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ENRICO CECCHETTI (1850 -1928) Carabosse/The Bluebird

Of all the participants in Sleeping Beauty, none had a greater and more durable effect on ballet as a whole than Enrico Cecchetti. Cecchetti was born in Rome on June 21, 1850, and died in Milan on November 13, 1928. He was the son of dancers Serafina Casagli and Cesare Cecchetti, and was literally born backstage, in a dressing room at the Teatro di Apollo (or was it the Tordinona?). The Cecchettis were in the Ronzani ballet company, and toured extensively, including trips to America, where seven-year-old Enrico performed with his parents.

Cesare tried to get his son to study law, but Enrico wouldn't have any of it; he wanted to be a dancer. He was sent to study in Florence with Giovanni Lepri, who had been a student of Carlo Blasis, and who inculcated a brilliant technique in his young student, who became renowned for his pirouettes and beaten steps. He made his debut as a primo ballerino at La Scala on New Year's Eve, 1870.

Enrico began touring on his own, and first went to Russia in 1874. He also spent several seasons in Copenhagen, dancing at the Casino Theater, but observing the ballets of August Bournonville as well as the master's classes. In 1878, Cecchetti married Giuseppina de Maria, who was a classmate of his at Lepri's school. He made a name for himself performing in the works of Luigi Manzotti, notably in Excelsior, Amor, Rolla, and Narenta. He formed his own company in 1887 and returned to Russia, where he premiered his ballet The Power of Love. He was invited to join the Maryinsky as both a dancer and a balletmaster. He worked very often with Lev Ivanov, with whom he got on very well, and staged numerous revivals of the works of Jules Perrot and Arthur St.-Leon.

In 1889, he was selected to dance the roles of Carabosse and the Bluebird in the new production The Sleeping Beauty. The first made use of his great skill as a mime, and the latter was intended to show off his brilliant technique. He talked Petipa into expanding the latter role from simply one of the characters in a pas de quatre to having his own pas de deux with Varvara Nikitina, which has become one of the greatest of all virtuoso show-stoppers!

From 1891 to 1901, Cecchetti taught at the Imperial Theater School, and guest-starred in productions in England at the Empire Theatre, where he danced in ballets by Katti Lanner, daughter of the Viennese composer Joseph Lanner. He moved to Warsaw in 1902, and back to Italy in 1905, when political turmoil made life there dangerous. When he returned to Russia, many of his former students at St. Petersburg flocked to his classes, and he became personal instructor to Anna Pavlova. When the Diaghilev Ballets Russes set up shop in Paris in 1910, he joined them as a mime and teacher, continuing either full-time or as a guest well into his seventies.

Cecchetti's most important contribution to dance is the brilliantly well-organized curriculum he laid out for a course of instruction in classical ballet. His work is being carried on today by the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing in Britain, and by the Cecchetti Council of America in the U.S.