Barbara Campanini

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The Barberina , portrait by Rosalba Carriera

Barbara Campanini , called Barberina or Barbarina , dancer, baroness, countess and abbess, (born June 7, 1721 in Parma ; †  June 7, 1799 in Barschau near Raudten in the Lüben district ) was one of the most important classical ballet dancers of the 18th century .

Life

The Barberina , painting by Antoine Pesne

She received her training from Rinaldi Fossano , with whom she made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1739 . When she finally left the famous ballet school, she was able to hit her delicate feet eight times in an air jump. Even the famous ballet dancer Marie Camargo could only do this four times. Her path took her to Paris via London and Venice in 1743. The young Prussian king Friedrich II heard from her and immediately wanted to hire her in Berlin . A contract for the next season at the Berlin Opera was agreed. Due to a love affair with the British politician James Stuart Mackenzie , however, she did not start her engagement in Berlin, but traveled to Venice with her lover. The king reacted very angrily. When his extradition request to the Republic of Venice was refused, he had the Venetian ambassador for London, who was traveling through Prussian territory, arrested, whereupon the dancer was transferred to Berlin under military guard. Mackenzie traveled to Berlin after his mistress, but he was already a nuisance to her, and she asked the king to expel her bridegroom from the country. Friedrich refused. The bridegroom held out another two years in vain. The Barberina now had other interests and made her debut at the Royal Court Opera on May 8, 1744. The king was one of her admirers and visited her several times in the opera séparée. He paid her what at that time was a very high sum of 7,000 Reichsthaler Gage a year along with many extra payments. This could be due to a presumed relationship with the king himself, which the dancer was said to have been among numerous other affairs.

The Barberina's career in Berlin ended abruptly in 1749 when she accepted a marriage proposal on the open stage made by Carl Ludwig von Cocceji , the son of the Prussian Grand Chancellor Samuel von Cocceji . Your contract has been terminated; her fiancé jailed for 18 months . She secretly married her fiancé in Berlin on November 2, 1749, went to London again, but returned to Berlin. The king finally sent her husband to the Silesian town of Glogau as regional president . There the Barberina acquired three estates that she managed herself. Already in 1759 she separated from her husband, the marriage failed and was divorced in 1788. In 1789 Campanini was raised to Countess Campanini. Not long afterwards, the countess, who was now a countess, set up a monastery to support 18 noble unmarried women and a superior. These had to come from the Silesian nobility; in addition, half had to belong to the Protestant and the other half to the Catholic religion. Barberina, who was now 68 years old, kept the strictest order among her canons for a decade until she suddenly died of a heart attack on her estate in Barschau in 1799. The foundation she established for poor noble ladies existed for more than 100 years until the First World War . Until the end, all the canonesses carried the cross donated by the first abbess, the former dancer Barberina.

reception

In 1915 Adolf Paul wrote his novel The Dancer Barberina about her . Novel from the time of Frederick the Great , which was filmed in 1920 by Carl Boese as The Dancer Barberina .

literature

  • Ernst Dohm : Bismarck to Uhden . In: The Gazebo . Issue 14-16, 18, 19, 1866 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Giuseppe Dall'Ongaro: La Barberina. De Agostini, Novara 1987.
  • Rita Unfer Lukoschik (ed.): Italians at the court of Frederick II (1740–1786). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2008.
  • Andrea Perego: Barbara - Un affare di Stato . Supernova, Venezia, 2020
  • Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures. Sebastian Lux Verlag, Munich 1963, p. 93.
  • Wilhelm Röseler: The Barbarina . Freund & Jeckel, Berlin 1890. Digitization: Central and State Library Berlin, 2020. URN urn: nbn: de: kobv: 109-1-15419382

Web links

Commons : Barbara Campanini  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barschau community , accessed on June 11, 2018
  2. ↑ Olaf Kappelt: Walk with Frederick the Great. ISBN 978-3-939929-10-9 , p. 61.
  3. ↑ Ingeborg Kolb: The secret marriage of Barbarina. In: Communications from the AG for family affairs in the Siemens culture area. 1959/60, p. 61
personal data
SURNAME Campanini, Barbara
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barberina; Barbarina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION italian ballet dancer
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1721
PLACE OF BIRTH Parma
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 1799
PLACE OF DEATH Barschau , Lüben district