Coryphées and courtisanes (2)

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In 1850 - 1851, when my little photographic survey is more or less beginning, the star dancer at the Opéra was [Marie] Adeline Plunkett (1824-1910). She had been on the stage for ten years already, and had been established as a première danseuse at the Paris house since 1845. She would shortly move on, after the establishment of the Second Empire, to the next stages of her colourful theatrical and amorous career on the other side of the channel and other parts of Europe.

The names of the other most featured (female) dancers at the dawn of the Empire can be gleaned from the cast lists. Which of the sujets, and occasionally coryphées, got to perform the secondary solos, pas de deux or trois, or the operatic dance roles, such as the part of the ghostly Abbess in Robert le diable?

Three names appear the most often. One is our Mlle Caroline, the other two are Elisabeth Robert and Célestine Emarot. When the famous Le Diable à Quatre was given, with Plunkett as the heroine, it was Mlle Robert who took the opposing role of the haughty Countess, while Emarot appeared as Yelva. When Robert le diable was given, Emarot was the phantom Abbess of Saint-Rosalie, Mlle Robert succeeded to the part of Lia in L'Enfant prodigue, and the same two ladies joined la Plunkett in the featured dance of the opera Zerline. And much so forth.

Célestine Emarot, [EMAROT, Marguerite Adelaide] (b Dijon 18 March 1824-1892) who was clearly at this time well regarded (Egyptienne in Enfant prodigue), has not suffered well in memoirs and other subsequent writings. Her mistake seems to have been to have had a daughter (illegitimate, 'by a member of the Jockey Club, Baron Charles de Chassiron') who became much more famous than she. That daughter was Emma Livry (eig Emarot), who became a première danseuse at the Opéra, and scored herself a place in history by, at the age of 21, dying of burns received in a backstage accident. No, those artist's impressions of a ballerina on stage, in flames, are pure imagination. Anyway, Emma's fate has been recounted umpteen times, rarely factually, and her mother is often referred to as if she were a minor danseuse. She is also dismissed rather roughly in some of the memoirs of the time. But Célestine was a solid and apparently well-liked dancer for many years: I wonder who didn't like her. Or did her second lover, Vicomte Ferdinand de Montguyon, have enemies.

 'Dark-eyed and dark-haired' Elisabeth Robert, 'star pupil of M Petit' at the Conservatoire, had been at the Opéra, also, for some years. I spot her in 1845. She created the Redowa with Petipa and Mlle Plunkett in Le Prophète. 27 June 1848, Paquerette with Cerrito in 1851 ('purété et correction de style'), the Pas du Delta in Enfant prodigue ('que vigeur hardi! quel feu! quel précision'), danced Luisetta in Stella ('comme mime Mlle Robert est convenable, comme danseuse  elle est excellent') and Fenella in La Muette de Portici (1851), and appeared at Covent Garden as première danseuse in La Rosiera. In 1852, she danced another season in London, and in 1856 she travelled to New York to become a much-fêted star dancer at Niblo's Gardens.

The memoirists' reports of her skill and her person, of course, vary. They do with all these ladies. Because the gentlemen reviewing and remembering have their favourites, their disappointments, maybe even their mistresses ... The Sporting Journal insists that 'to no inconsiderable degree of grace, unites a charming person', The Musical World judged her 'very talented, and an elegant dancer. Her features are expressive and her attitudes graceful and natural...' in France 'inimitable d'élégance et de précision'. Other dismissed her in a line or two, and went on to gush over someone else. I see her still, in 1867, premiere danseuse in Holland ... America loved her. So, apparently, did the Marquis d'Aligre who bequeathed her 100,000 francs to 'retain her virtue'..

Which Mlle Robert, I wonder....

I go back to my Enfant prodigue list. To the cast list of the Ballet des Nations, for Auber's opera Zerline ... Plunkett and Fabbri starring, Robert, Caroline and Emarot supporting ... who else turns up in a featured role at the turn of the demi-century?

