Marie Taglioni

Marie Taglioni circa 1831. source: the Theatre Museum (Victoria & Albert Museum) cc-by-nd-nc

Marie Taglioni (23 April 1804 – 24 April 1884) was a famous ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the European history of dance.

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Marie rose to fame as a dancer when her father (and teacher) Filippo Taglioni created the ballet La Sylphide (1832) for her. Designed as a showcase for Marie's 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. 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, reportedly to be cooked, served with a sauce and eaten by a balletomane.

Marie retired from performing in 1847. For a time she took up residence at the Ca d'Oro on the Grand Canal in Venice. When the ballet of the Paris Opera was reorganized on stricter, more professional lines, she was its guiding spirit. With the director of the new Conservatoire de danse, Lucien Petipa and Petipa's former pupil the choreographer Louis Mérante she figured on the six-member select jury of the first annual competition for the Corps de ballet, held April 13, 1860.

Later she 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 in which she had appeared.