Ballerina Read online

  An even more colorful rags-to-riches story belongs to the ballerina Mademoiselle Delisle (1696–1756), the elder of two sisters employed by the company. She was mistress to Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Charolais. Through his generosity, she appeared on stage in 1723 dressed head to toe in a costume of solid silver to dance a solo in Philomèle, a lost opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The sight was reportedly remarkable, especially given the woman’s lowly origins. Jean-François Barbier wrote about her in his Journal historique et anecdotique du regne de Louis XV, saying that the costume cost 2,000 écus, roughly $60,000 in today’s money: “This creature is pretty with a very beautiful figure,” he continued waspishly. “Before being at the Opéra, she was a fifty-sous whore. She is very gratified now; the prince entertains her in his house and she lives in great style.”40

  Ballerinas of low birth entertained by royalty were not a uniquely French phenomenon. Sophie Hagman (1758–1826), a dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet, entered the world poor as the daughter of a gamekeeper and rose to become the official royal mistress to Prince Frederick Adolf of Sweden. The Italian-born Barbara Campanini (1721–1799), another celebrated ballerina of humble origins, ended her days as a countess in Prussia. Frederick the Great was said to have adored her “boyish legs” and personally ensured that she attained prominence in his land.41 The Venetian-born Giovanna Baccelli (1753–1801) was born into an itinerant Italian theatrical family but used her considerable sexual charms to rise to great heights in English society, eventually becoming the mistress of John Frederick Sackville, the third Duke of Dorset, who was ambassador to the court of Louis XVI (as well as ancestor to the writer Vita Sackville-West).42

  Still, the most celebrated ballerina-courtesans came from Paris, where the backstage world of the Opéra was like “a foreign legion within the army of the Opéra—a legion recruited from the slums and composed, if you’d like, of more or less beautiful women but without any standard of conduct, incapable of dedication, study, and work,”43 according to one of the theater’s own directors describing the harem-like scene that existed behind the curtain. But within that seraglio were dancers of tremendous talent who skillfully navigated the demimonde of illicit sex—and on their own terms.

  One such woman was Françoise Prévost (1680–1741), the first ballerina-courtesan to become famous as much as for her prowess on the stage as for her skills in bed. Prévost reigned at the Paris Opéra for almost thirty years as dancer, choreographer, and illustrious teacher. She was the first ballerina known to have shared her expertise with students, initiating a chain of apprenticeship—young dancers learning from senior female artists—that continues to this day. At least two of her students went on to command the highest accolades in the land, which says as much about her pedagogical skills as it does her ability to inspire others with her dancing talent. “Indeed, her personal way of investing steps with meaning would remain a reference point for female soloists throughout the 18th century.”44 She was a superlative dancer of low birth, being the daughter of a Spanish mother and a piqueur, the man who called the performers’ roll at the Paris Opéra (he may also have been a dancing master), which could explain how she came early to be engaged there. She first appears on the rolls as a child performer under the name La Petite Prévost.45 A charismatic performer, she danced in many of Lully’s ballets, as well as those of Guillaume-Louis Pécour (1653–1729), the premiere choreographer of the French noble style. Prévost’s roles encompassed everything from a shepherdess and a harlequin to a nymph, a faun, a bacchante, and a Greek—the latter likely due to her dark hair.

  More significant were the roles she danced in works she created herself, solos and duets, the latter often danced with the celebrated male dancer Claude Ballon (1671–1744). Among them was her masterpiece, Les Caractères de la danse, a 1715 solo depicting a series of amorous vignettes with Prévost playing characters of both genders and a variety of ages. A fascinating chameleon of a work, it was composed of fragments of social dances popular in their day—the courante, menuet, bourée, chaconne, sarabande, gavotte, louré, and musette—set to an original score by Jean-Féry Rebel, a member of the famous Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi.46 Prévost harnessed the shifting rhythms to suggest a mercurial variety of moods and characters, which she danced with aplomb, playing an old man sighing for a young beauty in one scene and in another a young woman so happy in love she has nothing to complain about. The suite of four individual yet thematically linked dances was Prévost’s signature piece, showing off her versatility as a performer; it has served to fix her star in the firmament of great ballerinas past. The dance had both wit and humor. Prévost’s contemporaries all spoke of it highly, praising in particular the ballerina’s skill as a mime, not to mention her inherent grace, lightness, and poise. Rameau was one of her biggest fans, describing the prototypical ballerina as having “all the advantages of Proteus in the Fable. She, at Pleasure, assumes all manner of shapes... to enchant the Greedy Eyes of those that look on her, and to gain the Applause of every Body which excites a noble Emulation among the other Women Dancers.”47

