Katti Lanner 1829 – 1908
Katharina Josefa (Katti) Lanner (married name Geraldini))
Dancer, choreographer.
14 September 1829 – 15 November 1908
Katharina Lanner, 1861 Creator: Adolf Dauthage – Public Domain
Katti Lanner: A tribute by Geraldine Morris
It may not have been difficult for a woman to make her career on the stage in the nineteenth century but retaining her respectability in doing so was a different matter. Viennese-born, London star, Katarina Josefa Lanner known as Katti Lanner (1829-1908) not only achieved this stage presence, she also maintained her position as a celebrated dancer, choreographer, teacher, and supporter of women in a career spanning over sixty years. Lanner broke into the male world of choreography, even directing her own school. Despite these impressive achievements for a nineteenth century woman, Katti Lanner is hardly known today.
Until the 1870s, women’s lives were controlled financially, culturally, and socially by men. However, the theatre was one of the rare, well-established fields of female employment. The stage provided self-fulfilment and gave women an identity and freedoms unavailable in more ‘socially acceptable’ occupations. It paid better wages than menial labour but it was irregular employment as artists were only paid during the run of a show. Female artists frequently faced sullied reputations. Actresses and dancers were viewed as mistresses or prostitutes. For example, in the Opéra de Paris, director Louis Véron actively encouraged female corps de ballet dancers to become mistresses for rich men, not least because it allowed him to lower their salaries. Despite these obstacles, by the early 1870s Katti Lanner was already an admired, prominent ballet star and choreographer.
Lanner was the daughter of the renowned Viennese waltz composer Fritz Lanner. At the age of fourteen, she performed at Vienna’s Imperial Court Opera. After her mother died in 1855, she left Vienna to tour in Berlin, Dresden, Munich and Hamburg where she remained for four years. She became the city’s first female resident choreographer. In 1860 she started to tour internationally with her own company The Viennese Ballet and Pantomime Troupe. It was as Giselle that she became most popular in Europe and the USA. She married Johann Baptiste Geraldini in 1864 and had three daughters however, after their divorce, it was she who was financially responsible for the three girls and her company. After an exhaustive US tour, she moved to London in 1871 just as ballet’s popularity was declining. At Drury Lane Theatre she became Ballet Mistress (Maîtresse de Ballet) for Colonel J.H. Maplethorpe’s opera season. During the nineteenth century, the Ballet Mistress was both a classroom teacher and chief composer of dances, making Lanner the most important person in the ballet corps.[1] Four years later, she took over Maplethorpe’s National Training School for Dancing at 75 Tottenham Court Road and in 1877 was appointed its Director.
The National Training School for Dancing was the first London-based, English school offering systematic training in classical ballet, run in accordance with a strict prospectus and set of rules.[2] Lanner’s pupils were mainly girls, who appealed to those searching for new talent in the UK and abroad. They furnished the nucleus of the corps de ballet and coryphée ranks for London theatres. This included Leicester Square’s Empire Theatre when it reopened as a variety theatre in 1887.[3] According to a critic writing in the Sketch, ‘in the past few years the standard of dancing of the rank-and-file has wonderfully improved; their work used to be a weak point at the Empire and now that is altogether changed.’[4] This was entirely due to Lanner’s School.
Lanner’s supreme ability to organise large groups of dancers with imagination and creativity, and the warm tributes her choreography received from critical responses, led her to again receive the title of Ballet Mistress, at the Empire. She rehearsed the dancers four hours daily in her Bloomsbury studio for ten weeks pre-opening night while also attending performances and managing future productions.
Lanner enjoyed lasting fame as a choreographer and teacher. Her spectacular productions excited the public. She originated ballets with large casts and her skills, boundless energy, and nerves of steel were her trademark. One spectacle involved dancers with headdresses that sparkled with little electric lights. This made audiences gasp.[5]Shewas a dominant figure in the London dance scene. At the Empire she choreographed and produced thirty-six ballets.[6] Her most notable creations were: Spirit of England, The Press, Cleopatra, La Danse, Monte Cristo, and Under One Flag. On the world stage she was a major choreographer alongside the Russian ballet master Marius Petipa, creator of Swan Lake. [7] Also notable is her work with the celebrated Danish dancer Adeline Genée, who interpreted Lanner’s choreography.
