Barbara Campanini

Barbara Campanini, known as La Barbarina, (27 September 1719 – 7 June 1799) was an Italian ballerina, one of the most important ballet dancers of the 18th century.

[1] She became a student at Teatro Farnese under the instruction of Antonio Rinaldi Fossano, with whom she gave her debut at the Paris Opera in 1739, which became an immediate success.

[citation needed] She was noted by the young Prussian king Frederick the Great, who offered her a position at the newly erected Court Opera in Berlin, where she performed from 1744 onwards.

Before she arrived, however, she had eloped to Venice with her lover James Stuart-Mackenzie, and King Frederick used political pressure arresting a Venetian envoy to have her turned over to Prussia.

In Berlin, she had a privileged position, demonstrated by the fact that she negotiated her own annual salary of 7,000 Reichsthaler, which was unusually high, and five months vacation a year.