The Ballet had grown formalised, stale. Taglioni came as spirit from another sphere to infuse new vitality and idealism into its wearied splendour, and she provided jaded opera lovers with a new thrill. After her Parisian début, she was re-engaged for the following year and returned in the April of 1828 to win further admiration in “Les Bayadères,” and “Lydie” and “Psyché”; then, the year after, in “La Belle au Bois dormant,” a fifteen years’ engagement being finally offered to her at the Opera, with intervals of absence sufficient to enable her to pay visits to Germany, Russia, Italy and England, when, in every country, she achieved fresh triumphs.
Her London début at the benefit of Laporte, manager at Her Majesty’s Theatre, took place on June 3rd, 1830, in Didelot’s ballet of “Flore et Zephire.”
A contemporary account of her dancing says: “Taglioni unquestionably combines the finest requisites for eminence in her art. The union she displays of muscular ability with the most feminine delicacy of frame and figure is truly extraordinary. A charming simplicity, the principal characteristic of her demeanour on the stage—an utter absence of that false consequence and bombast of carriage and manner which have so peculiarly marked too many artistes of our time; and a native grace and matchless precision in her movements, even those in which the most astonishing difficulties are conquered, and which yet appear to demand of her no effort, leave us delighted with the fairyism of the lovely being before us ... and enchant us into forgetfulness of the unwearied perseverance and application by which, in aid of the lavish gifts of Nature, such unrivalled excellence has been attained.”
Every contemporary account of Taglioni insists always on that one note, the idealism of her art. The late Mme. Katti-Lanner, who saw her dance, told me once that she appeared like some fairy being always about to soar away from the earth to which she seemed so little to belong.
Was it not Victor Hugo who inscribed a volume which he sent to her: “à vos pieds—à vos ailes”?
It was but natural then that she should be the ideal exponent of the title-rôle in that graceful Ballet “Sylphide,” which was produced at Paris on March 14th, 1832.
The importance of the new influence brought to bear on the art of Ballet by the advent of Taglioni and the contrast between the older and the newer schools was well defined by Théophile Gautier who, writing of “Sylphide” said: “Ce ballet commença pour la chorégraphie une ère toute nouvelle et ce fut par lui que le romantisme s’introduisit dans le domaine de Terpsichore. A dater de la ‘Sylphide,’ les ‘Filets de Vulcain,’ ‘Flore et Zephire’ ne furent plus possibles: l’Opéra fut livré aux gnomes, aux ondins, aux salamandres, aux elfes, aux nixes, aux willis, aux péris et à tout ce peuple étrange et mystérieux qui se prête si merveilleusement aux fantaisies du maître de ballet. Les douze maisons de marbre et d’or des Olympies furent reléguées dans la poussière des magasins, et l’on ne commanda plus aux décorateurs que des forêts romantiques, que des vallées éclairées par le joli clair de lune allemand des ballades de Henri Heine....”
The poet Méry remarked of the new dancer: “Avec Mlle. Taglioni la danse s’est élevée à la sainteté d’un art.” That is just what she achieved. Dancing, which had become a mechanical display of technical tours de force, was restored to the dignity—or sanctity—of an art.
But her influence extended further. She enlarged the perspective of the stage effects. The stiff formalism of “classic” scenes, of neat temples and trim vistas gave place to mysterious lakes and umbrageous forests, vast spaces that stirred the imagination and prepared the mind for the entrée of visionary dancers.