MARIE TAGLIONI

'Marie Taglioni' (April 23 1804 – April 24 1884) was a famous Italian ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.

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Biography

Biography

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Marie Taglioni rose to fame as a dancer when her Italian father (and teacher) Filippo Taglioni created the ballet'' La Sylphide'' (1832) for her. Designed as a showcase for Marie's talent, it was the first ballet where the ballerina danced ''en pointe'' for the full length of the work.
Marie Taglioni was the most celebrated Ballerina of the romantic ballet, which eas cultivated primarily at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, and at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris.
In 1827 Taglioni left the Ballet of Her Majesty's Theatre to take up a three-year contract in St. Petersburg with the Imperial Ballet (today known as the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet). It was in Russia, after her last performance in the country (1842) (and at the height of the ''"cult of the ballerina"''), that a pair of her pointe shoes were sold for two hundred rubles, reportedly to be cooked, served with a sauce and eaten by a group of balletomanes.
Marie retired from performing in 1847. For a time she took up residence at the Ca d'Oro on the Grand Canal in Venice. When the ballet of the Paris Opera was reorganized on stricter, more professional lines, she was its guiding spirit. With the director of the new ''Conservatoire de danse'', Lucien Petipa and Petipa's former pupil the choreographer Louis Mérante she figured on the six-member select jury of the first annual competition for the Corps de ballet, held April 13, 1860.
Later she taught social dance to children and society ladies; she also took a limited number of ballet pupils. Her only choreographic work was ''Le Papillon'' (1860) for her student Emma Livry, who is infamous for dying in 1863 when her costume was set alight by a gas lamp (limelight) used for stage lighting. Marie lived much longer, dying in Marseilles in 1884.
Johann Strauss II composed the ''Marie Taglioni Polka'' (Op. 173) in her honour using music from ballets in which she had appeared.