“WE DON’T USUALLY LIGHT BIG SACRIFICIAL FIRES TO BALLET – THIS THEATRICAL FRILL –, NEVERTHELESS...” Press Coverage of Claudina Couqui’s Guest Appearances in Pest, with Special Regard to Pál Gyulai’s Criticisms

Abstract

The Italian-born prima ballerina Claudina Couqui (1835–1913) performed as a guest artist in
numerous European cities throughout her career, making several appearances at the National Theatre
in Pest, in the 1860s. Her Hungarian debut in the 1863 season was preceded by considerable anticipation
and met with enthusiastic reception, prompting her return in Hungary’s capital the following summer.
Couqui’s appearances are noteworthy not only from a perspective of history of performative dance but
also for the critical and aesthetic responses they elicited within contemporary press and literary discourse.
They prompted reflections on the status of ballet within the national theatre system, a discourse in which
Pál Gyulai’s only for-the-stage text known to concern ballet occupies a central place. This study seeks
to reconstruct the critical reception of Couqui’s performances, highlighting the broader aesthetic and
institutional considerations they brought to the fore.
The analysis of Couqui’s guest appearances necessitates a broader inquiry into the position of
ballet among theatre genres – especially in relation to recited plays and opera – and its compatibility
with the mission of the National Theatre, which was widely regarded in mid-19th-century Hungary as
a key vehicle for shaping national identity, through cultivation of Hungarian language, and by fostering
a national literary culture. It also raises questions regarding the expectations of critics and theorists
toward dance as a theatrical form, particularly during a period in which the stage was considered a
central forum for public life and nation-building.
This investigation not only sheds light on the possible interpretations regarding ballet at the
time but also illustrates the ways in which stage dance intersected with cultural debates about national
identity and artistic legitimacy. The study examines not merely Couqui’s individual performances but
also the critical discourse they generated, with special attention to Gyulai’s evaluative stance. His writings
offer insight into how ballet was positioned vis-à-vis the more established traditions of recited plays
and opera and reveal the tensions inherent in the attempts to integrate a nonverbal, yet highly expressive,
theatrical genre into the aesthetic and ideological framework of Hungarian national culture.