Offered here is the most iconic and famous image of the Romantic-era ballerina FANNY ELSSLER, showing her in her most famous dance: LA CACHUCHA. The steel engraving is guaranteed to be original, from 1844, and is a steel engraving (Paris: Soulie, 1844).
The rival of Marie Taglioni, Fanny Cerrito, Lucile Grahn, and Carlotta Grisi, FANNY ELSSLER (1810 – 1884) was
an Austrian ballerina of the Romantic Period. From her earliest years she was
trained for the ballet, and made her appearance at the Kärntnertortheater in
Vienna before she was 7. She almost invariably danced with her sister Therese,
who was 2 years her senior; the sisters studied dancing with Jean-Pierre Aumer
and Friedrich Horschelt beginning when Fanny was 9 years old, also traveling to
Naples to study with Gaetano Gioja. After some years' experience together in Vienna,
the sisters went in 1827 to Naples. While there, she had an affair with
Leopold, Prince of Salerno, the son of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies,
which resulted in the birth of a son, Franz.
Their success in Naples led to an engagement in Berlin in 1830.
This was the beginning of a series of triumphs for Fanny's personal beauty and
skill in dancing.
In September 1834 Elssler
appeared with the Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique (today known
as the Paris Opera Ballet), a step to which she looked forward with much
misgiving on account of Marie Taglioni's supremacy on that stage. However,
Elssler and Taglioni were exceptionally different dancers, and the Opera's
management saw this as an opportunity to incite some controversy by hiring
Elssler. Taglioni was known as a danseur ballonné, represented by the lightness
of her leaps and jumps. Elssler, on the other hand, distinguished her dancing
with the precision in which she performed small, quick steps. Elssler's type of
dancing was known as danse tacquetée. The results of her performances, however,
were another triumph for Elssler, and the temporary eclipse of Taglioni.
Elssler was not Spanish, but her
performances of the Cachucha were filled with fire and sensual life. The poet
Théophile Gautier titled her the "pagan" dancer because of her
performances in the Cachucha, juxtaposed with Taglioni, the
"Christian" dancer. The success of Elssler and the Cachucha led to a
widespread demand for more choreographed ballet dances of specific national
flavor. These types of dances became very popular, and Elssler herself added a
Polish cracovienne (Krakowiak) and an Italian tarantella to her repertoire. Her
image was often identified with pink satin and black lace as the fleshy,
sensuous Spanish dancer, in stark contrast to depictions of Taglioni as the
modest sylph in white. Her performances of the great Romantic ballets,
including La Sylphide, Giselle and La Esmeralda, portrayed heightened aspects
of their former characters. This earned Elssler a place among the most talented
and notable ballerinas of the Romantic ballet period.
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