Giuseppina Morlacchi
Giuseppina Morlacchi was an Italian American ballerina and actress who introduced the can-can to the American stage. Morlacchi attended dance school at La Scala at the age of six, she debuted on the stage in 1856 at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. In a short time, she became a well-known dancer, touring England. In Lisbon, she met noted artist and manager John DePol, who persuaded her to go to America and perform in his DePol Parisian Ballet. In October 1867, she made her American debut at Banvard's Museum in New York City, performing The Devil's Auction, she became an immense success, DePol took the show to Boston. During her rise to fame, DePol insured her legs for $100,000, after which newspapers claimed that Morlacchi was'more valuable than Kentucky'. On January 6, 1868, the company played at the Theatre Comique and premiered a new type of dance, billed as "... Grand Gallop Can-Can and danced by Mlles. Morlacchi, Diani, Baretta... accompanied with cymbals and triangles by the coryphees and corps de ballet."
The new dance received an enthusiastic reception. From 1867 though 1872, Giuseppina traveled the United States dancing in various venues with Morlacchi Ballet Troupe which she formed, performing before various politicians and dignitaries, including the Grand Duke of Russia. From her fame and success increased, she played a succession of popular performances. On December 16, 1872, she was billed as a feature attraction in Ned Buntline's western drama, Scouts of the Prairie, with Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro, she and Texas Jack fell in love, were married on August 31, 1873 at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Rochester, NY; the couple settled in Lowell, Massachusetts where they purchased a home known as Suffolk Hall and a country estate in Billerica, Massachusetts. Morlacchi continued to perform, both with her husband in western dramas, with her dance troupe. In the Spring of 1880, after performing in Denver, the couple visited the silver mining town of Leadville, Colorado where Texas Jack fell ill and a few weeks died of pneumonia.
Shortly after Texas Jack's death Morlacchi returned to their home in Lowell and lived with her sister. She never toured again. Morlacchi died of cancer in 1886, is buried at St. Patrick Cemetery in Lowell. Logan, Herschel C.. Buckskin and Satin: The Life of Texas Jack and His Wife. Harrisburg: Stackpole. Enss, Chris. Buffalo Gals: Women of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Globe Pequot. Barker, Barbara. Ballet or Ballyhoo: The American Careers of Maria Bonfanti, Rita Sangalli, Giuseppina Morlacchi. New York: Dance Horizons. Texas Jack and the peerless Morlacchi Giuseppina Morlacchi at Find a Grave
Jane Avril
Jane Avril was a French can-can dancer made famous by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec through his paintings. Thin,'given to jerky movements and sudden contortions', she was nicknamed La Mélinite, after an explosive, she was born Jeanne Beaudon in Belleville, on 9 June 1868. Her mother was a courtesan and her absent father was a foreign aristocrat. Abused as a child, she ran away from home, was admitted to the Salpêtrière Hospital, with the movement disorder'St Vitus' Dance'. Under the care of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, the expert on "female hysterics", she received various kinds of treatment, claimed in her biography that, when she discovered dance at a social dance for employees and patients at the hospital, she was cured. On leaving the hospital, after a failed romance, Jeanne thought to kill herself, but was taken in by the Madame of a Parisian brothel. Working at whatever day jobs were available, at night she pursued a career in dancing by performing at local clubs. In 1888 she met the writer René Boylesve, said to have become quite taken by the beautiful but shy young girl.
Using the stage name Jane Avril, she built a reputation that allowed her to make a living as a full-time dancer. Hired by the Moulin Rouge nightclub in 1889, within a few years she headlined at the Jardin de Paris, one of the major café-concerts on the Champs-Élysées. To advertise the extravaganza, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted her portrait on a poster that elevated her stature in the entertainment world further; the popularity of the cancan became such that Jane Avril travelled with a dance troupe to perform in London. In 1895 the owners of the Moulin Rouge offered her a great deal of money to take on the risky task of replacing Louise Weber, the most famous dancer in Paris, known by her stage name as "La Goulue". Graceful, soft-spoken, melancholic, Jane Avril gave a dance presentation, the opposite of the boisterous La Goulue; the club's patrons adored her, she became one of the most recognizable names of the Parisian nightlife. A younger dancer, May Milton, arrived in Paris in 1895 and she and Avril had a short but passionate affair.
