The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-04-07
OF THE BALLET.
In Lovely Vienna, Stage
Dancing Is a High
Art.
SCENES OF GRACE AND BEAUTY.
The Fascinating Dancers Can, Hardly
Be Tempted to other Cities
Baby Faced Kraus.

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1t is in the ballet that the Royal
Opera of Vienna most easily excels.
In London, the ballet, formerly SO pop
ular that it was extremely profitable
to operate managers, has gone out of
fashion amid the newer and more po-
tent attractions of the Music Hall. A
visit to the Alhambra or the Empire,
where they have spectacular group
ings, with a fine display of unframed
arms and legs, will show that may
have the name of ballet without any
too much dancing and in the brain
dribble libretto OF a new pantomine
there is the tomb of anything like art.
In Paris the true ballet is supposed
still to be held in an esteem almost
equal to the opera; yet the journals
OF the Boulevard must every now and
then break out concerning its decline
p pre- sae public sIbaIIiS Fl The 'I truth hlAp IS
that the d~emoralizing .fn-de-saecle
dances have turned the aver
age Partisan giddy until he babbles of
dances true to nature and ''unaca-
demic.n AT the Scala in Milan, the
ballet has a special reputation, but it
has to bear up against the Italian
style of beauty, which fades very
quickly. In Vienna, the scrutiny of
the heaviest marine glass leaves the
eye without a single n of those
terrible discoveries which usually are
reserved for one in the magic realms
of ~danseuses.
20 thrice-blessed Viennese!" ex-
claims my Frenchman, ''thrice-blessed
Viennese subscriber, whose feasting
eye, like q bee, turn by turn rests on
the NEUROLOGICAL beauty of that little
nymph whose name is Kraus, on the
savory and very Austro-Hungarian
figure of that belle blonde whose
name on earth is Rathner, and on the
terfiy grace of Emma Allesh!"
NOTED DANCERS.
/ have seen Emma Allesh and Rath-
ner and baby-faced Kraus and many
others quite as taking-seen them in
the broiling summer time, when
Vienna was emptied of her greater
life, and when certain snobbish ten
dency might have its full temptation
in the absence of the grand monde.
Yet they danced as pleasingly as if
barons had been present. 1t was an
| extra season of whole ballet pieces
which fully occupied each evening.
There were present throughout the
time of which I speak, two American
light opera managers and impressarios
from Frankfort, Milan and Budapest.
One evening no less than nine foreign
managers were present. One of the
Americans, having passed quite
through the wood, picked up a crook
ed stick in a spectacular operetta that
did not take enormously. The other,
| believe, contents himself with mem
cries. 1t would be too expensive to
engage the necessary dancers for our
country, even if they could be in
duced to leave Vienna; and the never
to-be-forgotten efforts of the Thurber
| Opera Company have demonstrated
that America is not yet ready for
them.
The ballet in its highest form, l be-
lieve, existed first, and opera grew
around it. In the time of Louis XIV
of France, the Jesuit College of Mobiles
| gave sacred ballets-Biblical stories
| in dance and pantomine-to the Court;
| and this was one method which they
had of teaching courtesy and elegance
to pupils. In Seville, several times
each year, chosen boys and young
men still dance before the altar in the
| great cathedral a very ancient, solemn
| dance, which | have seen. And David
| danced before the Ark of the Coven-
| ant, which | also saw done in this
| Hof-Operntheater of Vienna.
THE LOVELY KRAUS.
In was in the ..Tanzmarchen,"
which was very good, that David
| danced. The lovely Kraus appeared
there as Apollo, but that was years
| before. The dance Story" Oh his
tory of the dance in all ages, is a long
| piece lasting full three hours. In the
| first scene it has to do with Mount
Parnassus, where the pretty Marie
Kohler tripped along on narcissus-
scented fields, then taught a clumsy,
| goat-legged Pan to dance. He played
his pipe as well, quite solemnly, a
| charming naive introduction. The
| next scene, as | remember it, was on
the Holy Nile, a solemn function of
Isis and Osirsis. Then it was the
| Heights of Gibea-where David
| daneed-the fourth scene of the bal
| let, David with a solemn, round-moon
face and conscientious steps, for
there are both men and women
| in this ballet. Then there was the
| Feast of Mars in Rome. which ended
the first act. Throughout the piece
| an extra-human interest was kept up
in the sentimental history of anymph.
On Parnassus she was given her
| choice, either as a reward or punish
ment. The Genius of Time was called
upon to pass her through the future,
| and she chose to know the future OF
the dance. In every scene we have
this sweet girl changed, by the sacred
| fame of dog-faced Annubis, in the holy
mysteries of David's worship, and in
the dark oak forests of Britain and Of
| France where silver bearded Druids
work themselves into fury. Who the
nymph was / quite forget and whom
| she represented; but I remember that
she had a gracious face and a form of
supple strength.
In the two succeeding acts she still
figures throughout history. There is
one scene, by a castle of the Middle
| Ages. when some yokels came to
dance beneath an elm. Attracted by
the sound of flutes, two slender
~rascally Young pages slip upon the
scene to lead away the enraptured
country beauties, who forgot their
! yerdent lovers. Again it is a dance
school in the middle of this century.
as in the Wiener Waller, and court
dances without end. This opportu,
nifty is given to see measures trod
whose names are scarcely known now