At the launch yesterday for Martin Polley’s book, The British Olympics, which uncovers fascinating information about the idea of the Olympics in Britain before 1900. There were several ‘Olympic’ games with competitions in traditional British pastimes like shin-kicking as well as the more elevated running and jousting – one of them, in Much Wenlock, continues today. There were also many commercial entertainments that used the word ‘Olympic’ to suggest something more elevated than scantily-clad dancers and equestrian acrobats. In the 1830s, the Olympic Theatre, London was famous for its musical extravaganzas (including some based on Classical legends such as Orpheus), co-ordinated by the first woman actor-manager in London, Eliza Vestris. Madame Vestris was an acclaimed opera singer, premiering several roles by Weber and Rossini, and performing Cherubino in Mozart’s ‘marriage of Figaro’. She was also a noted dancer who was not shy of showing off her famously shapely legs in short skirts or in the tunics and tights of male roles. Her stage shows were feats of physical skill, but perhaps not the kind that de Coubertin envisaged…
http://www.playedinbritain.co.uk/books/the-british-olympics.php
Madame Vestris as Orpheus, 1831