All this by no means intends to assert that Ellsler was not a dancer of a high degree of skill, and perhaps of some degree of greatness. It is significant, however, that her encomiums concern themselves only with that which, boiled down, amounts to praise of a beautiful woman, performing evolutions at that time novel and surprising, and frankly—withal in a perfectly clean manner—appealing to sex. The quality that might be called decorative truth does not appear to have been an impressive element of her work. Assuredly that is the foundation of dancing entitled to any consideration in connection with the quality of greatness. Temperament, expressing what it will, of course is as necessary to animate the form as true form is to begin with; but temperamental exuberance cannot take the place of a proper substructure. Granting the inadequacy of data, and speculating on a basis of indications only, one is justified in wondering if Ellsler coming to life to-day could repeat her impression on Paris, with its present knowledge not only of Spanish dancing, but also of feats of supreme virtuosity.
Years only augmented the heat of the feud between the two goddesses. Europe divided itself into acrimonious factions of Taglionites and Ellslerites. The latter were shocked, however, when, to bring to a flat comparison the question of merit, Ellsler announced her intention to play La Sylphide. Taglioni had made the part her own; for another to undertake it was at least an act of doubtful delicacy. Nor was the idea better advised on grounds of strategy. La Sylphide in its composition was a tissue of the ethereal, even if Taglioni had not made it so by association with herself. Ellsler was insistently concrete. Effects followed causes. Her most ardent partisans could not say after the performance that the attempt spelled anything but failure.
America’s first vision of a star dancer was the direct consequence of Ellsler’s vexation over the fiasco. Our fathers and grandfathers unharnessed the horses from her carriage, and counted it an honour to get a hand on the rope by which the carriage was drawn; carpeted the streets where the carriage was to pass, strewed flowers where the divinity was to set her foot, and in all ways comported themselves as became the circumstances, during the period of two years that she stayed on this side of the Atlantic.
Ellsler’s professional collapse was connected not with art, but politics. After her return from America she danced several seasons in Milan. The ballet academy of la Scala had been founded in 1811, interest in the art ran high, and was fed by the Austrian government as a hoped-for means of distracting the public mind from the revolutionary sentiment of the mid-century. In 1848, on the occasion of a performance especially provided to smooth over a crisis, it was arranged that the people of the ballet should wear a medal recently struck, representing the pope blessing a united Italy. Ellsler conceived a suspicion that the idea represented an intent to insult her as an Austrian; she refused to go on unless the medals be taken off. Meantime the corps de ballet had made its entrance, wearing the medals. They were removed at the first opportunity, and promptly missed at the ballet’s next entrance. The explanation of the change travelled through the house; the première, when she entered, was received with hisses. Tense with political excitement, the audience saw in her only the representative of the power that controlled the Italian sceptre. Her efforts received no answer but furious insults. She fainted.
After three comparatively uneventful years she retired, rich and—in the main—popular. Her contributions to religion and charity had been impressive and so continued until her death in 1884. Her wealth was estimated at one and a quarter million dollars. Taglioni’s end was in miserable contrast; during part of her latter years she held a petty position as teacher of deportment in a young ladies’ school in England. She died lonely and forgotten, after a most unhappy old age.
Among the many dancers brought out by the period of enthusiasm were three women of whose work the records have only the highest praise. To Carlotta Grisi, Gautier gave the credit of combining the fiery abandon and the light exquisiteness of the two great luminaries of the day. Fanny Cerito and Lucille Grahn were ranked with her. For Queen Victoria there was arranged a pas de quatre by Taglioni, Grisi, Cerito, and Grahn. That performance, in 1845, represents one of the climaxes of ballet history, including as it probably did the greatest sum total of choreographic ability that ever had been brought together.
But it was the milestone at the top of a high mountain, from which the road turned downward. Except in England, Taglioni’s prestige was dimmed. Queen Victoria’s reign, however uplifting in various important respects, undeniably was depressing in its influence on all the imaginative arts; and it was an influence that reached far. Furthermore, the elements that constituted opera began to assume new relative proportions. The voice of Jenny Lind called attention to the factor of singing. In the present day of subordination of the dancer to the singer, it is almost incredible that opera of seventy years ago assigned to the dancer the relative importance that the singer enjoys now; especially difficult is this conception to any one whose acquaintance with opera is confined to its production in America. General indifference has reduced operatic ballet in this land to a level compared to which its condition in continental Europe is enviable. Though reduced from past importance, in countries that support academies it has at least retained standards of execution.
But the strictly modern interpretation of opera, minimising choreography, has been accepted. New operas are written in conformity with the altered model. It is likely that the present renaissance of dancing, though no less vital than any that have gone before, will effect little change in the art’s importance in opera structure, which has become a distinct organism to be heard rather than seen. Aroused interest and intelligence inevitably will force improvement on old organisations, new appreciation will justify it from the box-office point of view. But the American dance-lover’s hope lies in the new-old form of ballet pantomime. This is the expression that the great new romantic movement has taken, as though in express recognition of those of us to whom the use of ears has not atrophied eyes.
Against the suddenly discovered passion for singing, the art of Grisi, Cerito, Grahn and their colleagues could not hold public attention. Steadfastly the French and Italian academies held to their creeds of choreographic purity. Upon their fidelity to ideals the latter nineteenth-century reign of artistic terror made no impression; to their preservation of the good is due the ability of the present romantic renaissance to come into its complete expression without the intervention of a century of rebuilding. Russia and Austria too had founded national academies for instruction along the lines made classic by Paris and Milan. Others followed. But it appears that the technical virtuosity of Taglioni had set a pace that was both difficult and misleading. Being a genius, perfection meant to her a means of expression. During a period in which no great genius appeared, efforts to win back the lost kingdom took the form of striving for technique as an object. The public was unjustly damned for failure to respond to marvellously executed students’ exercises. With equal lack of justice, it became fashionable to include the whole school of the ballet’s art in the accusation of stiffness and artificiality.
The half-century ending about 1908, during which the stage was given over to all the flashy choreographic counterfeits that mediocrity could invent, was saved from complete sterility by the dances that are rooted in the soil. Jigs and Reels, Hornpipes and Tarantellas held their own like hardy wild flowers in a garden of weeds; like golden, opulent lilies, the Seguidillas of Spain held their heads above malformation and decadence. This is a fitting point at which to consider the nature of some of these ancient expressions of the heart of men who dwell away from courts.