Emma Livry
Encyclopedia
Ballerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
s of the Romantic ballet
Romantic ballet
The Romantic ballet is defined primarily by an era in ballet in which the ideas of Romanticism in art and literature influenced the creation of ballets. The era occurred during the early to mid 19th century primarily at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique of the Paris Opera Ballet and Her...
era and a protégée of Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni was a famous Italian/Swedish ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.-Biography:...
. She died from complications after burn injuries sustained when her costume caught fire during a rehearsal.
Livry was the illegitimate daughter of Célestine Emarot, a ballet dancer, and Baron Charles de Chassiron
Charles de Chassiron
Baron Charles Gustave Martin de Chassiron was a French diplomat of the 19th century. He travelled to China and Japan as one of the two Attachés of the French Embassy under Baron Gros, with the title of "Detaché extraordinaire en Chine et au Japon" from 1858 to 1860., together with Marquis Alfred...
, which prompted the following rhyming verse:
Soit la fille d'un chat si rond? |
Corps de ballet In ballet, the corps de ballet is the group of dancers who are not soloists. They are a permanent part of the ballet company and often work as a backdrop for the principal dancers. A corps de ballet works as one, with synchronized movements and corresponding positioning on the stage... Be the daughter of so round a cat? |
She studied dancing under Madame Dominique and attended the Paris Opera School. Her career was promoted by her mother's lover at the time, Vicomte Ferdinand de Montguyon. On 19 October 1858, at the age of sixteen, she made her debut with the Paris Opera Ballet
Paris Opera Ballet
The Paris Opera Ballet is the oldest national ballet company in the world, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it...
at the Salle Le Peletier as the sylph
Sylph
Sylph is a mythological creature in the Western tradition. The term originates in Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as invisible beings of the air, his elementals of air...
in La Sylphide
La Sylphide
La Sylphide is one of the world's oldest surviving romantic ballets. There were two versions of the ballet; the version choreographed by the Danish balletmaster August Bournonville is the only version known to have survived....
. Her talent brought her fame and she became a widely respected ballerina.
Montguyon prevailed upon the Director of the Opera to change the programme so that Marie Taglioni would see Emma in La Sylphide when she visited. Taglioni decided to stay on in Paris to teach the girl, who reminded her of herself as a young woman. She choreographed for Emma the title-role of Farfalla (Butterfly) in Le Papillon
Le Papillon (ballet)
Le papillon is a "fantastic ballet" in 2 acts, with choreography by Marie Taglioni and music by Jacques Offenbach to a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges....
, the only full-length ballet composed by Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
. The sculptor Jean-Auguste Barre
Jean-Auguste Barre
Jean Auguste Barre was a French sculptor and medalist. Born in Paris, he was trained by his father Jean-Jacques Barre , a medalist. Barre studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Jean-Pierre Cortot, and he is mainly known as a portrait sculptor.Exhibiting at the French Salon from 1831 to...
created a figurine of Livry in this role in bronze and bisque
Bisque (pottery)
Bisque porcelain is unglazed, white ceramic ware Examples include bisque dolls.Bisque also refers to "pottery that has been fired but not yet glazed...
versions.
Paul Smith wrote in Revue et gazette musicale de Paris:
On 15 November 1862, Livry was rehearsing the title role of Fenella, a mime
Mime
The word mime is used to refer to a mime artist who uses a theatrical medium or performance art involving the acting out of a story through body motions without use of speech.Mime may also refer to:* Mime, an alternative word for lip sync...
part and the title role in Auber's
Daniel Auber
Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
opera La muette de Portici
La muette de Portici
La muette de Portici originally called Masaniello, ou La muette de Portici, is an opera in five acts by Daniel Auber, with a libretto by Germain Delavigne, revised by Eugène Scribe...
. Making her second-act entrance, she shook out her skirts, which caught fire on a gaslight. The accident was avoidable: a method of fire-proofing costumes was available in this period, but Livry and most female performers of the period were opposed to it because it discolored and stiffened fabrics. In flames, she ran across the stage three times before she was caught and the fire extinguished with the help of firemen and other dancers. Her burns were more extensive than deep. She had clasped the burning fabric to her torso out of modesty. Her face and breasts were undamaged. According to the doctor in attendance, her thighs, waist, back, shoulders and arms were burned, and her stays were burned on. She tried to pray. Taglioni, who was watching the rehearsal, rubbed make-up grease into her wounds in the mistaken belief that it would act as ointment.
She suffered for months, yet remained opposed to fire-proofed skirts: "Yes, they are, as you say, less dangerous, but should I ever return to the stage, I would never think of wearing them – they are so ugly." In the summer 1863, she was moved from her home in Paris to Neuilly-sur-Seine. However, her wounds re-opened and she succumbed to septicæmia
Sepsis
Sepsis is a potentially deadly medical condition that is characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state and the presence of a known or suspected infection. The body may develop this inflammatory response by the immune system to microbes in the blood, urine, lungs, skin, or other tissues...
. Montguyon was with her when she died. After a funeral at Notre Dame de Lorette in Paris, she was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre
Montmartre Cemetery
Montmartre Cemetery is a cemetery in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France.-History:Cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the shutting down of the Cimetière des Innocents in 1786, as they presented health hazards...
. The surviving scraps of her costume can be seen in the Musée de l'Opéra
Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra National de Paris
The Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra National de Paris is a library and museum of the Paris Opera and is located in the 9th arrondissement at 8 rue Scribe, Paris, France. It is no longer managed by the Opera, but instead is part of the Music Department of the National Library of France...
in Paris.
Sources and Further Reading
- M. Quatrelles L'Epine, "Une danseuse française au XIXe siècle: Emma Livry", Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Théâtre (Paris, November 1908 – January 1909), pp. 7–47.
- Guest, Ivor, The Ballet of the Second Empire (London, 1955)
- Guest, Ivor, "Centenary: Emma Livry, 1842–1863", in The Ballet Annual & Year Book, Mary Clarke & Arnold Haskell, eds., (New York & London, 1963), pp. 54–60