Marie Taglioni
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Marie Taglioni (23 April 1804 – 24 April 1884) was a famous ballerina of the Romantic ballet era.
Born in Stockholm, Marie rose to fame as a dancer when her father (and teacher) Fillipo Taglioni created the ballet La Sylphide (1832) for her. Designed as a showcase for Maries talent it was the first ballet where the ballerina danced en pointe for the full length of the work.
Marie Taglioni was the first star of the romantic ballet era. The four ballerinas who followed here were: Carlotta Grisi, Lucile Grahn, Fanny Cerito and Fanny Elssler. In 1845 Jules Perrot choreographed the Pas de Quatre for four of these ballerinas (Essler did not take part) at the request of Benjamin Lunley. Premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, it was received with great excitement by the critics and balletomanes.
Marie Taglioni left the Paris Opera Ballet in 1837 to take up a three-year contract in St. Petersburg at the Mariinsky ballet (now known as the Kirov 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 toe shoes (early pointe shoes) were sold for two hundred roubles to be cooked, served with a sauce and eaten by a balletomane.
Marie retired from performing in 1847 and later 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 she had appeared in.