Caronne Adele Josephine Marie Grisi, professionally known as Carlotta Grisi

Carlotta Grisi was born on June 28, 1819, in Visinada, Istria, then part of the Austrian Empire, now Vižinada, Croatia. She came from a family connected to opera and trained at the ballet school of La Scala in Milan, where she was educated as both dancer and singer. Her early career moved fluidly between music and dance, but audiences increasingly recognized an unusual breadth across both disciplines.

Grisi's decisive early collaboration was with French dancer and choreographer Jules Perrot. He coached and partnered her, and together they appeared in London in 1836 before working across European stages. Their partnership was professional, artistic and personal, unfolding through shared work rather than simple mentorship.

In Paris, Grisi became the first performer of the title role in *Giselle*, which premiered at the Académie Royale de Musique on June 28, 1841—her twenty-second birthday. Jean Coralli and Perrot shared choreography credit; Adolphe Adam composed the score, Théophile Gautier and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges developed the libretto, and Lucien Petipa created the role of Albrecht. Grisi's success joined the character's village vitality, breakdown and supernatural second act into a coherent dramatic arc that has endured through generations.

The role established her as a leading Paris Opéra ballerina through the 1840s. She created the central role in Coralli's *La Péri* and appeared in Joseph Mazilier's *Paquita*. In London she danced in Perrot's *La Esmeralda* and joined Marie Taglioni, Fanny Cerrito and Lucile Grahn in the 1845 *Pas de Quatre*, a work that made celebrity itself the subject of choreography while showcasing four different Romantic styles.

Grisi later took her repertory to St. Petersburg, where she performed with the Imperial Theatres from 1850 into the early 1850s. Russian audiences already knew *Giselle* through Fanny Elssler, and Grisi's reception developed over time rather than arriving as immediate triumph. Her work there helped transmit Parisian and London Romantic repertory into the Imperial system.

She withdrew from the stage in the mid-1850s and settled near Geneva, living at Saint-Jean for more than four decades until her death on May 20, 1899. The role that made her famous has been repeatedly revised, but every later Giselle inherits the dramatic structure first tested through Grisi's abilities and public persona.