That same year, Avril gave birth to a son but returned to dancing and remained a star for many more years. A woman of intelligence and with a sense of aloof grace, at age 42 she met and married the French artist, Maurice Biais, the couple moved to a home in Jouy-en-Josas at the outskirts of Paris. However, her husband soon began to stray disappearing for days at a time, for years she lived a miserable existence with the irresponsible Biais. Without any financial support following his death in 1926, Avril lived in near poverty on what little was left of her savings. Jane Avril died in 1943 at the age of 74, she was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Zsa Zsa Gabor portrayed Avril in the original Moulin Rouge. Avril is one of the characters in Per Olov Enquist's book The Book of Blanche and Marie, which portrays the lives of Blanche Wittman and Marie Curie. Shercliff, Jose. Jane Avril of the Moulin Rouge. London: Jarrolds Publishers, Ltd. OCLC 1477795. Jane Avril, Mes memoires, Paris, 2005 Nancy Ireson, Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril: Beyond the Moulin Rouge, London, 2011 Caradec, François.
Jane Avril: au Moulin Rouge avec Toulouse-Lautrec. Paris: Fayard. ISBN 2-213-60888-1. Jane Avril of the Moulin Rouge - Dedicated Website Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril beyond the Moulin Rouge - Courtauld Gallery, London Toulouse-Lautrec in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a full-text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Jane Avril Jane Avril at Find a Grave
Le Chahut
Le Chahut is a Neo-Impressionist painting by Georges Seurat, dated 1889-90. It was first exhibited at the 1890 Salon de la Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris, where it eclipsed other works. Chahut became the prime target of art critics, was discussed among Symbolist critics; the painting—representing a quadrille at the Moulin Rouge—influenced the Fauves, Cubists and Orphists. In the collection of French Symbolist poet and art critic Gustave Kahn, Chahut is located at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands. Le Chahut is an oil painting on canvas measuring 170 by 141 cm. Seurat employed a Divisionist style, with pointillist dots of color; the work is dominated by a color scheme that tends toward the red end of the spectrum, of earth tones that draw from a palette of browns, warm grays, blues, interspersed with not just the primary colors, nor with the six principal colors, but with eighteen mixtures on his palette prior to application on the canvas. A deeper blue border painted around the edge of the canvas culminates in a shallow arch on the upper edge.
Le Chahut is a conspicuous example of Seurat’s pointillist technique. The modulation of light and shadow throughout the work is obtained by the use of small dots of color juxtaposed side by side while alternating in both intensity and concentrations; the dots are meant to fuse in the eye of the viewer to create the impression of mixed colors when observed from a distance. While the Impressionists had focused their attention on the harmony of colors based on similar or related hues, the Neo-Impressionists harmony had been based on contrasting hues, pitted one against the other; the painting is divided into three principal spaces. Musicians occupy the lower left section, one of whom is centrally located, his back turned toward the viewer, with his double-bass erected to the left. A row of dancers, two women and two men with their legs raised, they are characterized by curves and rhythmic repetition, creating a synthetic sense of dynamical movement. The background consists of ornate cabaret-style lighting fixtures, a few members of the audience sitting in the front row, their eyes fixed on the performance.
On the lower right another client is staring with a sidelong glance, indicative of sexual desire or sly and malicious intent. Chahut is an alternative name for the can-can, a provocative, sexually charged dance that first appeared in the ballrooms of Paris around 1830; the style of dance caused a scandal due to the other gestures of the arms and legs. Leading up to the 1890s, the dance transited from individuals in ballrooms to stage performances by a chorus line in such places as the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre. "Compared with Degas's Café-concert", writes art historian Robert Herbert, "the kind of work presaging Seurat's, the Chahut dancers are lined up with the repetitive rhythms of ornamental art. Parallel to the surface rather than spiraling into depth, they tilt or unfold in staccato bursts that jump in our vision. Indeed since the exhibition of Baignade six years earlier, in 1884, Seurat had progressively flattened his major compositions and increased the number of small accents typical of decorative art, such as zigzags, darting curves, flaring rays, repeated parallels, nonreceding flat zones."Seurat focuses on an upward movement of lines throughout the painting—"an complicated machinery of lines" writes art historian John Rewald—giving the illusion of a high-spirited ambience of both dance and music.
