Marguerite Du Londel

Marguerite Du Londel or Dulondel (Jeanne-Pierre-Marie–Marguerite Morel; La Rochelle, France, 1737–1804) was a French ballerina, actress and singer (soprano). She was active in the French theater in Sweden and at that time attracted great fame. She is also known for her relationship with king Adolf Frederick of Sweden.

Marguerite Morel was born in La Rochelle in France. She was engaged with her mother and her two sisters in the French theater company of Jeanne Du Londel and Pierre de Laynay, which was active at the Danish royal court in 1748–53. When the French theater company was contracted to perform at the Swedish royal court in 1753, Marguerite Morel initially remained in Copenhagen with her mother and sisters, before they left for Sweden to rejoin the theater in 1755.

The French Du Londel theater in Sweden performed for the Royal Swedish court in the palace theaters of Confidencen and Drottningholm Palace Theater during the summers, and for the public in the Bollhuset theater in Stockholm during the winters. It was a significant theater with about twenty members, patronized by the royal court and the aristocracy.

In 1759, Marguerite Morel married the actor and director of the theater, Louis Du Londel (1728–1793), and became henceforth known as Madame Du Londel or Madame Dulondel.

Marguerite Du Londel made her debut in the Du Londel French theater in a ballet before the royal court in August 1755. She was a success, and the queen of Sweden, Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, compared her to Barbara Campanini and Babette Cochois of the Prussian Ballet in Berlin.

Marguerite Du Londel was trained as a ballet dancer, actress and singer, which was not uncommon at the time. From 1759 onward, she participated as both an actress and a singer. As an actress, she mainly participated in soubrette roles. As a singer, she participated in many concerts at Riddarhuset, but also in the lyric plays staged by the theater. One of her most noted successes was Les Chinois by Hauteroche.

She was given good reviews in all three capacities of ballet dancer, singer and actress. Her multiple talents made her one of the elite members of the French theater, and she is referred to as the lead female star of the theater alongside Marie Baptiste.

It was arguably as a ballerina that Marguerite Du Londel achieved her greatest success in Sweden, and she was appointed premier ballerina. While the French company performed theater plays and lyric singing as well as ballet performances for the public at the Bollhuset theater in Stockholm, the plays and singing was reportedly in practice only frequented by the upper classes, who could understand the French language. The ballet performances, however, had a special position, as the audience did not have to be able to understand the French language to enjoy them. Consequently, the ballet performances where the only stage activity of the French theater which actually became lucrative among the wider Swedish public, and the ballets therefore played an important role when the French theater arranged their public performances in Stockholm (in opposite as when they performed for the court nobility), and became more frequent and staged alone. When the actors and singers of the French theater was mostly praised by the French language aristocracy, the French ballet dancers became known and popular outside of the nobility, and Marguerite Du Londel and her main co-star Louis Gallodier where both popular among the Swedish public and are noted to have been frequently printed in the advertises of the French theater's public performances to attract audience from outside of the nobility. Particularly in the period of 1767–71, Marguerite Du Londel was judging from the advertises a very appreciated star in Stockholm.