  Prévost was celebrated as much for grace as for virtue. Such was her public image, which she cultivated to the end of her days. Before dying in 1741, at age sixty, she requested to be buried in the Saint Theresa chapel belonging to Les Carmes Déchaussés, which was next door to her house on rue Cassette. She would be buried on hallowed ground.48 But, in reality, Prévost was a first-class courtesan who made a highly lucrative living off her body, both on and off the stage. That she led a double life was amply recorded in a 1726 legal document49 in which Prévost petitioned the courts to secure the life annuity of 6,000 livres50 promised her by the French ambassador to Malta when she had been his mistress. Jean-Jacques de Mesmes was refusing to pay up, claiming that he was both emotionally and financially spent as a result of the dancer; he said under oath that she had stolen his heart.

  Mesmes was the son of an important magistrate in France, who at one point had held the office of president of the Parliament. He owed his status within society to Louis XIV, who had personally appointed him ambassador to Malta in 1714 to keep the de Mesmes family on his side during a political dispute at court. The king at that time had wanted to appoint Louis-Auguste, his illegitimate son by his mistress Madame de Montespan as his successor over the rightful heir, Philippe d’Orléans, and needed this well-to-do family of the ancien régime to cast its vote in his favor.51 If the king had not influenced his career, it is unlikely this scion of the house of de Mesmes would have succeeded on his own merits. A prominent contemporary described him as a man of “poor intellect and appearance, curiously dissolute... who in many ways was a disgrace to his position”52—which perhaps explains the rather foolish way he conducted himself when seeking to defend himself against the more canny (and cunning) Prévost.

  The ambassador penned a tell-all journal of bartered desire, which was widely circulated in its day, damaging the reputations of both parties. Today, it offers a rare snapshot of what life was like for ballerina-courtesans of Prévost’s spunk and caliber and so is worth reproducing here in large, juicy chunks. Mesmes starts by recalling his pre-ambassador days as a chevalier (knight) when he had first met Prévost, exposing not only his bungling impetuosity as a would-be lover but, more significantly, the secretive offstage existence of a ballerina known for playing virginal priestesses and other feminine ideals in ballets like Henri Desmarest’s Iphigénie en Tauride (1704) and Lully’s Bellérophon (1705) and Thésée (1707). Prévost was twenty-five at the time of the affair. While describing Prévost as “graceful and elegant,” Mesmes observed that her origins were humble:

  She met the Chevalier [meaning himself] and fell for him, but she lived with her parents and their living conditions at first disheartened the aspiring lover. He found the family in a high and obscure chamber barely furnished with a Bergame hanging [a coarse type of hanging found in humble households] and four chairs upholstered in tapestry, the w
hole quite proper and clean nevertheless. The beloved object of the Chevalier’s affection, who did not expect his visit, was caught in her domestic state: this was not a néréide from Neptune’s court, laden with all the sea bounty, this was not Flora, Zephyr’s lover, adorned with colorful spring flowers, this was Fanchonette [his nickname for her], dressed in striped calmade [thick material used as upholstery], coiffed with a dirty nightcap trimmed with a rose-colored ribbon, grubbier still. Her face was unmasked, her neck and chest were bare, revealing a sallow complexion and prominent muscles. Fanchonette stood thus, by a small fireplace, busy reviving ashes and a dying candle.53

  Mesmes did not propose making her his concubine at this encounter but later arranged for a rendezvous in a back alley of the Palais-Royal, where the terms of their relationship were baldly laid out. Prévost’s mother helped broker the deal, while the ballerina herself smoothed over the minor problem of her already having a lover:

