CHAPTER XXVII
CARLOTTA GRISI (GISELLE)
Seldom is a good dancer also a born singer; and still more rarely do both talents develop simultaneously to such a point that there can be any serious doubt as to which to relinquish in favour of the other. Yet such was the happy fate of Carlotta Grisi, the cousin of the two famous singing sisters, Giuditta and Giulia Grisi.
Carlotta at one time showed such promise of becoming a vocalist that no less a person than the great Malibran advised her to devote her life to singing. But when Perrot, the famous ballet-master, who had received his congé from the Paris Opera, saw her, when she was earning her living as a dancer at Naples, he was clever enough to suggest that she should develop both talents, fully intending that under his encouragement and tuition she should become at least a finished danseuse, for he saw in the future of such a pupil an opportunity of securing his own return to the Opera. Moreover, although—as a famous maîtresse de ballet of our time once described him to me—“ogly as sin,” he managed to become her husband!
Carlotta Grisi was born in 1821 at Visnida, in Upper Istria, in a palace built for the Emperor Francis II. When a mere child of five years old she was dancing, with other children, at the Scala, Milan, where she danced with such grace that she was nicknamed La petite Heberlé, a Mlle. Heberlé then being a very popular star. Subsequently she toured with a company through Italy appearing at Florence, Rome, Naples, and it was here she met and became the pupil and then wife of Perrot.
Brief visits to London, Vienna, Milan, Naples followed, the young dancer gathering fresh triumphs at each, until finally she made her Parisian début at the Renaissance on February 28th, 1840. Here she appeared both as singer and dancer in “Le Zingaro,” but on the closing of the theatre she went in February, 1841, to the Opera, and achieved an instant success in “La Favorita.” From that moment her career was one of continued triumph.
In June of that year she appeared in “Giselle, ou les Willis, ballet en deux actes, de MM. de Saint Georges, Th. Gautier et Coralli, musique de M. Adam, décors de M. Ciceri,” as it is described on my copy of the original libretto. Carlotta’s appearance in it was the artistic sensation of the Continent.
“Giselle” is founded on one of those romantic legendary themes in which Germany was once so rich, and tells of the fate of a village girl who falls a victim to the mysterious Willis, or spirits of betrothed girls who in life were passionately fond of dancing, who have died ere marriage, and are doomed after death to dance every night from midnight to dawn, luring whom they may to the same fate. This, and the story of shattered hope and love forlorn, which bring about poor little Giselle’s destruction, are the two leading themes of a ballet which, touching both the heights of gaiety and depths of tragedy, is rich in every element that can interest or charm, and presents many dramatic situations that demand from a supremely accomplished dancer a power of mimic expression, intensity and poetic sympathy that are rare. Carlotta Grisi was ideally equipped, and she was par excellence—Giselle. A revival of the second act, under the title of “les Sylphides,” was given by the Russian dancers at the Coliseum a few seasons ago.