Mademoiselle Nathan (b Vallières 7 December 1827) 'pupil of St Léon' is already a featured coryphée in L'Apparition in 1848, and thereafter seen playing, often in a featured number, in almost every ballet produced at the Opéra through the fifties and early sixties. She partnered St Léon in ventures to the Théâtre Lyrique (Le Danseur du roi, 1853) and to Vienna (Paquerette at the Burgtheater 1852) and a contemporary wrote 'Mlle Nathan est une des étoiles de notre ciel choréographique'. Tracking down her picture has not been easy, for there are other Mlle Nathans about in these years. Even one at the Opéra: a blast-the-ceiling-off soprano who was a little older than our girl. But I can identify one. Here she is in character, with her contemporary Carlotta Morando. Guess which is which!

Apparently Miss [Adèle] Nathan was (like her operatic counterpart) actually Mrs Nathan. Or so one cataloguer would have us believe. He credits her with seven children. Anyway, she was clearly a first-class dancer, and when she retired in 1866 she, like Emarot, was granted a government pension. It lasted as long as the Second Empire.

Actually, the 1848 cast of L'Apparition shows us several other already well-established danseuses of the Opéra ballet. Now, one has to be careful here, because programmes in those days were taken down from aural sources, not written, so anyone less than a star can have their name distorted almost unrecognisably. I have sorted out the supporting dancers as being three Marquets, 'Mathilde', Lacoste, Toussaint, Nathan, Legrain, Quéniaux and Rousseau The corps included Savel, Cassegrain, one of the Laurent sisters, Danfeld ('will stay a coryphée forever'), Guichard; the 'children' Gredelue, Mirmont, Crétin, Innemer (by any other spelling), Mathé ...

Maria Crétin

Maria Crétin

Mlle Guichard

All right. I know you've been waiting for a bit of sauce and scandal, so let's get this first big semi-proven chunk out of the way. Constance [Adolphine] Quéniaux (sic) (b St Quentin, 9 July 1832; d Paris 7 April 1904), the illegitimate daughter of a 'gazetière', was long an appreciated sujet at the Opera. The list of ballets, operas and roles she undertook would fill a page, and, in 1859, when she danced solo in Les Vêpres Siciliennes the press nodded 'Mlle Quénieux s'y montre danseuse du goût; aussi receuille-t-elle en bravos mérités le fruit de son travail soutenu et persévérant. Mlle Quénieux est une des artistes aimées de l'Opéra; elle a de la tradition et un spontanéité de mouvement admirable. Son talent est plein de fraîcheur et plaît aux juges les plus sevères en matière d'art choréographique'. Her place in the hierarchy of the Opera ballet can be seen in the original casting of Le Corsaire in 1856: behind the Médora of Rosati, the featured dancers were Louise Marquet, Couqui, Caroline, Nathan, Quénieux, Legrain, and Aline. So Constance was not just another danseuse, she was one of the Opéra's A team.

But it was not for being a fine dancer that Constance has gone down in history. Nor even for being the adored 'lucky mascotte' of the troupe' for whom nothing went wrong. It was her private life. Constance became the mistress -- or, one of the mistresses -- of the very rich, prominent 'érotomane' Ottoman statesman and art-collector, known as Khalil-Bey. Khalil added to his art collection by commissioning pieces from contemporary artists, one of whom was Gustave Courbet, for his private delectation, and one of these was the picture known as 'L'Origine du Monde'. The picture -- which is simply a rather beautiful representation of female genitalia -- has been written about endlessly, and it has become the fashion to claim that Courbet's model (he needed one?) was our Constance. You know the kind of books and articles that claim 'at last, revealed, the identity ..'. Well, whether the model was indeed Constance or not, she is nowadays credited with the adventure, and has become the subject of all sorts of guessworkical writings.

Khalil Bey died in 1879, not yet fifty. Constance did much better. She lived on in luxury in Paris to the age of 82 (her death certificate says 75!) and the catalogue of her effects, sold up by Druout, makes lavish reading. Death certificate? Yes, so popular is Constance, thanks to the painting which may even not be she, that in the 21st century that a Parisian researcher, Benoit Maury, has exhumed her birth and death registrations ...