The caricatural figures are treated imposingly, with humor and gaiety. The anti-naturalist tone of Chahut, with its primacy of expression over appearance and its eloquent use of lines and color, reflects the influence of both Charles Blanc and Humbert de Superville. Humbert's theory inspired Blanc's idea; the direction of a line changes the expression, are therefore signs of emotion. Horizontal lines are synonymous with calmness, by association with equilibrium and wisdom, while expansive lines embody gaiety, by virtue of their association with expansion and voluptuousness. Chahut's voluptuous expression and upward linear schematic embodies the Humbert-Blanc qualities and features of gaiety. Seurat makes use, too, of Charles Henry's theories on the emotional and symbolic expression of lines and colors, the works of Michel Eugène Chevreul and Ogden Rood on complementary colors. Seurat was influenced by Japanese prints, the graphic works of Jules Chéret. While Seurat acknowledges Henry as an influence for his "esthétique", Humbert's and Blanc are not mentioned.
Though in theory Seurat pays debt to his predecessors, in practice Chahut stands apart. Its forms are not abstract, but schematic and recognizable as the popular social milieu within which Seurat had been plunged since his move to Montmartre in 1886. Jules Christophe, Seurat's friend who interviewed him for a short biography published in spring 1890, described Le Chahut as the end of a fanciful quadrille on the stage of a Montmartre cafe-concert: a spectator, half show-off, half randy investigator, who smells, one might say, with an em
Can-Can (film)
Can-Can is a 1960 American musical film made by Suffolk-Cummings productions and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Walter Lang, produced by Jack Cummings and Saul Chaplin, from a screenplay by Dorothy Kingsley and Charles Lederer, loosely based on the musical play by Abe Burrows with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, with some songs replaced by songs from earlier Porter musicals. Art direction was by Jack Martin Smith and Lyle R. Wheeler, costume design by Irene Sharaff, dance staging by Hermes Pan; the film was photographed in Todd-AO. It was, after Ben-Hur, the top-grossing film of 1960, although it was a box office disappointment, failing to make back its production costs; the film stars Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan, introduced Juliet Prowse in her first film role. Sinatra, paid $200,000 along with a percentage of the film's profits, acted in the film under a contractual obligation required by 20th Century Fox after he walked off the set of Carousel in 1955.
In the Montmartre district of Paris, a dance known as the can-can, considered lewd, is performed nightly at the Bal du Paradis, a cabaret where Simone Pistache is both a dancer and the proprietor. On a night when her lawyer and lover, François Durnais, brings his good friend, Chief Magistrate Paul Barrière, to the club, a raid is staged by police and the performers, including Simone, are placed under arrest. Paul wishes the charges to be dismissed, but his younger colleague Philippe Forrestier believes the laws against public indecency should be enforced. Visiting the cabaret and pretending to be someone else, Philippe becomes better acquainted with Simone and develops a romantic interest in her, but she is warned by dancer Claudine that he is a judge. Despite his attraction to her, Philippe arranges for Simone to be arrested once more. François attempts to blackmail Phillippe with a compromising photograph, in an effort to get him to drop the charges. However, Philippe had decided to stop the case.
