Augusta Maywood

Augusta Maywood (March 5, 1825 – November 3, 1876), born Augusta Williams, was the first American ballerina to gain international recognition. In a career spanning forty-four years, she danced at the Paris Opera and became prima ballerina at both the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon and La Scala in Milan. Maywood was the first ballerina to have her own touring ensemble company.

Early life and education

Augusta Williams was born in New York City on March 5, 1825. She was the second of two daughters born to Henry August Williams and Martha Bally, itinerant actors from England who divorced when Augusta was an infant. When Augusta was three, her mother remarried Robert Campbell Maywood, an actor who also managed the Chestnut Street Theatre. Both Augusta and her older sister Mary Elizabeth took their stepfather's last name.

In 1836, her stepfather arranged for her to take ballet lessons with Paul H. Hazard, a Philadelphia instructor who had danced with the Paris Opera.

Dancing career

On December 30, 1837, Maywood made her stage debut at age twelve in a benefit for her mother, a performance of The Maid of Cashmere, a version of Daniel Auber's opera ballet Le Dieu et la bayadère. The response to her debut was positive; Théophile Gautier referred to her as an "infant prodigy" and reviews described her dancing as "original," "eccentric," and "astonishing."

Maywood became the first ballerina to tour with her own ensemble company, joining with the Lasina brothers, Giovanni Battista and Giuseppi, to create a semi-permanent ensemble. She toured Italy with the company from 1850 to 1858, performing in ballet versions of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Filippo Termanini's Rita Gauthier. A marionette version of her 1852 production of Il sogno di un alchimista was created by the Teatro Mecanico of the Anfiteatro Goldoni, marking her as a part of Italian theater culture.

She was frequently critiqued by the press for scandalous behavior, including her elopement, divorce, abandonment of her child, and allegedly leaving her stepfather to die in a poorhouse. In 1858 she married Carlo Gardini, an Italian physician and journalist.

After retiring in 1862, she opened a ballet school in Vienna. She later returned to northern Italy in 1873, where she lived on Lake Como. Maywood died in obscurity on November 3, 1876, in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (later Lviv, Ukraine).