  The bargain that was reached in the end was that he would take second place. He would be told when to visit and when to fill in when lover number one was absent, and he would also pay the bills incurred at taverns and restaurants. This being settled, the lovers took immediate possession of each other that very night. Fanchonette got drunk as well as her mother and was in high spirits. The infatuated young man found her eyes tender, her teeth beautiful, and her skin soft to the touch. He spent the night basking in his great fortune, and that night was followed by others, all equally passionate.54

  Mesmes kept Prévost in luxury for years, eventually purchasing for her, at her request, “a fully furnished apartment with cellar and kitchen, all manner of furniture, clothes for all seasons, not to mention a well-provided table,” he writes. “No sooner than her desires were known they were met. Her dressers filled up with china, her wardrobe with gowns, and the ambassador delighted in hiding all kinds of jewelry in her drawers.”55 In return, she was faithful to him in her fashion: during their long-term relationship she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter. The father was not Mesmes but the Count of Middelbourg, Alexandre Maximilien Balthazar de Gand.56 Prévost was caught several times by the ambassador in bed with other men, including a colleague from the Opéra, which is how the dancer had won the promise of the 6,000 livres annuity—her price for renouncing that lover, or so Mesmes claimed.

  Prévost countered by saying the money was what he owed her, having borrowed from her ten times as much during the relationship for his embassy expenses. As to the allegations of whorish behavior, Prévost said nothing, determined to be known as her public knew her, as “Terpsichore the Muse, whom the ancients made to preside over Dancing.”57 Ultimately, the courts sided with her, granting her the 6,000 livres annuity. As soon as she got it, she put the bulk of the money into a trust fund to help her children and her grandchildren, setting them up comfortably for life. Prévost might have had loose morals, but she knew where her priorities lay. Promiscuity was the means to an end.

  Prévost led by example; her own student, the illustrious Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo (1710–1770), who had studied with Prévost from the age of ten, also became a courtesan, eventually becoming a sexual rival to the more senior ballerina, who would continue to court men of influence well into old age. A fiery brunette celebrated for her bravura whirlwind performances, Camargo was a sexual powerhouse who rose into the upper echelons of French society assisted by several high-ranking lovers at once. In spite of their thirty-year age difference, Camargo and Prévost were said to share the same lovers—among them the handsome Paris Opéra dancer and ballet master Michel Blondy (1675–1739), who had partnered them both and bedded them both as well. The affair put a wedge between Prévost and Camargo. The French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur commented on their falling out in a gossipy letter to a friend: “Yesterday they played Roland by Quinault and Lulli [sic]. Although Mademoiselle Prévost surpassed herself, she obtained meager applause in comparison with a new dancer named Camargo whom the public idolizes and whose great merit is her youth and vigor. You may not have seen her. Mademoiselle Prévost at first protected her but Blondi [sic] has fallen in love with her and the lady is piqued. She seemed jealous and unhappy at the applause Camargo received from the public... The clapping gets so extreme that Prévost will be foolish if she does not decide to retire.”58

  In record time, Prévost ordered a tearful Camargo to the anonymous back row of the corps de ballet, refusing to create for her any more entrées, or choreographed entrances in the operas where ballet was a featured element.59 Camargo might have lingered there, but one day when the male dancer David Dumoulin missed his cue, she brilliantly asserted herself back to center stage and improvised a solo as lightning quick as it was daring. The Italian author and sexual adventurer Giacomo Casanova saw Camargo perform in the sprightly Les Fêtes vénitiennes and recorded his impressions: “I saw a danseuse who bounded like a fury, cutting entrechats to right and left, and in all directions, but scarcely rising from the ground, yet she was received with fervent applause.”60

  This time, Prévost couldn’t ignore the tumult surrounding Camargo or stand in her way. Camargo had started to get hands-on instruction from leading male dancers, who admired her pluck and talent: Blondy, followed by Guillaume-Louis Pécour and Louis Dupré (1690–1774), known as Le Grand Dupré. Camargo benefited greatly from having these male teachers: they taught her attack and an air of nobility that enhanced her own lightness of touch and sensitivity to music.61 More important, these men also showed her how to leap clear of obstacles cluttering her path to glory. With the same determination she reserved for her dancing, she continued to court them, as well as others, to advance herself into the upper echelons of French society.

