Enrico Cecchetti

Carla Fracci, was born in Milan in 1936. She studied at the La Scala Ballet School from 1946 with Vera Volkova and others, graduating into the company in 1954. Promoted soloist in 1956 and principal in 1958

and Juliet (1958) and Elvira in Massine's Don Giovanni (1959). She appeared with many companies like London Festival Ballet in 1959 and 1962, Royal Ballet in 1963, Stuttgart Ballet in 1965 and Royal Swedish Ballet in 1969. From 1967 she was principal guest artist of the American Ballet Theatre.

She is renowned for her interpretation of the romantic roles. Giselle was her greatest success, she danced it with many great partners like with Rudolf Nureyev, Vladimir Vasiliev, Henning Kronstam, Mikhail Baryshnikov and above all Erik Bruhn. Her unforgettable Giselle with Bruhn was filmed in 1969. Other great roles were Sylphide, Swanilda and Juliet.

She was director of ballet in Naples 1990-91 and in Verona 1995-97. She is now director of Balletto dell'Opera di Roma.

Mara Galeazzi, was born in 1973 in Brescia, Italy. She trained at La Scala, Milan. She joined the Royal Ballet in 1992 and was promoted to Principal in 2003.  She created roles in Two-Part Invention, Cheating, Lying, Stealing, Tidelines, Hidden Variables and This House Will Burn. She has danced as a guest artist with Irek Mukhamedov and Company and Scottish Ballet in Nutcracker.

Carlotta Grisi, real name Caronne Adele Josephine Marie Grisi (June 28, 1819 in Visinida, Upper Istria - May 20, 1899 in St. Jean, Switzerland), was an Italian ballet dancer. She studied under Jules Perrot. Notable roles include the title role in famous ballet Giselle (1841) and a part in Pas de Quatre(1845). These roles were created just for her.

Delia Scala, born September 25, 1929 - died January 15, 2004, was an Italian ballerina and actress.  Born Odette Bedogni in Bracciano, Lazio, Italy, as a young girl the family moved to Milan where she studied ballet at La Scala Ballet School for seven years. She performed in numerous ballets until World War II, after which she began appearing in motion pictures using the stage name, Delia Scala. In 1956, she began a career in television, an industry that at the time in Italy was still in its infancy. She starred in several variety shows during the 50s and 60s, and became one of her country's most beloved TV showgirls.

During the mid 1950s she gained much publicity for her relationship with Formula One racecar driver Eugenio Castellotti. However, he died in 1957 when his Ferrari crashed while attempting a speed record at the Modena racetrack. She ultimately married Piero Giannotti, but he was killed in a bicycle mishap.

Although Scala achieved great fame, life was not easy and she was diagnosed with breast cancer, undergoing a radical mastectomy. After several years battling her cancer, Delia Scala died in 2004 in Livorno, Tuscany. With the news of her passing, Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi called her a "model of vivaciousness and rigorous professionalism" and said she ranked among "the most beloved and popular artists in the history of Italian entertainment."

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Marie Taglioni rose to fame as a dancer when her father (and teacher) Filippo Taglioni created the ballet La Sylphide (1832) for her. Designed as a showcase for Marie's talent it was the first ballet where the ballerina danced en pointe for the full length of the work.
Marie Taglioni was the first star of the romantic ballet era.
She left the Paris Opera Ballet in 1837 to take up a three-year contract in St. Petersburg at the Mariinsky Ballet (now known as the Kirov Ballet). It was in Russia, after her last performance in the country (1842) (and at the height of the cult of the ballerina), that a pair of her toe shoes (early pointe shoes) were sold for two hundred rubles, reportedly to be cooked, served with a sauce and eaten by a balletomane.
Marie retired from performing in 1847. For a time she took up residence at the Ca d'Oro on the Grand Canal in Venice. When the ballet of the Paris Opera was reorganized on stricter, more professional lines, she was its guiding spirit. With the director of the new Conservatoire de danse, Lucien Petipa and Petipa's former pupil the choreographer Louis Mérante she figured on the six-member select jury of the first annual competition for the Corps de ballet, held April 13, 1860.
Later she taught social dance to children and society ladies; she also took a limited number of ballet pupils. Her only choreographic work was Le Papillon (1860) for her student Emma Livry, who is infamous for dying in 1863 when her costume was set alight by a gas lamp (limelight) used for stage lighting. Marie lived much longer, dying in Marseilles in 1884.
Johann Strauss II composed the Marie Taglioni Polka (Op. 173) in her honour using music from ballets in which she had appeared.