Giovanni Gallini

Gallini was trained in Paris by François Marcel and emigrated to England at an unknown date, though he had been performing at the Académie Royale de Musique.

Dance historians agree that these elegantly printed volumes were largely derivative, citing Weaver, Cahusac, and other sources, but were important statements of philosophy that helped gain Gallini entrée into society.

Haydn went to Vienna, and there he was found by Johann Peter Salomon, the great German-born violinist and impresario who had settled in London, where he gave successful subscription concerts.

Gallini bought out his partners on 12 November 1776 and continued to operate the hall successfully for the rest of his life, making large sums from series such as the Professional Concert and Academy of Ancient Music, and from masquerades held there.

Xenophobia against him coalesced into a bidding war won by Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Thomas Harris, who paid the outlandish price of £22,000 for the enterprise (all of it borrowed).

After seven years of transfers of authority, forced declarations of bankruptcy, feuding trustees, and sheriff's sales, he achieved his wish, though the conditions were far from ideal.

Without a major choreographer, even Auguste Vestris's performance seemed less brilliant, and although Jean-Georges Noverre returned at the end of 1787 the talent provided for him to work with was so limited that in February 1789 a riotous audience demanded that better dancers be imported.

Even after Marie-Madeleine Guimard consented to a short visit for exorbitant fees, Gallini somehow managed to run up a profit of £4000 in four seasons—though the money went to the theatre's innumerable creditors.

Although Gallini schemed to take full control of the business in a new space with a new partner, Robert Bray O'Reilly, by December he had broken away and joined forces with his nemesis William Taylor, who was rebuilding the old theatre.

He died abruptly at his home in Hanover Square on the morning of 5 January 1805 at the age of seventy-six, survived by his son John Andrea and two daughters, among whom an estate said to be £150,000 was divided.