John Brandard · CC0 1.0
Catarina, ou la Fille du Bandit is a three-act, four-scene ballet with libretto and choreography by Jules Perrot and music by Cesare Pugni, first given by the Ballet of Her Majesty's Theatre on 3 March 1846 in London. The libretto draws on an incident in the life of the painter Salvator Rosa, and the title role — a woman who leads a band of Italian bandits — was created for Lucile Grahn, with Perrot himself dancing the secondary role of Lieutenant Diavolino.
What is danced
The article is a performance and revival record rather than a synopsis or score description, so it does not set out specific steps, enchaînements, or pas performed by Catarina, Salvator Rosa or Diavolino. What it does preserve is a piece of production detail worth noting for stagers: at the 1849 St Petersburg rehearsal, Tsar Nicholas I intervened because Fanny Elssler and the corps de ballet were 'not carrying the guns properly,' and personally showed the dancers how to hold a gun. This confirms that the ballet built stage business and possibly drill-like corps formations around prop rifles as part of its bandit narrative — a detail of staged action rather than danced technique as such.
Context
Nothing in the article states the genre outright, but the premiere date (1846), the choreographer (Perrot), and the succession of leading Romantic ballerinas associated with the title role (Lucile Grahn at the creation, Fanny Elssler in the Milan and St Petersburg revivals, Adèle Grantzow and Elena Cornalba in the later Imperial Ballet productions) place this squarely in the world of Romantic-era grand ballet, the same milieu that produced Giselle and Ondine; this is inference from the names and dates given, not a claim the article makes directly.
Staging history
The work had an unusually long and international afterlife for a Perrot ballet. Perrot himself restaged it for La Scala in 1847 (with Fanny Elssler and score revisions by Giacomo Panizza and Giovanni Bajetti) and for the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg in 1849, again with Elssler and with Pugni revising his own score. It was subsequently mounted in Warsaw (1850, Roman Turczynowicz, revised by Józef Stefani), again at La Scala (1853, Antonio-Manuel Abrami, revised by Girolamo Trigambi), and toured with Elena Andreianova's company to Odessa. Marius Petipa revived it for the Imperial Ballet in 1870 as a benefit performance in honour of Pugni, who had just died, with the opening-night receipts going to the composer's family; Enrico Cecchetti mounted a further Imperial Ballet revival in 1888 with additional music by Riccardo Drigo layered onto Yuli Gerber's earlier revision. Most recently, Fredy Franzutti staged it as Catarina, ossia La figlia del bandito for the Rome Opera Ballet in 2007.
How to watch it
Watch for how the production handles the title character's authority over the bandit troupe — the Nicholas I anecdote about gun-handling suggests the corps de ballet's business with rifles was treated as a real point of stagecraft, not incidental prop work. Given the succession of casts, comparing which dancer took Catarina versus Diavolino across revivals (Perrot danced Diavolino himself at the premiere and in Milan) is a useful way to track how the ballet's dramatic weight was distributed between the bandit leader and her lieutenant.
Credits
- composer: Cesare Pugni
Related works
Other staged works in the register connected to this one by author or lineage.
GiselleBallet · 1841Perrot · video
La EsmeraldaBallet · 1844Perrot · video
Pas de QuatreBallet · 1845Perrot · video
La Vivandière or MarkitenkaBallet · 1844Music by Pugni · video
The Little Humpbacked HorseBalletMusic by Pugni
The Pharaoh's DaughterBallet · 1862Music by Pugni · video
Ondine, ou La naïadeBallet · 1843Music by Pugni · video
The Blue DahliaBallet · 1860Music by Pugni