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.”