To complete the A team of that time, we have that slightly puzzling lady, Mlle Victorine Legrain (b circa 1833; d Turin 16 December 1916). She puzzles me because, after a notable start and a quick rise in status she apparently hit a hiccough, and, although regularly featured at the supporting level in Paris, only became a star when she left France. One commentator classes her as the best performer of the time, behind the big stars. Émile Abraham's brief sketch of the ballet, after a good gush over Rosati, Ferraris and Zina Richard, devotes just two indifferent lines to her. Puzzling. But these gents have their 'preferences'. Mlle Legrain is said to have been 'a child of the Opéra'. Another illegitimate daughter of a dancer? Anyway, she learned her dance there, and burst on to the scene, in her teens, in 1850, dancing Le Violon du diable and Stella. But then her career turned in an unusual direction. Instead of rising upƒthe ranks at the Opéra, she shot off to London's Drury Lane to take the lead role of Lia in their huge production of L'Enfant prodigue. The spectacle ran, nightly, a full season. Victorine followed up around England (Une soirée carnival, La prima ballerina) and ended up ... back at the Paris Opéra no longer a prima ballerina but a supporting sujet. She stuck it for what looks like about four years, but it seems Mlle Legrain, in spite of being well and frequently featured, wasn't content with sujetdom. Or someone wasn't content for her. In 1857, she resigned. There is no place here for a French étoile, mumbled the devoted press, confronted with the fashion for fancy Italian danseuses.
So, Victorine went to Turin (surely there was a man in the picture!) and the Vienna Hofoper, and she became a danseuse étoile all round Europe. In 1869, Nestor Roqueplan brought her back to Paris, to star in his Châtelet production of La Poudre de Perlinpinpin, after which she returned to Austria and Germany. In 1873, one critic remarked rather cruelly 'sie tanzt wirklich sehr gut. Ihre Pirouetten und Entrechats sind jung gebleiben, nur das Gesicht ...'. She seems to have visited Manchester in 1875 (if it were not an impostor) to dance in panto.

Mlle Legrain evidently remained based in Turin where she became well-established as a teacher. And...? What do I know of her life? The only anecdote I find of her is of a 'relationship' with the Sicilian Prince Petrulla, sometime loyalist Neapolitan ambassador to Vienna and ... yeah.  Here's a death date ... 1916.

End of episode. For my next, I'll go back to the Corsaire (b) team: Mlles Cellier, Poussin, Troisvalets, Pierron, Villiers, Savel, and Rousseau.

PS I'm sure there are ballet books that have the details I'm missing. But I'm picking up from primary sources ... I prefer that!

Coryphées and Courtisanes (1)

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‘Une danseuse à l’Opéra’. It was a phrase which, under the brilliance of the French Second Empire had a particular flavour. Oh, it had had that same flavour for a century and more, before the days of Napoléon, and it continued on in its ways until the high-days fashions in France faded away into a mass of bourgeois morals … but the Second Empire ... ah! The Second Empire … with its very particular code of living... man and mistress!

Opéra coryphees Nane Danfeld, Irene Jousse and Mlle Gambelan

A danseuse à l’Opéra was a prize. A status symbol. Because these were the days when any gentleman, royal, rich or striving to be either or both, kept a 'mistress'. And by ‘kept’, I mean kept in the ostentatious height of fashion. Diamonds, carriages, and apartment in town, a house in the country. And, although a selection of actresses and singers – from Blanche d’Antigny and Marie Cico, from Esther Duparc to Hortense Schneider and the others whose details and addresses could be found in the ‘limited edition’ of volumes such Les Jolies Femmes de Paris---, were among the showier and best-known of these dames entretenues, the ladies of the Opéra ballet were the basic catch a man of position or ambition generally strove for. And he wore his mistress, once she had been won, on his arm like a stripe of rank. Singers? Bof! As one commentator of the time said, the singers go home to their own beds, the dancers go out to supper (etc).

Irène Jousse

I sha’n’t write an essay on the merry highlife of the French 1850s and 1860s. That has been done hundreds of times before. Factually and of course fictionally. You meet Pouponne or Loulou ‘danseuse à l’Opéra’ in the mythical ‘news’ or stories of the time, the mistress of so-and-so: the only trouble is Pouponne and Loulou never turn up in the factual cast lists of the era. Well, there wouldn’t be room for them. For there were only seventy odd members of the ballet at the Opéra at one given time, and I’m going to list a lot of them. At the top of the heap were the danseuses étoiles, the Carlotta Grisi, Taglioni, Cerrito, Rosati, Ferraris, Couqui, and so forth.

