The final blow to the waning popularity of the operatic ballet was given by the music-dramas of Wagner and Berlioz. Before their advent, a visit to the opera meant primarily a visit to the ballet. Madame Malibran was perhaps the only singer who was able to draw the attention of the amusement-loving world from the fascination of the dance. She alone used to fill the old King’s Theatre in London to its utmost capacity on those nights when the ballet was billed as the principal attraction. During the years when Marie Taglioni, Fanny Elssler, Fanny Cerito, Carlotta Grisi, Lucille Grahn, and one or two other of the great _premières danseuses_, were the popular enchantresses, the public turned a deaf ear to the singer. During the vocal and dramatic portions of the opera, the spectators were wont to pass the time in chatting with their friends or promenading in the foyer, until the moment arrived when the _corps de ballet_ appeared and riveted their attention upon the stage. With the début of Jenny Lind the glory of the singing voice once more came into its own. The ballet, which for so long had held the principal place upon the programme, was gradually relegated to an inferior position. At Her Majesty’s Theatre it was eventually omitted altogether. At Covent Garden, where the Italian opera found a home in London, it no longer formed a part of the current repertory. Dancers with a certain Continental reputation used to visit England from time to time, but they disappeared almost as silently as they came. The _corps de ballet_, which had been accustomed to give itself amazing airs and to look upon the vocalists, however proficient, as merely interludes in the major attraction of the ballet, was suddenly dispersed. With its proverbial fickleness, the public forgot its old favourites and turned its back upon the dancers over whom it once used to shout itself hoarse. Nobody talked any more about dancing--it was no longer the vogue. Jenny Lind, Titiens, Patti, took the place of Taglioni, Elssler, Grisi, in the popular affection. In Paris, in Milan, and in most of the Continental opera houses, the _corps de ballet_ still retained a prominent place upon the programme, but none of the schools succeeded in producing a dancer of the very first order. The dance suffered eclipse. As Taglioni herself remarked, “La danse est comme la Turquie--bien malade.”