A Day in the Life of a Regency-Era Ballerina.
As principal ballerina, Emmeline Laurent rises early to make a fast meal of eggs and a cup of tea before packing her ballet slippers and tying up her boots to traverse London’s streets. A successful ballerina might earn more than many working-class women, but life on the stage didn’t guarantee wealth or security. Most dancers struggled to establish themselves, living in modest lodgings in less fashionable neighborhoods.
Emmeline carefully picks her way through the muddy and uneven cobblestone streets to the Danforth Theatre, weaving through some of London’s rougher neighborhoods. Half of the passersby are getting up, like the street vendors wheeling their carts toward the market at Covent Garden and the shopkeepers opening their doors. The other half are returning home. Emmeline passes a few Covent Garden Nuns (prostitutes) and the occasional drunken gin spinner stumbling out of a tavern.
On a non-performance day, Emmeline instructs her young ballerinas. The theatre doesn’t offer an easy life, but she pushes her students because dancing could offer a talented young ballerina an opportunity. They’ve a chance to raise their lot in life and become more than a domestic servant scrubbing floors and emptying chamber pots, or a laundress, laboring over steaming water and scorching irons. Many of the young ballerinas come from poor families, and their income helps put food on the table. Emmeline mothers her students, knowing some arrive already exhausted from the demands of home or having had little to eat before beginning their lessons.
Afterward, Emmeline practices her routine with the principal dancers. Ballet is beautiful to watch, but there is nothing effortless about learning it. Hours are spent repeating the same eight counts. Muscles ache, feet blister, and toes become sore and swollen. A dancer must develop strength, balance, and flexibility to make the physical exertion appear graceful.
On performance days, Emmeline is permitted a few extra hours of sleep because of the late night ahead. Unlike today’s ballets with two to three acts, opera-ballets often consisted of seven to eight acts followed by a comical pantomime. She stretches at the barre and runs through the choreography until her muscles are warmed up.
Stagehands move behind the scenes, checking ropes for backdrops to change from one act to the next. Chandeliers are lowered and candles lit to illuminate the stage and also the audience. Regency audiences remained visible because lights couldn’t be easily dimmed or switched on or off.
Visibility was important. The theatre was one of the most fashionable places in London to be seen on stage and in the audience. Ballet costumes often reflected the era’s fascination with the classical world.
In a crowded backstage dressing room, Emmeline dons a Roman handmaiden’s costume with a high waist and flowing material. Another principal ballerina aids her with ribbons and other fastenings. Emmeline and the other ballerinas take their positions as the rumble of the audience grows from behind the velvet curtain. Emmeline ensures her costume is on straight, shakes her hands, and wiggles her legs to work out any nerves.
The orchestra strikes up the musical intro and stagehands tug the ropes, sweeping the heavy curtains open. Emmeline throws herself into the dance and plays into her character. She’s known for her dramatic pantomime. Every gesture matters, and every expression communicates feelings to the audience. She uses her body to tell a story without words. Emmeline floats across the stage, her airy skirts flowing and swirling around her as she leaps and pirouettes. Her extensions and standing on her toes create the illusion of defying gravity and weightlessness.
Not all eyes are on the stage, however. Men file in and out of the opera boxes, visiting the patronesses inside, and other audience members lift their opera glasses and twist in their seats to see who is visiting whom in anticipation of the juicy gossip that may follow.
Emmeline holds an arabesque on the stage’s apron, avoiding peering down into Fop’s Alley at the front of the theatre. Fashionable young men watch the performance from the front rows to admire the ballerinas, and for some a scandalous peek at a ballerina’s ankles. However, a dancer must perform well and hold viewers’ interest. Theatregoers weren’t always polite spectators. A ballerina who disappoints a Regency crowd could hear jeers, catcalls, or even face objects hurled from the audience.
The curtain falls, but Emmeline’s work isn’t finished. With barely enough time to catch her breath, she changes costumes for the next act. The flymen and stagehands prepare the next scenery while the ballerinas race against the clock. The orchestra strikes the first note, Emmeline runs on stage, and the curtains open.
Dancing with her all, Emmeline sighs from exhaustion as the final act finishes with a flourish and the curtains swing closed. The audience rises to their feet shouting, “Huzzah,” and canes are banged on the floor. Emmeline steps out for her final curtsy, and for one glorious moment the exhaustion disappears beneath the roar of the crowd.
After the applause fades, Emmeline’s responsibilities aren’t over. She gathers her young ballerinas back into the safety of the practice room before wealthy men known as “protectors” offer gifts to the young ballerinas in exchange for the dancer’s exclusive attention and companionship. A pair of ballet slippers, ribbons, jewelry, or other small trinkets were luxurious gifts to a young ballerina. The word protector is a misnomer, for without someone to advocate for them, a vulnerable young ballerina has little power of her own.
Dawn’s light streaks the sky as the last of her students are seen safely home. After bandaging her blistered feet and donning her boots, Emmeline trudges home and climbs the three flights of stairs to her flat, exhausted muscles protesting. Emmeline collapses into bed for a few hours of rest before she must be back at the theatre.
Worries for her students circle her mind as sleep claims her, but for all the hardship, the applause still echoes.
