Here's today's little theatrical treasure, which led me off into a grand but, alas, only partly successful voyage of discovery.
The item couldn't be more precisely labelled.
Mons and Mdlle Vanara. London Alhambra. 21 June 1871.
A variety act, then? A goofy comic and a beautiful girl. And they've been at St Petersburgh, where they had this photo taken ...
Well it all looks genuine ... except the Miss has mistakenly been turned into Mrs ...
Not a bad bill. The Vokes Family, the young William Parkinson as Tom Tug with the eccentric Edwin Odell as Robin, and our couple and Bekéfy are supported by one of the pantomimic Marshall family.
So, who were they? Where did they come from, and what else did they do ...
Well, I suspect that Mademoiselle-Madame was only a name-partner of circumstance. The double act seems to have lasted just the space of that particular act. Although I do see a 'Mlle Vanara' going out to South America as a première danseuse ...
It is Monsieur who is the interesting one. But, to my amazement, I don't seem to able to find him in any book of French theatre reference. Not his death notice. Not a little biographical snippet. Not a story. Not his christian name. The most notice he got in the press was when he got involved in a long lawsuit against the Paris Opéra who had sacked him from his post as character dancer and maître de ballet. The court reports, which list most people's names with all their multiple forenames, merely call him 'Monsieur'. So Vanara probably wasn't his real name.
He couldn't get away with that in the copyright registrations, where he was listed as 'G Vanara', nor in his other favourite capacity as a violently active Union leader, where he admitted to 'L-G Vanara'. For, yes, M Vanara was a violent, authoritarian and litigious man ...
So, if I don't know who he was, at least I know a bit of what he did in his successful career as, first, a comic dancer, then a choreographer, maître de ballet and character dancer. But only a bit. Because a 1907 pressbit (just before his sacking) mentioned that, by then, he had been 59 years in the business. So, what? Since 1850? Presumably as a child.
Well, I can't find him as Vanara until 1867, whe he is second male dancer and comic at Lille. No sign of a Miss or Mrs. Next sighting is London, after which I see him in an act at Paris's Concert de l'Horloge with the sisters Ferrus (1872, Trio de tambours), and then at ... Buenos Aires! I don't know how long he remained down under, but when I pick him up again it is ... in London. Christmas 1881, and he is supporting the great Agoust in a real French (panto)mime show Macfarlane's Will ('fun and acrobatic skill') at the rather unfortunate Imperial Theatre.
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| L'Horloge |
In the 1880s he got under steam in France. I see him leading 'the Troupe Hamilton' in the south, choreographing in Liège, as maître de ballet at Rouen's Théâtre des Arts, at the Grand Théâtre of Nantes (Le Tour du Monde in 80 Days), back at Liège for the production of Le Prisonnier du Caucase ... in the 1890s he spent a good time at Marseille and in 1896 he visited England once more to play the Alhambra in a ballet based on Plaquette's Rip van Winkle, in a gipsy Christmas piece Le Tzigane and in the patriotic ballet Victoria and Merry England. Music by Arthur Sullivan.
Back in France, he was Harlequin at the Funambules before moving to the Capitole of Toulouse (where he arranged interpolated dances for Carmen!), the Grand Théâtre of Lyon ... he was an habitué, these days, of the best provincial houses in France. So it was hardly a surprise when he was appointed character dancer and deputy regisseur at the Paris Opéra. 28 September 1900. That date was repeated over and over when it came to litigation time. He made his debut on the Académie stage 13 October in Widor's L'Étoile, and in January of 1901 he was appointed maître de ballet under Hansen. Something went wrong and he resigned a year or so later. He was good at resenting being a deputy.
His time at the Opéra seems to have been documented. He arranged, choregraphed, schooled the baby ballerinas, played such roles as Dr Coppelius, Mouni Pénitent in Bacchus, or the Witch in La Ronde des Saisons ...
At the same time he was occupying himself with syndicalist affairs ...
The American press copied 'the rule of the Tsar of Russia is mild democracy compared with the autocratic régime of M Vanara, the ballet-master' and detailed that the ballet ('the revolt of the tutus') was going to go on strike against his strictness and heavy fines. As if all but the most virtuous of them didn't have a 'Monsieur du Jockey-Club' behind them. But I guess it made good trashy 'news' then as it does now .. They didn't strike.
But the management of the Opéra changed. And they ridded themselves of M Vanara. Who, if the 59 years is true, must have been over 70. And he sued. And lost. Well, you see, apart from anything else, he didn't have a contract. For three years he tried, with his syndicalist lawyer behind him. And inevitably, each time, he lost ...
My last sighting of M Vanara is in 1910, at the Moulin Rouge, writing, staging and playing in a ballet named Le Fakir ...
L-G Vanara. All those cities he visited .. no one ever said 'our townsman'. No one ever said 'the Italian'. Who was the man? ... Lyonnet doesn't include him ... is there a ballet book somewhere that credits him with anything more than the libretto of Le Lac des Aulnes ...All éclaircissements gratefully received!
And a couple of éclaircissements duly arrived ...
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