Claudina Couqui: 'Venti Anni di Paloscenico'

They stayed, usually, for a year or two and moved on to further triumphs in Vienna, Milan or Russia. The real Paris Opéra troupe came at the next level: the grands sujets, the petits sujets, the sixteen coryphées, and the four quadrilles of eight which, all together, made up the corps de ballet. Some of these lasses danced at the Opéra for a decade, some as much as two decades, some even much more. Some -- such as Dephine Marquet or Fanny Génat -- moved on, after a while, to play in the dramatic or comic theatre, one even ventured to the Bouffes-Parisiens to sing for Offenbach, but, although little corps de ballet girls came and went, the backbone of the troupe, the sujets and even the coryphées, was solid. And, largely, solidly ‘entretenue’.

Alexandrine Simon, Triple threat

The word ‘courtisane’ doesn’t strictly and everywhere apply. Certainly, there were those ladies of the ballet who shared their favours widely, some very acknowledgly virtual prostitutes, but the aim of a baller girl, high or low, was to hook a nice wealthy young baron (they were safer than financiers) … and keep him. And many did. But there were some others – famously, Anna Rust, who was so ‘sage’ even the stagehands were polite in her presence – who were staunchly not of the demi-monde. I guess this is she?

Some of the Opéra danseuses did marry, much to the disgust of supremo, Nestor Roqueplan, who hissed ‘une danseuse mariée sent mauvaise’. It was reducing the stock of 'available' ladies who drew the men of the town to his theatre. Well, he did his bit for the cause. His own mistress was of the company, as was that of Bagier of the Italiens … And, pace Mons Roqueplan, there were plenty of those demoiselles who were well and truly out for a good and lucrative time, such as the simple Clara Pillevoix, whose first question on meeting a new gentleman was ‘Monsieur est du Jockeyclub?’. If he weren’t, Clara wasn’t interested.

Clara Pilvois

There is a heap of books of memoirs written by gentlemen who inhabited this glittering world. Titles such as Ces Demoiselles de l’Opéra, Les Théâtres en robe de chamber, Le Livre des Courtisanes, Le demi-monde sur le second empire or even the Tétoniana of one Gustave Witkowski, which seems to be wholly on the subject of the girls’ breasts. They are mostly uninformative as far as facts are concerned, full of brief physical descriptions (mainly hair and figure!) and dubious anecdotes and curiously misspelled names, but they do give a ‘feel’ of the period, where being a ‘dirty old man’ was regarded as far from ‘dirty’. As long as the diamonds were clean.

But, what am I doing in this world. For decades, I’ve skipped through the doings at the Paris Opéra, studiously ignoring the dance and dancers, in favour of the singers … well, I just had an urge to put faces to some of these names. And facts. I’ve spent three days at it, and I will say that, thanks to such resources as the Musée Carnavalet and the collection of Paul Frecker, as well as several ballet-devoted sites, I’ve been quite successful at the first. The second has been much, much more difficult. The dancers were usually listed just under their surnames or stage names, frequently misspelt … but, putting aside the stars, here I go. Goodness, where do I start?

Right. Cast list from the opera L’Enfant prodigue, produced at the Opéra 6 December 1850. Huge list of dancers. The Belgian Adeline Plunkett (1824-1910) is cast in the featured role of the Egyptian dancer, Lia, and does a pas de trois with Célestine Emarot and Elisabeth Robert in Act II. Mlles Carabin and Adele Villiers are a couple of angels. There are 12 ‘Jewesses’ and 35 participants in the Apothéose of the last act, including the Mlles Nathan, Legrain, Caroline Pierron, Louise and Mathilde Marquet, Astory, Léontine Rousseau, Cassegrain, Nane Danfeld, Ynemer (Inemer), Lebaigle, Louise Vibon, Révolte, Josephine Gaujelin, Alexandrine Simon, Maria and Zoe Jourdain, Henriette Mathé, Domange, Boyer, De Haspe, the sisters Maupérin, the sisters Laurent, Maria Savel … all of whom will turn up on plenty of other programmes, before and after …

