Carlotta Zambelli (1875-1968) - A Forgotten Ballerina

Carlotta Zambelli (1875-1968) is one of those dancers who has passed across my consciousness a number of times without making a strong impression. In fact my most distinct recollection of her was in a photograph in a ballet book used to demonstrate the depths to which ballet had sunk in the late C19 and before the advent of Serge de Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. It was an image of Zambelli and Antonine Meunier titillatingly ’en travesti’ in ’Les Deux Pigeons’ in 1886. However, there might have been more to this ballerina than what appears to be music hall turns. An Italian, she studied as a pupil of Adelaide Viganò and Cesare Coppini at the La Scala Ballet School from 1884, and then at the Paris Opera Ballet School with Rosita Mauri. She debuted at the Paris Opera in 1894 and was made étoile in 1898. In 1896, she caused a sensation when she executed fifteen fouettés in a divertissement from the opera ’La Favorita’. The gold standard of 32 fouettes of course had been set in 1893 by Pierina Legnani at the premiere of ’Cinderella’ in St. Petersburg, the feat then being incorporated by the ballerina into ’Swan Lake’ in 1895. The first Russian dancer to achieve the magic 32 was Mathilde Kschessinskaya. Carlotta Zambelli was a prima ballerina at the Paris Opera from 1898 to her retirement in 1930, creating leading roles in ’Namouna’ (1908), ’Javotte’ (1909), ’España’ (1911), ’Sylvia’ (1919), ’Taglioni chez Musette’ (1920), and ’Cydalise et le chèvre-pied’ (1923), and in Bronislava Nijinska’s ’Impressions de music-hall’ (1927). She danced in ’Coppélia’ and ’Paquita’, and gave her first ’Giselle’ at the Mariinsky in 1901. On retiring from the stage, Zambelli was a teacher at the Paris Opera Ballet School up to 1955. Not too shabby a career. I was pleased to find a little film of this ballerina, shot in a studio to catch something of her technique and presence. She had a decent-ish jump and her entrechats are quite clean. I’ve used some atmosphere music over the images and the footage - it’s from Delibes’s score for ’Sylvia’ which Zambelli danced in 1919. Not sure it’s quite right ... but! Enjoy!