Mlle Eugénie Fiocre

The dancer Eugénie Fiocre (1845-1908), seen here in Borri’s L’étoile de Messine. Disdéri produced a carte showing twenty-five different portraits of dancers in various costumes and poses from the ballet, with the ballet identified within the print; this image is clearly identifiable as one of the portraits on that carte.

A dancer of elegance and vitality, Pasquale Borri was equally successful as a choreographer. His L’étoile de Messine [The Star of Messina], premiered in Vienna in 1856 as Die Gauklerin [The Juggler], was revived as La Giocoliera in Milan, Trieste, Rome and Venice, and was lavishly recreated (with a new score by Count Nicolò Gabrielli and a new libretto by Paul Foucher) at the Paris Opéra in 1860, its new title emphasizing its Sicilian setting. It became one of his best-known works.

A high point of the Paris version was the rousing Tarantella led by Amalia Ferraris, in the tragic role of Gazella, and Louis Mérante.

Photographed by A. A. E. Disdéri.