“The Rehearsal” by Edgar Degas, ca. 1873–1878 © Wikimedia Commons
The Dark History of the Paris Opera Ballerinas in the 19th Century
by Gisselle Costa
A sylph as she twirls across the stage, a swan as she floats on the tips of her toes, a wili with her balance, so precise it defies the laws of physics – a ballerina entrances her beholder with her surreal beauty and an illusioned effortlessness. Still, as she steps behind the curtains, she is transported away from the imaginary world she builds onstage and faced with a greed-driven world of money baggers seeking to exploit her. This was the dark, grotesque, and often disregarded reality of Paris Opera Ballet dancers in the 19th century.
Since ballet’s shift from aristocratic entertainment at French court to the public’s eye on a theatrical stage, the art form has acted as a physically demanding medium to capture fantasies and elicit emotions. As the Paris Opera—then known as the Académie Royale de Musique— opened its doors in the 17th century under the patronage of King Louis XIV, the technical standards and responsibilities of the French ballerina rose to a level unmatched by any other ballet institution of its time (Ref. 5). Aspiring dancers were typically matriculated into the Opera’s ballet school as young children where they underwent years of “militaristic training and a series of brutal exams.” They honed their skills until they hopefully obtained a position in the corps de ballet—the low-ranking ensemble of the ballet company. These younger chorus ballerinas were disparagingly called petits rats and often, came from low socio-economic backgrounds and supported their families through their positions in the corps (Ref. 2). It is only by good fortune and popularity with the Opera’s financiers that these petits rats could rise through the ranks and gain the status of a soloist or, better still, a principal dancer.
In 1832, Marie Taglioni—an Italian ballerina—appeared in a Parisian production of La Sylphide, where Taglioni appeared dancing sur les pointes in a ghostly “white, tiered, bell- shaped skirt” that played with the effects of the gaslights that illuminated the stage. Doing so, Taglioni transformed into a forest nymph before the eyes of her audience, setting the standard for what ballet came to be during the Romantic Age. The ethereal and mystical nature of the ballet blanches that would define this era, such as Giselle and Coppelia, played into the fantasies of the male audience that came to “[dictate] the form ballet dancing took,” increasing the popularity of female dancers in an art form that had once been completely dominated by men (Ref. 5). The director of the Paris Opera–who managed many of the Opera’s major operations such as the artistic direction of productions and the level status of each dancer–generally worked to favor affluent male subscribers, also known as abbonnés, which “were so powerful, they were part of the Opera’s very architecture.” In the 1860s, when the Paris Opera Ballet was transferred to the recently inaugurated Palais Garnier, a large room known as the foyer de la danse was built in the backstage area and was designated as a “men’s club” for abbonnés to socialize and solicit ballerinas in “a highly sexualized atmosphere”(Ref. 2). Before long, prostitution was practically integrated into the profession of being a ballerina, developing a reputation that became inescapable, even for those that did not participate in the act. Because most petits rats came from “fatherless families or from mothers who were concierges or laundresses,” many utilized the demimonde of the foyer de la danse as a strategic survival tactic where they would give into the charms and advances of the wealthy subscribers in the hopes of obtaining their patronage (Ref. 3). They were “frequently encouraged by their own mothers to fan the flames of male desire” to perhaps procure private ballet lessons to elevate their rank at the Opera, or the subscriber’s financial backing for a more comfortable lifestyle for the ballerina and her family (Ref. 4). Furthermore, a ballerina as young as 12 or 13 was subject to a life as a demimondaine, completely ruled by powerful men and sexual politics simply because she found herself on the unfortunate side of France’s ample wealth gap.
