Thursday evening will mark the British debut of the mysterious and bewitchingly beautiful Castilian dancer, Lola Montez.

She then studied dancing, making an unsuccessful first appearance at Her Majesty’s theatre, London, in 1843, billed as “Lola Montez, Spanish dancer.”

Lola Montez, some think, came a century too late; “in the eighteenth century,” said Claudin, “she would have played a great part.”