He shocks Simone by proposing marriage to her. She goes to François, warning him that she will accept the proposal if he does not marry her himself. Paul, tries to talk Philippe out of it, believing such an arrangement would end his career. François ignores his advice. Simone embarrass herself, by getting drunk on a boat trip in front of the upper class of Paris, she jumps off the boat and calls off the engagement. Simone obtains a loan from François to stage a ball, insisting he accept a deed to the cabaret as collateral; the police take François away instead of her. Simone writes a letter to Philippe. A can-can is performed to the approval of all; when the police nonetheless escort Simone to a wagon used for prisoners, she is startled to find François inside, more surprised when he proposes. The film contains what critics now consider some of Cole Porter's most enduring songs, including "I Love Paris", "It's All Right With Me", "C'est Magnifique." At the time of the show's premiere in 1953 however, many critics complained that Porter was now turning out material far below his usual standard.
Some of the songs from the original Broadway musical were replaced by other, more famous Porter songs, including "Let's Do It", "Just One of Those Things" and "You Do Something to Me." "I Love Paris" is sung by the chorus over the opening credits, instead of being sung in the actual story by MacLaine. A version by Sinatra and Chevalier, was featured on the movie soundtrack album. Sinatra and Chevalier filmed the song "I Love Paris" but it was cut in previews when the studio realized it slowed the film down. A photo of the sequence can be found in a New York Times Magazine article from Feb 21, 1960; the song takes place shortly after Act Two opens in the scene where Chevalier visits Sinatra in a nightclub. The plot of the musical was revised. In the stage version, the judge was the leading character. In the film, it is the lover of the nightclub owner, the lead, the judge forms the other half of a love triangle not found in the play; the character of Paul Barriere, a non-singing supporting part on stage, was plumped up and given two songs for Maurice Chevalier.
During the filming, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev famously visited the 20th Century Fox studios and was shocked by the goings-on. He took the opportunity to make propagandistic use of his visit and described the dance, by extension American culture, as "depraved" and "pornographic." Frank Sinatra as François Shirley MacLaine as Simone Maurice Chevalier as Paul Louis Jourdan as Philippe Juliet Prowse as Claudine Academy Awards, 1961: Nominated – Best Costume Design Nominated – Best Original Music ScoreGolden Globe Awards, 1961:' Nominated – Best Motion Picture, MusicalGrammy Awards, 1961: Winner – Best Motion Picture Soundtrack Notes Can-Can on IMDb Can-Can at Rotten Tomatoes
Trousers
Trousers or pants are an item of clothing that might have originated in East Asia, worn from the waist to the ankles, covering both legs separately. In the United Kingdom, the word pants means underwear and not trousers. Shorts are similar to trousers, but with legs that come down only to around the area of the knee, higher or lower depending on the style of the garment. To distinguish them from shorts, trousers may be called "long trousers" in certain contexts such as school uniform, where tailored shorts may be called "short trousers" in the UK; the oldest known trousers are found at the Yanghai cemetery in Turpan, western China, dated to the period between the 13th and the 10th centuries BC. Made of wool, the trousers had straight legs and wide crotches, were made for horseback riding. In most of Europe, trousers have been worn since ancient times and throughout the Medieval period, becoming the most common form of lower-body clothing for adult males in the modern world, although shorts are widely worn, kilts and other garments may be worn in various regions and cultures.
Breeches were worn instead of trousers in early modern Europe by some men in higher classes of society. Distinctive formal trousers are traditionally worn with semi-formal day attire. Since the mid-20th century, trousers have been worn by women as well. Jeans, made of denim, are a form of trousers for casual wear worn all over the world by both sexes. Shorts are preferred in hot weather or for some sports and often by children and adolescents. Trousers are worn on the hips or waist and may be held up by their own fastenings, a belt or suspenders. In Scotland, trousers are known as trews, the historic root of the word trousers. Trousers are known as breeks in Scots, a word related to breeches; the item of clothing worn under trousers is underpants. The standard form trousers is used, but it is sometimes pronounced in a manner represented by, as Scots did not undergo the Great Vowel Shift, thus retains the vowel sound of the Gaelic truis from which the word originates. In North America, South Africa and Northern England pants is the general category term, whereas trousers refers more to tailored garments with a waistband, belt-loops, a fly-front.