Louise Vibon

And that cast doesn’t even show the full force of the company. I see in the Cahier for the previous year Mlles Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Cerrito, Adeline Plunkett, Sophie Fuoco, followed by Elisabeth Robert, Célestine Emarot, Mme Fuchs-Taglioni, Mme Théodore, Caroline Lasciat, Aline Dorsé and the Mesdames Barré-Lointier*, Delacquit, James*, Franck*, Rousseau, Paulus*, Gybal*, Marquet, Gougibus*, Astory … phew! By 1851, Mlles Priora, Lacoste, Caroline Pierron, Constance Quéniaux and Mathilde Marquet have risen in the ranks and the asterisked ladies are gone. Well, some of those on the list don’t go on, or far on, into the new Empire and the age of the photograph, but three of these were to become memorable ‘pillars’ of the company, so I think it is with those three that I will start my episode one. With ‘Mademoiselle Caroline’, ‘Mademoiselle Aline’ and Mademoiselle Louise dit Marquet.

‘Mademoiselle Caroline’ was [Marie] Caroline Lasciat (var: Lassia). She had already risen, in the unphotographable 1840s, to being a ‘grande sujet’, dancing solos and pas de deux, mostly in support of a star., but occasionally toute seule. In 1852, she was referred to by a journalist as a ‘divinité secondaire’ of the troupe (but so were Robert, Taglioni and Marquet!), in 1857 Charles Biogne classed her only behind Rosati and Chouqui, in a peloton including Legrain, Nathan, Baretta et al. Which was not too bad: level two out of eight? So Mademoiselle Caroline was not a danseuse étoile, but she was an excellent performer, worthy of a featured spot in new ballets such as Le Corsaire, and that for nearly two decades. But there was more to come. Caroline married, around 1850, the Opéra viola player, Italian Dominique Pierre Paul Venet(t)ozza, and as ‘Madame Dominique’, after her performing days were done, became ballet-mistress at the Opéra and an internationally famous teacher of dance. Venetozza also took up teaching, but seems also to have found a better way to make considerable money which at his death (18 July 1894) he left to charities. Caroline had predeceased him (d Montrouge 1 June 1885), leaving a fine pedagogic legacy to French dance.

Caroline in pas de deux with star dancer Louis Mérante

Caroline in 1863

‘Mademoiselle Aline’ was actually Françoise Dorothée Dorlé (b Paris 2 March 1808), and a rather different kettle of fish. She, too, had been around a while before the coming of Napoléon, and had been a chorine at the Opéra and then a prima ballerina in the 1830s. At her return to the Opéra, she transformed herself into a character dancer and mime, to extend her career, as the favourite 'old woman' of the establishment, into the 1870s. She died, unwed, 9 March 1891 at Asnières. Of her private life I know nothing, but the occasional memoirist winks an eye, another tells us that at one stage she was 'all powerful' around the place, so I imagine …

Aline in later days

Louise Marquet (b Tours 12 May 1834; d Paris 22 December 1890). One of three (or was it five?) probably illegitimate sisters, followed her to-be-well-known siblings [Marie Louise] Mathilde’ (1826-1900) and [Josephine Victoire] Delphine (1824-1878), into the corps at the Opéra as a child, Louise, after her adult debut in 1849, found herself there a job for life. Since Delphine was the mistress of manager Nestor Roqueplan and Mathilde of Edgard Ney, ‘le Prince de la Moskawa’, she was well-placed. She, however, made her way on merit to the position of sujet, created many new roles – particularly those of the ‘superbe’ commanding type – over her long, and following her retirement from the stage, after nearly 40 years as a dancer, she became a ballet-mistress and teacher of deportment at the Conservatoire. The Marquet theatre legacy continued through Delphine’s daughter-in-law, ‘Louise Marquet’ née Loisel, and her daughter, actress Mary Marquet (1895-1979), while Mathilde finally married the baritone Marc Bonnehée (1828-1886). Louise apparently died a Mademoiselle. Whether she lived as one is rather obfuscated by the bright lives of her siblings.

Louise Marquet

My computer desktop is flooded with danseuses ... I shall deal with them tomorrow ... here endeth Chapter One.

1863

Mérante and Martha Mouravyeva

American (?) Amazons!