Thirty years after Taglioni’s induction of the Romantic tutu, in 1862, the talented Emma Livry was dealt with the unluckiest of cards that led to the end of her fruitful career. Born out of wedlock to a French baron and a Paris Opera ballerina, Livry was forced to join the Opera Ballet at a young age, seeing as her father had abandoned her at birth. Nevertheless, under the instruction of Marie Taglioni and the support of her mother’s vicomte lover, Livry quickly rose to fame after her debut in 1859 and became known as the last great star of the Romantic Ballet era (Ref. 8). Lamentably, Emma Livry’s success came at a time when the “Holocaust of Ballet Dancers”—a denomination for numerous incidents in which ballerinas had become burn victims due to their flammable costumes interacting with the onstage gas lamps—was a prevalent issue in the ballet world (Ref. 7). As a result of these morbid events and urgency by the medical press, an 1859 Imperial decree in France made it mandatory to flameproof all costumes and theatrical sets with a “carteronnage” chemical process named after the man who created it, Jean-Adolphe Carteron. However, the alum solution had unattractive effects on the tulle fabric, causing it to stiffen and yellow, losing its sylph-like quality that had originally captivated the masses. Revolted by the treatment of the fabric, Emma Livry had written a letter to the director of the Opera in 1860, insisting she wear her original tutu on all her first performances of the ballet and taking complete responsibility for any possible accidents (Ref. 8). The incident that followed could hardly be noted as a testament to vanity, for it was under a custom of survival by which Livry had acted. After all, the profession of the ballerina required complete satisfaction from the abbonnés, which Livry, along with her fellow ballerinas, were all too aware of the financial consequences they could potentially suffer if they did not successfully mesmerize their admirers. This satisfaction became a priority which would be more difficult to execute with the lackluster carteronized tutus. Alas, it was during a rehearsal for La Muette de Portici in 1862 that Emma Livry paid a grim price for the art of ballet, when she fluffed her skirts near a gaslight causing her entire costume to ignite in flames, which “rose to three times her height.” She ran onstage in a mayhem of screams and panic, until a fireman extinguished her with a blanket. Unfortunately, by then, she had already sustained too many burns and the bones of her bodice had melted into her skin, which a doctor then meticulously plucked out, one by one. Emma Livry was then forced to spend the next eight months in agony, until her ill-treated wounds became exposed to infection and blood poisoning, causing her to perish in 1863 at the young age of twenty-one. What remained of Livry’s costume was kept by Madame Caroline Dominique Venetozza, Livry’s ballet teacher since her youth, in memory of her most esteemed pupil. The fragments, with their singed and mangled appearance, reveal the horrendous trauma that Livry endured at the hands of the Paris Opera (Ref. 8)(Fig. 1).
Figure 1- The Remains of Emma Livry's Costume. Investigated by Dr. Alison Matthews David via Musée Bibliothèque de L'Opera, Paris. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
If one wanted to visualize what life at the Paris Opera Ballet might have looked like in the late 19th century, one only had to look at the paintings of the renowned Impressionist, Edgar Degas. As the period of the Romantic ballet came to an end, the art form appeared to suffer from a significant fall in standards, losing its appeal to the general bourgeoisie. However, the male subscribers still found a reliability within the opera’s hidden and steadfast brothel culture that subjected the ballerinas to sexual exploitation in the notorious foyer de la danse (Ref. 3). An 1892 article by William Anthorp from Scribner’s Magazine notes that at the time, the foyer was “the heart of the whole institution” and that “the ballet is to the Académie de Musique what the bar- room is to many a large hotel...the one from which the surplus profits come” (Ref. 1). It was during this time that Degas would become fascinated with the Paris Opera Ballet. Throughout the 1870s, well into the 1890s, Degas would produce about 1,500 works of art dedicated to capturing ballerinas and the atmosphere of the Palais Garnier. In the beginning stages of his career, Edgar Degas was driven to capture movement and real interactions, unlike the still-lives and landscapes of the other Impressionists. The daily lives of the petits rats became the ultimate foundation which would nurture his desire to evoke the authenticities of ballet. He would often sketch and paint from “behind the wings, backstage, in class, or at a rehearsal” in order to conjure these real-life moments unseen by the opera's audiences (Ref. 4). In collaboration with Ludovic Halevy, Edgar Degas illustrated scenes for Halevy's short stories “Les Petits Cardinal” which was a covert allusion to the brothel culture of the foyer de la danse. One of Degas’ illustrations depicts a young ballerina surrounded by wealthy older men, creating a more direct portrayal of what transpires backstage than the more concealed nature of his paintings (Ref. 6)(Fig. 2).
Figure 2- Edgar Degas' Illustration for Ludovic Halévy's "Les Petites Cardinal."
