Die Tänzerin Barberina (1920)

The film is about the life, loves, and extensively recounted affairs of the dancer Barbara Campanini. As a young girl, she is discovered and encouraged by the Italian dancer and dance teacher Antonio Rinaldi Fossano. With the help of her mother, who works as a matchmaker, and by applying considerable pressure, Fossano makes her his mistress. Through Fossano, Barbara gets to know the grand world of Europe’s courts and palaces. She first arrives at the court of Louis XV at Versailles, where courtiers and the king’s favorites vie for her attention. Barbara has been open to adventure from the very beginning, for the ambitious dancer wants to rise high in life. And so she ends up in the beds of lustful counts and princes who can provide the life the courtesan longs for. An engagement in London leads her straight into the arms of the young Lord Stuart de Mackenzie, who elopes with her to Venice, even though the dancer “La Barberina,” as her admirers affectionately call her, has agreed to fulfill an engagement in Berlin at the court of King Frederick II of Prussia. Enraged by the breach of contract, the king—who threatens to turn the matter into a full-blown diplomatic affair—ensures that the Italian dancer is handed over by the Republic of Venice to Prussia and assigned to the ballet of his royal court opera. Barbara makes the most of this forced move, ignores the love-struck Lord Stuart who has followed her, and eventually becomes the mistress of Fritz, who at this point is not yet quite so “Old.”