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She was 84 and had been suffering from cancer.
Fracci danced with the top male stars of her age, striking
memorable partnerships with Rudolf Nureyev, Erik Bruhn and
Vladimir Vasiliev, and was renowned in particular for her
interpretation of great romantic ballets, notably "Giselle".
In later life, she directed numerous Italian ballet companies,
including in Naples, Verona and Rome, and looked to bring dance
to provincial towns in order to keep ballet alive in a country
where opera traditionally dominated.
"Carla Fracci has honoured our country with her elegance and her
artistic commitment," Italian President Sergio Mattarella said
in a statement, praising her "extraordinary artistic and human
qualities that made her one of the greatest classical dancers of
our time".
Fracci was born in Milan in 1936. Her father was a tram driver
and her mother worked in a factory.
She joined the ballet school at Milan's prestigious La Scala
Theatre when she was 10 and admitted that she found classical
dancing boring until she saw the British star Margot Fonteyn
perform.
"That's when a spark ignited, a spark that became a fire and
that has never left me," she was quoted as saying by Corriere
della Sera newspaper in 2008.
She graduated from ballet school in 1954 and became a solo
dancer two years later before rising to the rank of prima
ballerina in 1958.
She continued to perform for more than 50 years, recalling her
storied career in her 2013 autobiography "Step After Step". In
it, she describes working with the great male dancers of her
generation, including an often difficult Nureyev.
"Dancing with Rudy was, in itself, a challenge: a great dancer
and choreographer but also a very difficult man, competitive,
eccentric, fickle, unpredictable, moody, temperamental,
sometimes so awful as to behave badly onstage with those who
were dancing with him," she wrote.
Fracci gave her last masterclass in January, at La Scala,
exploring Giselle, one of the most coveted roles for ballerinas
which the Italian first performed in London in 1959 and then
around the world for decades to come.
"She received a delirious, flower-strewn ovation from a
star-hungry audience," the New York Times wrote in a review of
her a performance at the American Ballet Theater in 1991.
Fracci was married since 1964 to director Beppe Menegatti and
the couple had one son, Francesco.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
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