So informal elastic-waist knitted garments would be called pants, but not trousers. North Americans call undergarments underwear, undies, jockey shorts, long johns or panties to distinguish them from other pants that are worn on the outside; the term drawers refers to undergarments, but in some dialects, may be found as a synonym for "breeches", that is, trousers. In these dialects, the term underdrawers is used for undergarments. Many North Americans refer to their undergarments by their type, such as briefs. In Australia, men's underwear has various informal terms including under-dacks, dacks or jocks. In New Zealand men's underwear is known informally as dacks. Various people in the tailoring and the fashion industry use the words trouser instead of trousers as a generic term, for instance when discussing styles, such as "a flared trouser", rather than as a specific item; the words trousers and pants are pluralia tantum, nouns that only appear in plural form—much like the words scissors and tongs, as such pair or trousers is the usual correct form.
However, the singular form is used in some compound words, such as trouser-leg, trouser-press and trouser-bottoms. Jeans are trousers made from denim or dungaree cloth. Skin-tight leggings are referred to as tights. There is some evidence, from figurative art, of trousers being worn in the Upper Paleolithic, as seen on the figurines found at the Siberian sites of Mal'ta and Buret'; the oldest known trousers are found at the Yanghai cemetery, extracted from mummies in Turpan, western China, belonging to the Eastern Iranian people of the Tarim Basin. Trousers enter recorded history in the 6th century BC, on the rock carvings and artworks of Persepolis, with the appearance of horse-riding Eurasian nomads in Greek ethnography. At this time, Iranian peoples such as Scythians, Sarmatians and Bactrians among others, along with Armenians and Eastern and Central Asian peoples such as the Xiongnu and Hunnu, are known to have worn trousers. Trousers are believed to have been worn by both sexes among these early users.
The ancient Greeks used the term "ἀναξυρίδες" for the trousers worn by Eastern nations and "σαράβαρα" for the loose trousers worn by the Scythians. However, they did not wear trousers since they thought them ridiculous, using the word "θύλακοι", pl. of "θύλακος", "sack", as a slang term for the loose trousers of Persians and other Middle Easterners. Republican Rome viewed the draped clothing of Greek and Minoan culture as an emblem of civilisation and disdained trousers as the mark of barbarians; as the Empire expanded beyond the Mediterranean basin, the greater warmth provided by trousers led to their adoption. Two types of trousers saw widespread use in Rome: the Feminalia, which fit snugly and fell to knee or mid-calf length, the Braccae, a loose-fitting trouser, closed at the ankles. Both gar
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play, L'attaché d'ambassade by Henri Meilhac; the operetta has enjoyed extraordinary international success since its 1905 premiere in Vienna and continues to be revived and recorded. Film and other adaptations have been made. Well-known music from the score includes the "Vilja Song", "Da geh' ich zu Maxim", the "Merry Widow Waltz". In 1861, Henri Meilhac premiered a comic play in Paris, L'attaché d'ambassade, in which the Parisian ambassador of a poor German grand duchy, Baron Scharpf, schemes to arrange a marriage between his country's richest widow and a Count to keep her money at home, thus preventing economic disaster in the duchy; the play was soon adapted into German as Der Gesandschafts-Attaché and was given several successful productions.
In early 1905, Viennese librettist Leo Stein came across the play and thought it would make a good operetta. He suggested this to one of his writing collaborators, Viktor Léon and to the manager of the Theater an der Wien, eager to produce the piece; the two adapted the play as a libretto and updated the setting to contemporary Paris, expanding the plot to reference an earlier relationship between the widow and the Count, moving the native land from a dour German province to a colourful little Balkan state. In addition, the widow admits to an affair to protect the Baron's wife, the Count's haven is changed to the Parisian restaurant and nightclub Maxim's, they asked Richard Heuberger to compose the music, as he had a previous hit at the Theater an der Wien with a Parisian-themed piece, Der Opernball. He composed a draft of the score, but it was unsatisfactory, he gladly left the project; the theatre's staff next suggested. Lehár had worked with Stein on Der Göttergatte the previous year. Although Léon doubted that Lehár could invoke an authentic Parisian atmosphere, he was soon enchanted by Lehar's first number for the piece, a bubbly galop melody for "Dummer, dummer Reitersmann".
