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Show ATHLETES OF AMERICAN OPERA. PrllVElE?ir ,staB a Ballet Girl's Training severe Exercise. I will revert for a minute to the athletes ath-letes of the American opera. . They are of the feminine gender, long and lithe of limb, quick of movement, enthusiastic of purpose and rather light upon their toes. I dropped in to see some of the preliminary prelimin-ary stages of a ballet girl's career, and I was duly impressed. I have seen men trained in various ways and for divers contests, but I never knew of a more thorough system of training, and one that tends to develop the muscles of the entire body with thoroughness, than the system Eracticed at the American school. They ave a trained ballet-master, and he has sixty or seventy girls under his tuition Some of them are little tots 10 vears old and others are big and rather cumbersome cumber-some creatures of 18 or 20. Tiiey go tllrough" aseries of well-graduated motions regularly, spending four hours a day in the gymnasium it cannot can-not be called by any other name and come out of the ordeal looking fresh and healthy There is scarcely a well-developed athlete in any of our clubs who could go through one hour's exercise that these irirls do fiwrv rtv n-5ti,. i- all twisted out of shape and done up for the rest of the day. There is good material ma-terial in the company of recruits individually. individ-ually. Some of the little 10, 12 and 14-year-old girls already dance like nymphs and others are graceful and have beautiful beauti-ful faces and figures. It is rather surprising sur-prising that no two of the girls are alike in stature, and they seem to run into all possible extremes as to length, weight, thickness and curve of limb. The instructor of the ballet tells me, however, that the constant exercise tends to develop them equally, and when they join the regular ballet, of the American opera at the Academy of Music next January Jan-uary they will reflect luster upon their country. We have heard a good deal of the American ballet girl being of a much higher social grade. than her sister f other countries. Indeed, the man; who took me to see this particular ballet, and who is himself an enthusiastic admirer of everything American,including the opera, said that I would see girls of good social station there. "Not," he paid, "that they are in society or anything of that sort, you understand, but they are the daughters daugh-ters of trades people, of well-to-do boarding-house keepera and of folks generally who make some pretentions to social position." posi-tion." This was an error upon the part of the enthusiast. You may take my word for it that"the ladies of the American Ameri-can ballet are by no means up even wtth the modest standard set by the enthusiast. enthusi-ast. Cor. Brooklyn Eagle. |