1710–1771

Ballerina

Beginnings.

One of two great prima ballerinas in mid-eighteenth-century France, Marie-Ann de Cupis de Camargo was born at Brussels to a family of mixed Franco-Flemish and Spanish heritage. In her youth she studied with Francoise Prevost, the greatest ballerina in Paris at the time, and in 1720, she was engaged at the Brussels ballet. Her Paris debut occurred in a production of Les caractères de la danse in 1726, and her performance was so brilliant that it excited the jealousy of her teacher, who refused to work with her anymore. She next studied with Blondy and Dumoulin, two other masters of the time. Between the time of her debut and retirement in 1751, she performed in almost eighty ballets in Paris. A fierce rivalry developed between Marie Camargo and Marie Sallé, the other great ballerina of the period. Voltaire, the greatest...