Event Comment: 2nd ballet: 1st time; composed by
Barre; the Music by
Bossi. "
Mme Hilligsberg, who possesses the first rank among the dancers of
London, is a woman of distinguished merit: she succeeds with peculiar happiness in sportive and jocose expressions, and she is bewitchingly graceful as a
Welch or Scotch country girl. Her figure is very handsome; but her arms are somewhat long and thin. The third dancer is
Mme Laborie; she possesses an agreeable figure, much animation and
native gracefulness. She might become a first-rate dancer [if] she did not trust too much to her natural talents, and bestowed more attention on the art" (
Goede, 265). "Les Deux Jumelles, ou la Meprise, pouvoient tres bien faire le sujet d'unjoli divertissement; mais pour un grand ballet, il a fallu y appeller le secours des dieux, & faire descendre ce que nous appelons une gloire de nuages qui se developpent assez mal: c'est la faute du machiniste ou du charpentier. D'ailleurs, cette gloire ne sert a rien, puisque l'Amour vient dans un assez mauvais cabriolet, pousse par des hommes qu'on voit un peu trop distinctement, & s'en retourne de meme a reculons. Nous avons vu souvent le char de l'Amour aller en avant; mais il est rare qu'on le voie reculer, & cette meme gloire eprouve autant de difficulte pour remonter qu'elle en avout eue pour descendre, laissant le spectateur tres convaincu de son inutilite" (
Anthony LeTexier,
L'Ami des Meres, 1799, I, 192-93). The subscribers are most respectfully intreated to be careful to whom they give their Tickets, as many improper persons have lately presented themselves for admission into the Theatre with those Tickets; and the subscribers are requested to observe that, in future, persons of this description will be conducted directly to the identical Boxes to which such Tickets belong, instead of being admitted into any other part of the Theatre. And the public are intreated to understand that neither Ladies in Undress Hats or Bonnets, nor Gentlemen in Boots will be admitted into the Pit of the Opera