Lanner attempted to retire in 1905. However, she was coaxed back to the Empire to create The Debutante and Sir Roger de Coverley. She was also in demand to make ballets for pantomimes at the Olympia, the Crystal Palace, and the Adelphi. Lanner worked until her death in 1908, leaving behind the then substantial sum of £6000 and her Clapham residence. While her three daughters inherited jewellery and money, Cora de Mere, an ‘adopted’ daughter who remains something of an enigma, was allowed to continue living in the house. It seems that Cora also continued the Clapham School in in Lanner’s name for twenty years after her death.
Lanner was certainly an inspired teacher but the School’s reputation was founded on her success as a choreographer. Her major contributions to English ballet at the National Training School for Dancing and her triumphant career at the Empire are particular reasons why Katti Lanner deserves to be brought back into the limelight. She deserves a Blue Plaque marking her studio location in Bloomsbury with a second one at her Clapham home. This would commemorate her importance in English dance history and partly compensate for the shameful neglect of her life and work by those who decide whose names are to be remembered and who should be forgotten.
Dr Geraldine Morris is Honorary Research Fellow in Dance at the University of Roehampton.
Geraldine Morris — University of Roehampton Research Explorer
Further Reading:
Davis, Tracy, C. (1991) Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in
Victorian Culture, London and New York: Routledge
Guest, Ivor (1992) Ballet in Leicester Square: The Alhambra and the Empire 1860-1915, London: Dance Books
Guest, Ivor (1958) Adeline Genée: A Lifetime of Ballet Under Six Reigns, London:
Adam and Charles Black
Lamb, Andrew: https://www.fownc.org/pdf/newsletter50.pdf
Pritchard, Jane (2007) ‘Collaborative Creations for the Alhambra and the Empire, Dance Chronicle, 24:1, 55-82
[1] Noverre, Jean, Georges (1966, revised French original 1803) (Tr. and Ed. Beaumont, Cyril, W.) Letters on Dancing and Ballets, New York: Dance Horizons.
[2] Beaumont, Cyril, W. (1967) Our First National School for Dancing’, The Dancing Times, 588-589.
[3] Guest, Ivor (1992) Ballet in Leicester Square: The Alhambra and the Empire 1860-1915, London: Dance Books
[4] Anon, (1896) Sketch, 5 February, no page numbers available
[5] See Guest (1992) Ballet in Leicester Square: The Alhambra and the Empire 1860-1915, London: Dance Books,
[6] Guest, Ivor (1992) Ballet in Leicester Square: The Alhambra and the Empire 1860-1915, London: Dance Books, 93
[7] Guest, Ivor (1992) Ballet in Leicester Square: The Alhambra and the Empire 1860-1915, London: Dance Books, 93
MINI BIOGRAPHY
Education
Trained by Pietro Campelli and Isidore Carey in Vienna.
Some Key Achievements and Interests
Danced with the Vienna Court Opera Ballet to great acclaim.
Through her life toured in Europe and America performing herself and the work of her company.
1862 Worked as a ballerina and ballet mistress (choreographer) at the State Theatre, Hamburg.
By 1869 led her own company, the Viennese Ballet Company.
1871 Appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.
1876 Ran a dancing academy, The National Training School of Dancing at 73 Tottenham Court Road which provided professional dance training for children. One of its students was Isadora Duncan.
1877-1881 Ballet mistress at the Theatre Royal.
Choreographed ballets including those for pantomimes at the Theatre Royal and the Crystal Palace.
1878 Ceased appearing as a ballerina and worked as a ballet mistress.
1887 Became ballet mistress at the Empire Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square.
Issues
Her widowed mother and brother died when she was in her 20s. This prompted her to travel.
Her marriage was not a success and she and her husband divorced leaving her with 3 daughters.
Connection to Bloomsbury
The National Training School of Dancing.
Women in her Network
Dancers including: Adeline Genée, Fanny Cerrito,Fanny Elssler.
Further Reading
Mme Katti Lannner was interviewed by Margaret Bateson for Professional Women upon their Professions.
see: Margaret Bateson – Pascal Theatre Company (pascal-theatre.com)