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.