CHAPTER XXIX
LUCILE GRAHN (“EOLINE”)
Lucile Grahn was born at Copenhagen, June 30th, 1821, and is said to have been so delighted with a ballet to which she was taken when only four years old, that she forthwith insisted on learning to dance, and made her regular theatrical début as Cupid when she was seven!
For a time she left the stage in order to pursue her studies as a dancer. After seven years of the usual and always taxing training she reappeared, at the age of fourteen, first in “La Muette de Portici,” following with success in a ballet of her own composition, “Le Cinq Seul,” then creating the rôle of the Princess Astride, in a ballet entitled “Waldemar,” and followed with the title-rôle in “Hertha,” both Scandinavian in subject.
Then she proceeded to Paris, and after studying a while under Barrez, was recalled suddenly to Copenhagen to take part in a fête arranged in honour of the Queen of Denmark, and so did not make her Parisian début until she appeared at the Opera in “Le Carnaval de Venise,” in 1838, in which she achieved an immediate success, only excelled in the following year when she captured all Parisians’ hearts in the ballet which Taglioni had already made famous—“Sylphide.”
Unhappily, in the spring of 1840, her career was interrupted by an accident while rehearsing a variation which she was to perform at the benefit of Madame Falcon, the singer; and in consequence of inflammation of the knee she was laid up for some time in spite of the most careful attention. She never appeared at the Paris Opera again; but in the next few years her recovery was sufficient to allow of her achieving many successes in London, as well as taking part in the famous Quartette.
In 1844 she appeared in “Lady Henriette” at Drury Lane, and in the following Spring was engaged for the entire season of the Italian Opera at Her Majesty’s, where she won the most dazzling of her successes in a ballet entitled “Eoline,” produced in April, 1845.
A contemporary critic records the production in the following amusingly naïve terms: “The ballet ‘Eoline,’ with its poetic story, and its lovely feminine features (sic), was the great hit of the first night, spite the difficulties of complicated scenery and mechanical effects. The ballet worked wonders, and Lucile Grahn exhibits nightly the most delightful grace and modesty of deportment, in addition to certainty and aplomb of position, reminding one of Canova’s masterpieces of sculpture.”
Grahn made a great success as Catarina in “La Fille du Bandit,” during May, 1848. According to one critic it “exhibited her talents in a higher degree than anything she has previously appeared in. As the bandit’s daughter she assumes a dignified bearing, like that of one born to command, and supports it throughout whether in dancing or action ... and the grace of her solos commands numerous encores.”