The Taglioni of the North.

Imperious and formidable, Katti Lanner was a famous ballerina, choreographer and dancing mistress who taught many English ballerinas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Her career lasted until almost until she died at seventy-eight! Prima ballerina Phyllis Beddells recalled 77-year old Katti Lanner yelling at the corps de ballet if there was the slightest defect in their work or if they were out of line. Lanner didn't realise that she could be heard by the audience in the front.

Born in 1845 in Vienna, Lanner was the daughter of the great dancing teacher Josef Lanner. She began dancing at eight and trained at the Vienna Court Opera where she had lessons by Pietro Campilli and Isadore Carey. When she was 16, the young ballerina obtained her first starring role in the pas de deux in the ballet, Angelica. The great ballerinas Fanny Elssler and Fanny Cerritto were impressed with her dancing and Lanner was soon given more starring roles, for example, as Myrtha the Queen of the Wilis in Giselle in 1852. Famous Danish choreographer Bournonville chose her to play the leading role in the ballet Der Toreador.

After her beloved mother's and brother's deaths, Lanner decided to leave Vienna and went on to have a glittering career in Germany, where she was complimented by the King of Bavaria, New York and Lisbon, where the king gave her diamonds. She was nicknamed the 'Taglioni of the North' because of her similarity to the splendid Marie. She formed her own ballet company, taught ballet in Hamburg and produced ballets but she is known mainly for her ballets in England today.

Chosen to be the dancing mistress at the National School of Dancing in England when she was almost 50, Lanner settled in London with her husband Johann Geraldini and their three daughters, Sofia, Katharine and Albertina. Unfortunately, the marriage was not happy and he returned to Vienna. Apparently, Lanner preferred the Neapolitan dancer Giuseppe Venuto de Francesco and their relationship caused some scandal.

In the late 1880's, Lanner began teaching ballerinas and producing spectacular ballets at the Empire  Theatre in Leicester Square, such as Rose d'Amour about a fairy escaping a malignant elf who is rescued by Cupid. This included a Hungarian wedding dance and a Chinese dance of tea-flowers. At the end of the ballet, all the flowers were massed into a huge bouquet. The great C. Wilhelm's costume designs also featured in this ballet and several others.

Watching Cleopatra in 1889 must have been a delight! Maria Cavallazi starred and French composer Herve wrote the music for this amazing production. According to Ivor Guest, the spectacle was 'magnificent indeed, with the stage filled with a colourful throng of Roman soldiery, Nubian's, Egyptians and Greek slaves'. The Girl I Left Behind Me in 1893 about a young soldier who joined a Highland regiment in Burma also stunned audiences with its beautiful scenes. A critic in the Sketch called it 'a carnival of colour, of movement, of gaiety'.

One fun ballet that Lanner produced was Katrina in 1894. This featured ballerinas 'dressed up to represent cats in their nightly flings on the tiles' according to Pick-Me-Up magazine. The ballet starred Miss Ada Vincent as Princess Frou-Frou, a fairy cat, and Miss Lizzie Vincent as Tom Grey, a cat bridegroom.  You can view pictures of scenes from the ballet here and see why some of the critics were especially impressed by the cat costumes. Lanner loved cats herself - she had five of them!

Lanner died peacefully in 1908 on a Sunday morning at 9:00. She didn't know that her faithful dog predeceased her by a few hours. Many of her colleagues and her pupils attended her funeral and she is buried at West Norwood Cemetery.

Anna Pavlova at the Music Hall

When Bronislava-Nijinska saw the great Anna Pavlova dance at the famous music hall, the Palace Theatre, in London, tears came to her eyes.  She thought that appearing on the same bill as musicians, clowns and acrobats had ruined Pavlova's dancing.  (Our Albert Whelan, the 'great Australian entertainer', was sometimes on the same stage, so he might have been included in this indictment!) Some of the papers also looked down on Pavlova's appearing at a music hall.  One critic wrote that Pavlova had been 'rescued from the music-hall' when she joined Diaghilev's company again.

However, most ballet stars such as Adeline Genee did perform on the music-hall stages in the Edwardian era, and they helped ballet to become popular. It was part of Pavlova's mission to make ballet accessible to the ordinary people, so she saw nothing wrong with moving to the Palace. She would probably have been foolish to refuse the attractive salary that she was offered.  This started at 400 pounds a week, and it eventually rose to 1200 pounds - an enormous amount in the early 1900s.

Pavlova's most popular dance was probably the 'Bacchanal' from Autumn, which she performed with Michael Mordkin.  Mordkin looked like a 'Greek God', and, according to Kerensky, his strong and manly physique provided a dramatic contrast to Pavlova's ethereal fragillity and grace.  In this abandoned dance, Pavlova wore flimsy chiffon and danced wildly with her long dark hair tied in a scarlet ribbon. * ( Mordkin actually flung her onto the stage at the end of the dance.  Once he dropped her rather too hard, and she created a sensation by slapping him! (There were rumours of an affair, but Mordkin's widow didn't believe it). Perhaps he did it because he was jealous of her popularity - Pavlova performed more solos.  Once he complained that there were no dishes named after him, but some were named after her!

* Years later, some of the audience in Sydney complained that this dance was unpleasant.

(Anna Pavlova in The Dragonfly)

The Symbol of the "Naughty Nineties"

Fire engines raced to the scene.  The young Prince of Wales and his friend, the Duke of Sutherland, were on one one of them.  They enjoyed the scene immensely as the horses were made to go faster and faster through the busy London streets of 1865.

Unfortunately, they couldn't save The Eldorado, a music-hall and restaurant.  Nineteen years later, a new music-hall replaced the old theatre.  Designed by Thomas Verity, an acclaimed theatre designer, the Empire Theatre in Leicester Square was to become one of the most famous music-halls.  It had a grand opening with Chilperic by Florimund Horne. It was also the site of the opening of the Lumiere Cinematrographe in 1896.

The music-hall was especially noted for its ballets.  Such eminent ballerinas as Adeline Genee appeared there.  Madame Katti Lanner, an Austrian dancer, ran a dance troupe.  The management even travelled to St.Petersburg to acquire new talent.

Unfortunately, the ballet stars were usually members of variety shows.  For example, one evening's entertainment included a juggler, a trapeze-swinging poodle and a contortionist.  This was not the only problem encountered by the girls who appeared in the ballet.  In those days,  actresses and girls in the ballet often had a bad reputation.  They were regarded as "easy game" by the young men of the town.  One MP, a Mr Winterbotham, later complained that dancers often became prostitutes.

The promenade at the back of the dress circle in the theatre was apparently notorious and the reason why the Empire Theatre was considered "the symbol of the Naughty Nineties". Prostitutes and courtesans strolled here hoping to attract the attention of the young aristocrats and dandies.  Winston Churchill wrote that "they also from time to time refreshed themselves with alcoholic liqueurs".  These scenes would result in a great scandal - the subject of my next post.