The score of Die Lustige Witwe was finished in a matter of months. The theatre engaged Mizzi Louis Treumann for the leading roles, they had starred as the romantic couple in other operettas in Vienna, including a production of Der Opernball and a previous Léon and Lehár success, Der Rastelbinder. Both stars were so enthusiastic about the piece that they supplemented the theatre's low-budget production by paying for their own lavish costumes. During the rehearsal period, the theatre lost faith in the score and asked Lehár to withdraw it, but he refused; the piece was given little rehearsal time on stage before its premiere. Die Lustige Witwe was first performed at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on 30 December 1905, with Günther as Hanna, Treumann as Danilo, Siegmund Natzler as Baron Zeta and Annie Wünsch as Valencienne, it was a major success, running for 483 performances. The production was toured in Austria in 1906; the operetta had no overture. The Vienna Philharmonic performed the overture at Lehár's 70th birthday concert in April 1940.
The embassy in Paris of the poverty-stricken Balkan principality of Pontevedro is holding a ball to celebrate the birthday of the sovereign, the Grand Duke. Hanna Glawari, who has inherited twenty million francs from her late husband, is to be a guest at the ball – and the Pontevedrin ambassador, Baron Zeta, is scheming to ensure that she will keep her fortune in the country, saving Pontevedro from bankruptcy; the Baron intends that Count Danilo Danilovitsch, the first secretary of the embassy, should marry the widow. Danilo meets Hanna, it emerges they were in love before her marriage, but his uncle had interrupted their romance because Hanna had had nothing to her name. Though they still love each other, Danilo now refuses to court Hanna for her fortune, Hanna vows that she will not marry him until he says "I love you" – something he claims he will never do. Meanwhile, Baron Zeta's wife Valencienne has been flirting with the French attaché to the embassy, Count Camille de Rosillon, who writes "I love you" on her fan.
Valencienne puts off Camille's advances. However, they lose the incriminating fan, found by embassy counsellor Kromow. Kromow jealously fears that the fan belongs to his own wife and gives it to Baron Zeta. Not recognising it, Baron Zeta decides to return the fan discreetly, in spite of Valencienne's desperate offers to take it "to Olga" herself. On his way to find Olga, the Baron meets Danilo, his diplomatic mission takes precedence over the fan; the Baron orders Danilo to marry Hanna. Danilo offers to eliminate any non-Pontevedrin suitors as a compromise; as the "Ladies' Choice" dance is about to begin, Hanna becomes swarmed with hopeful suitors. Valencienne volunteers Camille to dance with Hanna hoping that the Frenchman will marry her and cease to be a temptation for Valencienne herself. True to his bargain with the Baron, Danilo circulates the ballroom, rounding up ladies to claim dances and thin the crowd around the
Pantalettes
Pantalettes are undergarments covering the legs worn by women and young boys in the early- to mid-19th century. Pantalettes originated in France in the early 19th century, spread to Britain and America. Pantalettes were a form of long drawers, they could be one-piece or two separate garments, one for each leg, attached at the waist with buttons or laces. The crotch was left open for hygiene reasons, they were most of white linen fabric and could be decorated with tucks, cutwork or broderie anglaise. Ankle-length pantalettes for women were worn under the crinoline and hoop skirt to ensure that the legs were modestly covered should they become exposed. Pantalettes for children and young girls were mid-calf to ankle-length and were intended to show under their shorter skirts; until the mid-19th century young boys were dressed in dresses and pantalettes, though these were associated with girls' clothing, until the boys were breeched at any age between 2 and 8 years of age, sometimes older. Young boys would be dressed in this fashion.
An Irish reel bears the title of the Ladies' Pantalettes. Leggings Undergarment C. Willett Cunnington & Phillis Cunnington, The History of Underclothes 1951, Dover. ISBN 0-486-27124-2. Historical Boys' Clothing - Pantalettes
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