In the late 1870s, a young petit rat named Marie van Goethem was confronted with a financial opportunity to pose as a model for Edgar Degas. Coming from a penniless family in the 9th arrondissement with a laundress mother and two sisters, van Goethem was willing to model for Degas, in addition to her factory-like schedule in the corps de ballet, in order to make more money to provide for her family. Marie van Goethem is also likely to have submitted to the sexual advances made by the abbonnés and is speculated to have worked as a call-girl alongside her older sister Antoinette in the late-night cabarets in Montmartre to increase the family’s income (Ref. 9). Being one of many dancers in the opera's corps, van Goethem's lifestyle of abuse and hardships puts into perspective how difficult and deplorable life as a ballerina was for the petits rats. Unfortunately, her work with Edgar Degas was far from pleasant, considering his reputation amongst all the young dancers for being a misogynist and “a merciless, cantankerous man” and often had his models pose for lengthy periods of time, “enduring excruciating discomfort as they held their contorted positions” (Ref. 6). From a too-young age, Degas had van Goethem pose in the nude for several of his sculptures. Although, she was clothed for the most famous of them all, La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, in its exhibit debut in 1881, her image received much scrutiny from Degas' bourgeoisie audience (Fig. 3). Many went so far as to call her “ugly,” “bestial” and compare her to a monkey (Ref. 3). As if that were not distressing enough, Marie van Goethem’s life took a left turn after the exhibition when her older sister Antoinette was arrested for stealing in Le Chat Noir and placed in prison for three months. Antoinette’s trial revealed that their mother had been prostituting van Goethem, worsening her reputation in society for the rest of her life. Additionally, due to her work with Edgar Degas, she had missed several classes and appointments which led to the Paris Opera Ballet dismissing her (Ref. 6). After the fact, it is unknown what came to be of Marie van Goethem. Nevertheless, her story, which is often disregarded by ballet history, is a prime example of the ways in which the Opera Ballet and the society it catered to imposed an abusive and exploitative environment on the ballerinas it produced.
It is no secret that the nineteenth century was no friend to women and often because of the lack of power it offered them, their stories go widely unheard despite being the most necessary to hear. The Paris Opera Ballet has made a fortune on creating stories, often with female heroines, for the sake of appeasing to the male gaze. In doing so, the stories of the dancers that embodied these heroines and these make-believe worlds have overridden the sympathy and consideration they are deserving of backstage. Instead, they have perished and suffered for an art form and a system that never did any favors for them. Their stories, however difficult they are to hear, should see the light of day so that the grim legacy they have left behind is not in vain.
Figure 3- La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans by Edgar Degas via The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
REFERENCES
1. Apthorp, William F. “Paris Theaters and Concerts.” Scribner’s Magazine. Volume XI, January- June 1892. Stanford University Libraries.
2. Blakemore, Erin. “Sexual Exploitation Was the Norm for 19th Century Ballerinas.”HISTORY.com, January 5, 2018. http://www.history.com/news/sexual-exploitation- was-the-norm-for-19th-century-ballerinas.
3. Coons, Lorraine. (2014). Artiste or Coquette? les petits rats of the Paris Opera Ballet. French Cultural Studies, 25(2), 140–164. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957155814520912
4. Fiore, Julia. “Edgar Degas’s Ballet Dancers Hide a Sordid Backstage Reality.” Artsy, October 1, 2018. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-sordid-truth-degass-ballet-dancers.
5. Greskovic, Robert. Ballet 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving the Ballet. Limelight Editions, 2006.
6. ImagesMusicales. “POOR LITTLE RATS: LES MISÉRABLES... DE L’OPÉRA.” Images Musicales stories, December 1, 2019. https://blog.imagesmusicales.be/poor-little-rats-les-miserables-de-lopera/.
7. Kruse, C., Ripley's Believe It or Not!, & Neese, J. (2018, July 2). Were burning ballet dancers a tragic tale or sinister conspiracy? Ripley's Believe It or Not! Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/burning-ballet-dancers/
8. Matthews David, Alison. Fashion Victims : The Dangers of Dress Past and Present. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2017. Accessed April 9, 2023. ProQuest Ebook Central. 146-176.
9. Williamson, S. (2022, February 21). Exploitation in ballet history: Prostitution at the Paris Opera Ballet. TheCollector. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.thecollector.com/history- ballet-paris-opera/