2 3 Throwback Thursday and Guiseppina Bozzachi | Ballet Webb

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Throwback Thursday and Guiseppina Bozzachi


Throwback Thursday and Guiseppina Bozzachi

Guiseppina Bozzachi (1853-1870), was an Italian ballerina who had one of the shortest careers in dance history. She trained with Amina Boschetti, prima ballerina of Milan and also with Mme. Doninque in Paris.

Guiseppina is remembered for being the first dancer to perform the role of Swanhilda in the ballet Coppélia that was choreographed by Arthur Saint-Léon to music composed by Delibes. She was only sixteen years old at the time, and danced the ballet's premiere performance before Napoleon III.

She went on to dance the role seventeen more times, but when the Paris Opera shut its doors for the Franco-Prussian war, she performed it for the last, and eighteen time, on the 31st of August. This was a difficult period in history for dancers, since the Opera had ceased paying its performers. Guiseppina, weakened by her many performances and lack of money to purchase sufficient food, became ill with smallpox. She died on the morning of her seventeenth birthday.

From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets:

Dance History Factoid #84:  
“Guiseppina Bozzachi was the first Swanhilda in the ballet Coppelia.”

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