected a method of breathing which made this possible. She crosses the stage on the toe of one foot alone without the other once touching the floor. Her legs differ considerably from the usual dancer's legs, whose bodies seem to have run into their stockings. Her legs arouse the enthusiasm of the old roues in the stalls and causes them continuously to polish the lenses of their opera glasses. And why not? For after all, two beautiful legs like those of an antique statue are worthy of being studied with care. We shall be pardoned, we hope, for having discoursed at such length on legs, but we are speaking of a dancer. Her performance made the critic of the times proclaim that dancing had become an art worthy to rank with poetry and painting. She is sensual pleasure personified in the most delicious, the most diabolically exciting body in the five corners of the earth, a mouth thirsting for love and crying out to be kissed, a beautiful, captivating creature. Too captivating, perhaps, since much was asked of her and she knew not how to refuse. Mademoiselle's costume was of a delicious freshness. Her dress might have been fashioned of dragonflies' wings and her feet shod with satin made from lilies. And behind her white shoulders quivered and trembled two little wings made of peacocks' feathers, superfluous with such feet. I'm planning a divertissement, so the world shall see Cerrito, Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, and Graham all dancing together. The pas de quatre was the unquestionable sensation of the 1845 season, since it brought together four of the most celebrated dancers of that time. Each was a queen in her own right, alone, absolute, supreme. Each was to shine to the last stretch of perfection, but no one was to outshine the other. Mhm.