THE BALLET.
THE story of " Rinaldo the bold and Armida the fair" has fur- nished the subject of a one-aet ballet, tastefully got up by TERESA ELSLER. As a ballet of action, its pretensions are very slight : the leading incidents of this romantic episode of 'lasso serve merely as graceful garniture to the dancing. There is a little too pedantic display of the upholstery of the ballet ; though some of the devices were ingonious and fanciful as well as elaborate. For in- stance, the nymphs of Arinida at one time form the cross bars of a prison with scarfs, their faces peeping through the interstices at the captive knight ; at another, a lofty alcove or bower is formed by garlands attached to thyrses held by the Coryphees below, while the other ends are drawn up by Cupids, so as to compose the roof. One really feels for the terrified little urchins who bang suspended by wires, like the white dolls over the door of a rag- shop; in their progress aloft, they look as if they were run up to the yard-arm, rather than flying, for they use their legs as little as their wings.
TERESA ELSLER, who personated the hero, made a tall strip- pling Rinaldo, and was most gallantly accoutred. As the wily en- chantress always takes care to disarm her victims, Rinaldo, after being stripped, treated us with a pas seul, in a vigorous, manly style. The masculine air becomes TERESA ELSLER best : she should never descend lower in the scale of femineity than an Amazon. Her sister FANNY, as Arinida, was attired in an elegant fancy ball dress, worthy of MAR ADAN'S taste, and executed some rapid movements on tiptoe to NICHOLSON.S flute accompaniment. Her toeing was as brilliant as his fingering; and her pedal pizzicato is as wonderful in its way as Naval NI.S. PERROT doubled upon himself with the velocity of a whirl-bat.
Previous page