  Camargo had commenced her career at the Brussels opera house, and later in Rouen, where at age fifteen she had been appointed a solo dancer. But when she danced Les Caractères de la danse for her Paris Opéra debut on May 5, 1726, her fame exploded. In contrast to her chief rival Marie Sallé, she emphasized the escalating energy behind dances and not the moods of the characters, imbuing the solo with the bravura technique that immediately became her claim to fame: “Everyone beholds with amazement the daring steps, the noble, strong hardihood of Camargo,” wrote the critic in Le Mercure de France following the performance. “Her cabrioles and entrechats were effortless, and although she has many perfections yet to acquire in order to come near to her inimitable teacher, the public regards her as one of the most brilliant women dancers to be seen, especially for the sensitivity of her ear, her lightness and her strength.”62

  Camargo’s signature was vigorous movement performed to sprightly music. To move with even greater speed, she lobbed off the heels of her shoes to create the world’s first dancing slippers, which allowed her greater contact with the floor in preparation for liftoff. To better show off her fabulous legwork, Camargo also shortened her skirts to around the midpoint of the calf, a modification in costume that precedes the adoption in the nineteenth century of the tutu, the ballerina’s official uniform.63 Camargo’s costume reform was soon adopted by other ballerinas seeking freedom of movement.

  By moving fast, Camargo was praised for dancing vigorously, like a man. Given the times, Camargo did dance like a man in that she was a virtuoso who gained attention not by dancing terre-à-terre, as had been the norm for women dancers of the day, but by rushing upwards into the air in performing haute danse, a masculine style of ballet where the feet barely touched the ground. In daring to defy the entrenched notion that women dancers should comport themselves with modesty when on the stage, Camargo set a new standard of heightened physicality for women in ballet. She was known for having a ninety-degree turnout, a radical doubling of the standard. Her specialty was entrechats-quatre, a rapid crisscrossing of the feet performed at the height of a jump, which she was said to have invented, though evidence exists of men having done it before her. At the very least, what can be said of this tricky step is that Camargo was the first female
dancer known to have performed it.64 Camargo was also adept at performing a step called the gargouillade, a sideways jump where the feet draw circles in the air, as well as cabrioles, leaps where one leg is stretched and the other beats against it. Audiences adored her athleticism and took to calling her by her nickname, La Gigotteuse—the woman who jigs.

  Only once in her career did she dance the stereotypical female role of a Grace. With her tempestuous style of dancing and dark good looks, she was more often cast as a bacchante, a huntress, an Egyptian, or a bohemian.65 These were earthy roles that lent her a heightened sexual allure, a reputation she took pains to encourage. The shortened hemlines also led to rampant speculation as to what else could be discovered beneath Camargo’s skirts. Did she or did she not wear underwear? (She didn’t.) If she jumped high enough, might a man sitting in the orchestra get to see the source of all her feminine power? (He might.) Such was the chit-chat of the day, and Camargo did little to stem the gossip. According to playwright and poet Louis Poinsinet de Sivry, writing in 1771, Camargo intentionally danced without the caleçons de précaution that soon would be de rigueur for ballerinas following her lead in lifting their legs above their knees, as prescribed by the Paris Opéra administration, “adopting the principle of executing all her steps under her, she always dispensed with that modesty garment worn by danseuses to avoid any offence against decency, notwithstanding the height of her cabrioles, entrechats and jetés battus en l’air.”66 Casanova, for one, delighted in the scandal, as observed in a letter he wrote to a friend around 1750: “That’s the famed Camargo, mon ami, and you have arrived in Paris at the right time to see her... She was the first woman dancer who dared to jump: before her, women dancers did not jump, and the wonderful thing about it is that she doesn’t wear drawers.”67