The return of FANNY ELSSLER gives a new zest to
the delights of the Ballet, and of a more intellectual kind. Her performances exhibit the choregraphic an in full perfection : her style is classic in precision and elegance. Every character, nay, each dance, has been studied as a medium for conveying certain definite ideas to the spectators, as well as for displaying the executive powers of the artiste. FANNY ELSSLER is Dot merely an extraordinary and a beautiful dancer, whose consummate skill is aided by a symmetrical form combining strength and flexibility : she aims not only at gratifying the senses by graceful movements and
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wonderful feats of agility, but to express n the mute eloquence of look, gesture, and action' fancies and feelings that endow the ar- tificial conventions of the ballet with spiritual meaning. In the divertissement of Le Debre dun Peintre, in which she personates the portrait chant that steps out from its frame and fascinates the Pygmalion of painters, FANNY ELSSLER exerts this inventive and suggestive pantomime in a remarkable manner. The impression produced on the mind is vague like that of instrumental music ; but it is capable of being renewed by successive performances, and therefore must proceed from distinct ideas significantly conveyed : yet it is almost as difficult to describe the sensations excited in the be- holder as for the listener to recount the feelings awakened by a sym- phony of HAYDN or BEETHOVEN. PERROT'S pantomime, as the ecstatic painter, is alike expressive of emotion and full of meaning : in intensity and variety he surpasses all pantomimists. His dancing, too, is ex- quisite: in the Bolero performed with FANNY ELSSLER, the ex- treme lightness and elasticity of his movements, and the precision com- bined with freedom of his execution, give a fiery impulse to this pas- sionate dance. FANNY ELSSLER'S style is almost too sculpturesque for the voluptuous abandon of Spanish dancing.
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