Jean Coralli

Jean Coralli (born January 15, 1779, Paris, France—died May 1, 1854, Paris) was a French dancer and choreographer who was ballet master of the Paris Opéra and who, with Jules Perrot, created the Romantic ballet Giselle.

Coralli received his early training in Paris from Pierre Gardel or Jean-François Coulon and made his debut at the Paris Opéra in 1802. In 1806–07 he produced five ballets at the Court Opera in Vienna, and in 1808 he was appointed principal dancer at La Scala in Milan. He remained there as principal dancer until 1815, appearing in ballets by the most celebrated Italian choreographers of the time: Salvatore Viganò, Gaetano Gioja, and Pietro Angiolini. He danced in Lisbon in 1820, and in 1824–25 he returned briefly to Milan, where he staged four ballets.

Coralli spent the rest of his career in Paris. In 1825 he became ballet master at the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre, a commercially run house with a reputation as an alternative arena for dance. Until 1829 he there produced 10 ballets, as well as incidental dances for dramas. Notable among his ballets were Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1826), based on Molière’s comedy; Gulliver, an adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s satire; La Visite à Bedlam (1826), in which the comic dancer Charles-François Mazurier played a dancing master who took every part in an interpolated ballet; La Neige (1827), which featured a novel ice-skating scene that made use of roller skates; and Léocadie (1828), which gave Parisians their first sight of the virtuoso dancer Jules Perrot. In 1829 Coralli left Paris for a brief engagement in Vienna, where in 1830 he produced an ambitious ballet, Childerich, King of the Franks.

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In 1831, following the privatization of the Opéra after the Revolution of 1830, Coralli succeeded Jean-Louis Aumer as ballet master, a post he was to hold until 1850. His appointment coincided with the most brilliant phase of the Romantic ballet, and, while he never composed for the renowned Marie Taglioni (who danced exclusively in her father’s ballets), four of the nine ballets he produced during his engagement were created for her great rival, Fanny Elssler, and another two were created for Carlotta Grisi. For Elssler he produced the ballet La Tempête (1834), in which, on her Paris debut, her sensual appeal and intricate footwork established her as the antithesis of the ethereal Taglioni. This production was followed by Le Diable boiteux (1836), a brilliantly staged version of Alain-René Lesage’s novel, in which she introduced her celebrated character dance, the cachucha. In a lighter vein, La Tarentule (1839) gave her scope for her comedic gift.

In 1841, when both Taglioni and Elssler had left Paris, Coralli began to work with Grisi in a ballet now universally regarded as a classic, Giselle. Although attributed solely to Coralli, who in his official capacity oversaw the production, most of its principal action was arranged by Jules Perrot, whose contribution could not be officially recognized because he was not on the payroll of the Paris Opéra. However, the choreography of La Péri (1843), which gave Grisi a second triumph, was entirely Coralli’s. In addition to these ballets, Coralli also staged divertissements for many operas, including the impressive opera-ballet La Tentation (1832).