Thoughts sought on presumably French photocard

[rg]

this undated, but probably pre: 1903 photocard w. a nadar imprint has a peculiar caption as you may be able to see:

ESNELL

(Opera)

i've looked through a number of indexes to sources of french ballet and can find nothing linked to ESNELL.

anyone w/ any enlightening thoughts?

[pj]

Esmerelda???? (the tambourine was what gave me that idea)

But I'm not really sure that the french would be that different (Esnell vs. Esmerelda). Maybe someone who knows opera better would have a better idea.

[rg]

the hat would be out of place on victor hugo's Esmeralda, but you are right the tambourine 'fits'.

i have found that 'esnell' is a surname, but cannot yet find it to be the surname of a french, ballet dancer.

oh well, i still like the picture, even if i learn no more about the dancer's or the work's identity.

[Mme. Hermine]

forgive me if i've duplicated your effort, but i did see another of this photograph being sold as "punch doll" which in another place i saw translated as polichinelle in french. then found this page which talks about the composer of an opera called "thé de polichinelle", the composer of which was a student of adolphe adam.

http://www.maurice-abravanel.com/poise_jean_english.html

[Mme. Hermine]

Link to an item I found at the Library of Congress. Look under "Coryphees":

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v433/Mme. Hermine/0653.gif

[Estelle]

I had a quick look about the few books I have which could be useful, but found nothing either.

But the caption says "(Opéra)" below "Esnell", so perhaps it means the photograph comes from an opera and not a ballet ? (Such a caption is a bit ambiguous, because "Opéra" could mean either opera as opposed to ballet, but also the Paris Opera as a place and/or an institution...)

I doubt that "Esnell" would have a link with "Esmeralda" (it was Hugo who used the name Esmeralda, so it wouldn't be logical to change that name...)