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Updated: June 17, 2025
The poor figurante must devote years of incessant toil to her profitless task before she can shine in it. When Taglioni was preparing herself for her evening exhibition, she would, after a severe two hours' lesson from her father, fall down exhausted, and had to be undressed, sponged, and resuscitated totally unconscious.
But all this is not what I wanted to say. At this exhibition ball he used to bring out a number of hoops wreathed with roses, of the perennial kind, by the aid of which a number of amazingly complicated and startling evolutions were exhibited; and also his two daughters, who figured largely in these evolutions, and whose wonderful performances to us, who had not seen Miss Taglioni or Miss Elssler, were something quite bewildering, in fact, surpassing the natural possibilities of human beings.
Two of our relatives, Frau Amalie Beer and our beloved Moritz von Oppenfeld, subscribed for boxes in the opera-house, and when they did not use them, which often happened, sent us the key. So as a boy I heard most of the operas produced at that time, and I saw the ballets, of which Frederick William IV was especially fond, and which Taglioni understood how to arrange so admirably.
Without great personal charm, her success was due to her wonderful skill, which was the result of the mercilessly severe training that she had received from her father, Filippo Taglioni, who was a ballet master of some repute. Born at Stockholm, where her father was employed at the Royal Opera, she made her début at Vienna, where she created an immediate sensation.
This account of the triumphs of Italian women upon the continental stage would be wholly incomplete without some reference to the incomparable danseuse La Taglioni, who will always occupy an important place in the annals of Terpsichore.
Yes, madame, Cinti and Malibran, Grisi and Taglioni, Pasta and Ellsler, all who reign or have reigned on the stage, can't be compared, to my mind, with Malaga, who can jump on or off a horse at full gallop, or stand on the point of one foot and fall easily into the saddle, and knit stockings, break eggs, and make an omelette with the horse at full speed, to the admiration of the people, the real people, peasants and soldiers.
She was a very graceful dancer once, was Taglioni; but still it rather depoetizes the place, which of all others was richest in associations. Mrs. Browning has got as near to England as Paris, and holds out enough of hope of coming to London to keep me from visiting it until I know her decision. I have not seen the great Exhibition, and, unless she arrives, most probably shall not see it.
When I was asked if I had ever seen any thing so dreadful before, I was embarrassed how to answer; for the young women had been exceedingly careful, both in their dress and in their dancing, to meet the taste of the people; but had it been Virginie in her most transparent attire, or Taglioni in her most remarkable pirouette, they could not have been more reprobated.
The names of these are GARDEL, CLOTILDE, CHEVIGNY, PERIGNON, COLLOMB, CHAMEROI, SAULNIER, VESTRIS, DELISLE, MILLIERE, LOUISE, FELICITE, DUPORT, TAGLIONI, ALINE, ETIENNE, JACOTOT, FLORINE, ADELE, to whom may be added two most promising debutantes, LA NEUVILLE and BIGOTINI, whose first appearance I witnessed.
Mario, the great tenor, once lived yonder; in that villa on the sloping hillside, Taglioni once made her home; Walter Savage Landor sheltered his gray hairs in this cottage home overlooking the valley of the Arno, and died here. This old church not far away is that of St. Miniato al Monte, nearly ten centuries in age, famous for its carved work and paintings.
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