Filippo Taglioni

Filippo Taglioni (1777–1871) was an Italian ballet master and choreographer best known as the creator of La Sylphide (1832) for the Paris Opéra — the ballet that established the Romantic era in dance and defined the aesthetic of the ballerina on pointe. He trained as a dancer and choreographer in various European cities before his appointment at the Paris Opéra, where his daughter Marie Taglioni became the defining dancer of her age. La Sylphide, created expressly for Marie, introduced the ethereal, otherworldly ideal of the Romantic ballerina: a supernatural being beyond human reach, danced on pointe and dressed in the iconic white tutu that became the image of ballet for generations. Although only Bournonville's 1836 staging of La Sylphide survives in regular performance today, Filippo Taglioni's origination of the work's atmosphere and concept remains his enduring contribution.