Katharina Josefa Lanner, also called Katti Lanner (14 September 1829 – 15 November 1908) was a ballet dancer from Vienna, Austria. She was famous in Germany and England. Lanner worked on many shows at the Empire Theater of Varieties.^[1]

Katharina Josefa Lanner was born on 14 September 1829. Her father was Josef Franz Karl Lanner. He was a composer and conductor in Vienna. Her mother was Franziska Jahns Lanner.^[2]

Lanner began dancing when she was 14. Pietro Campilli and André Isidore Carey were her teachers at a ballet school called Wiener Hofoper. Her first performance was at the Theater am Kärntnertor in 1845. Lanner played Angelica in the ballet Angelica by Antonio Guerras. Her first success came when she played Fennela in the opera La muette de Portici by Daniel Auber. Lanner soon began dancing with the great ballerinas Fanny Essler and Marie Taglioni.^[3]

Lanner left Vienna after her mother died in 1855. She went to Germany to dance in Berlin, Dresden, Munich, and Hamburg. In Hamburg, Lanner choreographed her first ballet. It was called Uriella, der Dämon der Nacht. She wrote it in 1857. Lanner was in ten shows at the Hamburg Opera.^[4] She also organized a ballet group for children.^[5]

Lanner started her own ballet company in 1865. It was called “The Viennese Ballet and Pantomime Troupe”. It toured from 1869 to 1872. It went to Scandinavia, Russia, France, Portugal, the United States, and England. A newspaper in Lisbon called her “the best ballerina known”.^[6] Lanner started a group called the “Kathi Lanner Choreographic Connection”. It went to New York to perform at Niblo’s Garden in 1872.^[7] Lanner choreographed a ballet for fifty children in 1873. It was part of a project started by Augustin Daly. His project was trying to make A Midsummer Night’s Dream more popular.^[8]

Lanner moved to London, England in 1875. She was put in charge of the National Training School for Dancing. The school was started by J. H. Mapleson at Her Majesty’s Theatre. The school was moved to Theatre Royal, Drury Lane after Her Majesty’s Theatre burned down in 1867.^[9]

A music hall called the Empire Theater of Varieties opened in 1887. Lanner started working there. She was there for twenty years and worked on thirty-four ballets.^[10] Lanner worked with the ballerina Adeline Geneé at the Empire Theater.^[11]

Lanner married Johann-Baptist Geraldini in 1864. They had three children but later divorced.^[12]

She died on 15 November 1908.^[13]

1. ↑ J. Gilliand, "Lanner, Katharina Josefa," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford University Press, 2004).
2. ↑ Fritz Lange, Josef Lanner und Johann Strauss: Ihre Zeit, ihr Leben und ihre Werke (Vienna: Verlag des Verfassers, 1904).
3. ↑ Futter, "Lanner, Katharina (Katti)," in Österreichisches Biographissches Lexikon 1815–1950 (Vienna, Verlag der Österreischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1972), vol. 5.
4. ↑ Joachim E. Wenzel, Geschichte der Hamburger Oper 1678–1978 (Hamburg: Die Oper, 1978).
5. ↑ Betty June Myers, "Lanner, Katti," in International Encyclopedia of Dance, edited by Selma Jeanne Cohen and others (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) vol. 4, p. 123.
6. ↑ José Saportes, Historia de Dança em Portugal (Lisbon, 1970).
7. ↑ Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell, "Lanner, Katti," in The Oxford Dictionary of Dance (Oxford University Press, 2000).
8. ↑ Myers, "Lanner, Katti," in International Encyclopedia of Dance (1998), vol. 4, p. 123.
9. ↑ Cyril W, Beaumont, "Our First National School of Dancing," Dancing Times (London), August 19677, pp. 588–589.
10. ↑ Ivor Forbes Guest, The Empire Ballet (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1962).
11. ↑ Jane Pritchard, "Genée, Dame Adeline," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 21, pp. 741–744.
12. ↑ "Katti Lanner 1829 – 1908". Pascal Theatre Company. Retrieved 2026-08-01.
13. ↑ "Katti Lanner 1829 – 1908". Pascal Theatre Company. Retrieved 2026-08-01.