Carlotta Zambelli
ballet dancer and teacher (1875—1968)

Carlotta Zambelli (4 November 1875 – 28 January 1968) was an Italian prima ballerina and ballet teacher. Apart from a year in St. Petersburg, she spent her entire career in Paris.
Early life
Zambelli was born in Milan. When she was seven, Zambelli studied at the ballet school of La Scala under Cesare Carnesecchi Coppini and Adelaide Viganò. In August 1894, she was discovered by Pedro Gailhard, director of the Paris Opera, who took her to Paris together with her friend Clotilde Piodi.
Career
She made her début at the Paris Opera in 1894 with Faust and triumphed the following year in the Hellé divertimento, impressing the Parisians with her Italian technique and her fouettés. When Rosita Mauri retired in 1898, Zambelli took her place, earning the distinction of prima ballerina.
She was the last foreigner to be designated prima ballerina at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg where she was a great success during the year she spent there in 1901 performing the leading roles in Coppélia, Giselle and Paquita. She then returned to Paris where she was the reigning ballerina at the Opéra until her retirement in 1930.
The public source identifies “Carlotta Zambelli” as ballet dancer and teacher (1875—1968). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Carlotta, Zambelli and ballet.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 25, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q2939526. VIAF identifies the subject as 61815220. The Library of Congress control number is n97859324. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1875, 1968, 1894 and 1898.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carlotta Zambelli” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.