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.