Denk, Liselotte Fanny Elssler Tänzerin eines
Jahrhunderts Legende und Wirklichkeit (Vienna: Amalthea
Verlag, 1984).
Guest, Ivor Fanny Elssler (London: 1970).
Linden, Ilse Fanny Elssler Tänzerin des Biedermeier
nach Briefen und zeitgeöessischen Berichten
zusammengestellt (Berlin: 1921).
Pirchan, Emil Fanny Elssler (Vienna: 1940).
Raab, Riki
Fanny Elssler: Eine Weltsensation
(Vienna: 1962).
JGC revised this file
(http://www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/dh/elssler.htm) on
October 13, 2004
Please E-mail comments or suggestions to chastain@www.ohiou.e
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© 1997, 2004 James Chastain.
Elssler, Fanny (Francesca), (1810-1884) This celebrated
Austrian dancer was born in Vienna, the daughter of a musician
who worked as a sheet music
copyist for Joseph Hayden. With her
two sisters, Therese and Anna, she embarked on her stage career
at age five with the Horschelt Children's Ballet Company at the
Theater an der Wien. At eleven she became a member of the Corps
de Ballet of the Kaerntnertor Theater. When only in their teens,
she and her sister Therese danced to acclaim in Berlin, London
and Paris. Recognition in her native city was slower to arrive.
From 1840 until 1843 she toured North America to enthusiastic
audiences. Afte
r this prolonged solo tour, she was a wealthy
woman as well as a famous one. She continued to tour the
continent with two appearances in Moscow until her retirement
from the stage in Vienna in 1851 after a performance of "Faust."
Elssler's realistic and adept interpretations of national and
character dances helped build her reputation as well as that of
the Viennese ballet. She shared the growing interest in national
folk dances prior to 1840. Her accomplished performances of such
dances as the
Spanish Cachucha, similar to the
Bolero, made them as popular on the city stage as
they were in the countryside. Her costumes set styles for years
following her appearances. The performance of Elssler's
Cachucha, for example, was a fashion event in
Vienna. Her pink dress trimmed with black lace at the low
neckline and hem was copied and worn by admiring Viennese women
at pre-Lenten balls. The white camellia she wore in her hair
became a symbol of this dance
r of the Romantic age, when
audiences expected to be moved emotionally by the arts. Popular
adulation of Fanny Elssler made profitable the production of
plates, cups and other objects bearing her likeness, in addition
to porcelain copies of her "elf-like" hand. Fanny Elssler's
romantic admirers included the pre-March publicist and diplomat
Friedrich von Gentz (1764-1832). A man 45 years Elssler's
senior, whose admiration and personal devotion she enjoyed from
1829 until his death, he was a frie
nd and admirer of Prince
Klemens von Metternich, who warned his friend and advisor
unavailingly against the liaison with the younger woman, but his
words were useless against the passion of Gentz's life.
Metternich and others believed that Gentz's affair reflected a
Romantic aspect never seen before in such a rational man. It was
generally accepted by his friends that the involvement with the
dancer hastened the former rationalist's death. But Gentz was
one of many for Fanny Elssler, who was idol
ized by fans at the
peak of her career, like the singers Henriette Sontag and Jenny
Lind who were similarly admired. This obsessive admiration
reflected passion of many contemporaries for the performing arts
during the Biedermeier era. Similarly those emerging middle
classes, which made up Viennese audiences imagined Elssler's
great rival, the Italian dancer Marie Taglioni (1804-1884), a
heroic figure. Her enthusiastic supporters defended their
idol's performance of the ballet La Sylphide in
Paris in the 1830s, rioting with the Elsslerites to defend the
reputation of Taglioni. For most admirers of Fanny Elssler, a
performance brought intense enjoyment and a welcome respite from
the economic difficulties and political repression of the age.
At the same time the dancer made a great contribution to the
development of the classical ballet. Her charisma and talent
added to the reputation of her metier - classical ballet and folk
dance in the decades prior to 1848.
Maria Wagner
Bibliography