Sallé, Marie (1707–1756)

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Sallé, Marie (1707–1756)

French ballerina and choreographer. Name variations: Marie Salle. Born in 1707; died in 1756; daughter of an acrobat and theatrical performer; studied with Françoise Prévost, Jean Balon, and Blondy; lived with Rebecca Wick.

A great deal is known of those on the periphery in the life of Marie Sallé, but not much is known about the great danseuse herself. Her adoring fans, however, were quick to fill in the gap. They claimed she was a child prodigy, that she was a virgin who scorned men, that she was an inventor of a new style of dance. Marie Sallé was indeed a prodigy. As a nine-year-old, she

made her center-stage debut on October 18, 1716, at the Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, following the performance of a play. She and her 11-year-old brother danced and delighted the audience; so much so, they were signed for a return engagement.

Marie Sallé was born in 1707 into a large theatrical family who toured the small towns of France; her uncle François Moylin, known as Francisque, was a comedian-tumbler and the manager of their traveling troupe which included Moylin's brother, his sister and her husband (the acrobat Sallé), another sister and her husband (the clown Cochois), and all their children, including Sallé and Marianne Cochois (another future ballerina).

The young Marie must have shown potential, because the family arranged for her to become a pupil of Françoise Prévost , as well as Jean Balon and Blondy. In 1727, age 20, Sallé reluctantly left her dance-partner and beloved brother and made her Opéra de Paris debut. Her greatest success that season was in Prévost's Les Caractères de la danse, arranged as a pas de deux with Antoine Laval. But Sallé was not happy. She was ill prepared for the backstage intrigues and the press' eagerness to promote a rivalry with fellow danseuseMarie-Anne Cupis de Camargo . Sallé's style was one of grace and expressive mime; Camargo was more technical, more athletic. Poets sang Sallé's praises. Wrote Voltaire: " Ah! Camargo, que vous êtes brilliante/ Mais que Sallé, grands dieux, est ravissante!" (Ah! Camargo, you are brilliant/ But Sallé, great gods, is ravishing!) The public was particularly disappointed when Sallé did not become embroiled in scintillating, scandalous escapades. In fact, she spurned a long line of suitors, which led to the virgin motif in all serious speculation.

To further Sallé's misery, the Opéra de Paris eschewed change. Throughout its existence, it had employed the same manner of costumes: male dancers wore masks; women danced in tall wigs, jewels, feathered headdresses, voluminous skirts and panniers. The fact that movement was severely impeded by all this did not come into question. Between engagements, Sallé fled to London to dance with her brother. She was a huge success, and her fame in London reached its height.

On her return to Paris in 1731, she learned of her brother's death, and the following year left the Opéra, taking a year off. In 1733, she was invited to perform at the Comédie-Italienne in a one-act play written by friends, François Riccoboni and Jean-Antoine Romagnesi. Knowing that the Italians would be far more receptive to her ideas and would also allow her a chance to choreograph, she agreed. But the director of the Opéra de Paris was incensed. Because of the long-standing rivalry between the two companies, he made a formal complaint to the king's minister, and Mlle Sallé was politely informed that if she insisted on performing with the Italians she would be imprisoned in the Forl'Evêque. Backing out of the engagement, she once again left for London.

On February 14, 1734, Sallé opened in Pygmalion at Covent Garden and made ballet history. She had created her own ballet, let her hair flow freely, had chosen her own costumes—a simple muslin dress and slippers without heels—and had tried to communicate inner feelings rather than settle for technical effect. From that time on, Pygmalion has been cited as the forerunner of Jean Georges Noverre's ballet d'action, a ballet that told a story. Shortly thereafter, Sallé appeared in another ballet of her own creation, Bacchus and Ariadne. Both productions were the rage of London, and Sallé was now an acclaimed dancer, choreographer, and innovator. "It was not by leaps and antics that she touched one's heart," wrote Noverre. Paris took note; newspapers gushed as they told their readers about her revolutionary ideas, her abundant salary, and her would-be lover who had offered her huge sums but was refused because of the ballerina's renowned chastity.

The conclusion of the 1735 season in London did not fare as well. Composer Georg Friedrich Handel had inserted ballet numbers expressly arranged for Sallé into five of his operas. On April 16, when she appeared in his Alcina dressed as a boy, she was hissed. Some critics speculated that the heckling did not come from the entire audience but from a rival opera group of Handel's, though there might have been another reason. Rumors had already surfaced in London about Sallé's amorous preferences. Rumors turned into a minor scandal when she returned to France in the company of Mlle Manon Grognet , a dancer from the Drury Lane Theatre who was the target of Paris scandalmongers because of her lesbian tendencies. Ex-suitors of Sallé's felt betrayed and foolish; friends abandoned her. Marie Sallé's name was now added to crude verses and scornful lampoons, including those by Voltaire.

Nonetheless, she was rehired by the Opera in August 1735 for her last and longest Paris engagement. The time was auspicious. Camargo had gone into a six-year, self-imposed retirement; as well, there was a new and brilliant composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and a new dancing partner, David Dumoulin. Because of her fame, Sallé was allowed to impose some choreography on the season's opener, Rameau's Les Indes galantes. Though slow in achieving popularity, it eventually recaptured Sallé's fickle public. But the Opéra's management insisted on retaining their backlist of tired favorites for the rest of a mediocre season. Thus, in June 1739, Sallé turned in her notice. She was 32.

For the next five years, until 1745, she lived quietly in Paris in an apartment on the rue Saint-Honoré with her friend Rebecca Wick . Though Sallé sat for two portrait painters, Jean Fenouil and Maurice La Tour, she was not seen in public. From 1745 to 1747, she danced at Versailles with Dumoulin in 20 ballets, then retired for another five years. In 1752, she participated in four ballets at Fontainebleau. Her relationship with Wick endured throughout. Five years before she died in 1756, Sallé named her " amiable amie" as her sole heir.