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I came upon this photo earlier this week, during a momentary interest in chorus girls. What is it?

We have only one clue. The back is blank. Just the photographer's name.

So this is a bunch of chorines from an American show. Some time between 1871 and 1885, when Sarony was working out of that Union Square address. I would guess 70s rather than 80s.

So what in Olympus's name are those costumes? And the headgear? Valkyrie wings, Red Indian feathers. Chunky girls! 'Amazons' from one of the favourite pasticcio spectaculars of the time? Lassies from Vienna and Paris?  Ah, well, I'll find time, one day, to investigate. I got diverted towards the ballet-girls of Paris ...

The pretty Swedish girl .. from Brazil.

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These little ladies smiled out at me from the pages of ebay today.

And I would be able to tell you their names, were it not that the show in question actually had two girlie choruses ... a dozen 'showgirls' and a dozen or so 'dancers'. Which are these? Can one 'dance' Allan K Foster's choreography in those shoes?

The show was titled The Girl from Brazil, and it was produced in America in 1916. But it was not an American musical. In mid-wartime, the piece was imported from Vienna. Of course, it was not allowed to remain unbotched and Die schöne Schwedin became, under the artistic direction of Mr Shubert, The Girl from Brazil. The score was diluted by numbers by a young man named Romberg.

DIE SCHÖNE SCHWEDIN Operette in 3 acts by Julius Brammer and Alfred Grünwald. Music by Robert Winterberg. Theater an der Wien, Vienna, 30 January 1915.

 The Stockholm banker Sven Liverstol (Ernst Tautenhayn) is in secret money troubles and anxious to marry his beloved daughter Hilma (Luise Kartousch) to the apparently rich young German Baron Heinz von Reedingen (Hubert Marischka). He is offered a large loan by Torkel (Karl Tuschl) and Schnorkel (Kurt Mikulski) on condition that the marriage takes place, but he is flung into desperate straits when his biggest customer, a dazzling lass from Brazil called Edith Lloyd (Betty Fischer), turns up and won't wait to withdraw her funds. And so there is no marriage, no Torkel-Schnorkel money, and when Edith goes off back to Brazil, with the actually underfunded Heinz as her secretary, she leaves the Liverstols thoroughly in the Swedish soup. In Act III, however, Edith finds her business in trouble through growing competition from one Sr Camberito. It turns out that Camberito is none other than the financially recovered Liverstol, and all can end with Hilma and Heinz at last together and with the money-marketing Edith and Liverstol joining hands and fortunes.

 Die schöne Schwedin proved something of a a disappointment at the Theater an der Wien and it was demoted soon after its 50th performance (16 March) to be replaced in the evening bills by Granichstaedten's Auf Befehl der Herzogin, a good-old-days piece which proved much more to the wartime public's taste than this often unromantic tale of financial dealings. Nevertheless, it went on to numerous other productions. It was produced in Munich starring Pia von Moosburg, Budapest was given Vilmos Tihanyi's Hungarian version, A szöke csoda (the marvellous blonde), it was foreseeably snapped up by Albert Ranf for the Stockholm Opera House and the Shuberts took up the American rights. In its American production the piece started out from New Haven 11 May 1916 under the curious title A Brazilian Honeymoon (perhaps a reference to the very first Shubert success, A Chinese Honeymoon), but by the time New York was reached, the lovely Swedish lass (played originally by Marguerite Namara, then by Beth Lydy) had given place to The Girl from Brazil (statuesque Frances Demarest) as the show's title. Hal Forde was Liverstol, John H Goldsworth played Heinz, and George Hassell had an enlarged comedy rôle as Torkel (Schnorkel had vanished). The American version was the work of Edgar Smith (book) and Matthew Woodward (lyrics), and Winterberg's 'above average' score was supplemented by the inevitable Shubert interpolations from the pen of Sigmund Romberg ('Bachelor Girl and Boy', 'The Right Brazilian Girl', 'Señorita', 'Come Back, Sweet Dream'). In spite of agreeable notices the piece remained only 61 performances on Broadway.

Germany: Theater am Gärtnerplatz, Munich May 1915; Hungary: A szöke csoda Budai Színkör 22 May 1915; USA: 44th Street Theater The Girl from Brazil 30 August 1916.