Major partners of the Paris Opera’s 350th anniversary
Major partners of
the Paris Opera’s 350th anniversary
A suivre:
Abbé Perrin (Director of...
Pierre Lacotte (born in 1932)
Directors, ballet masters, stage directors, choreographers, architects... Octave discovers the personalities that have marked the history of the Opera which continues to attract the great names of music and dance.
French dancer and choreographer Pierre Lacotte is regarded as the leading authority on the 19th century French School. Trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School, he joined the Corps de ballet in 1946 and rose quickly through the ranks, earning a promotion to Premier danseur in 1951. One of his first creations, La Nuit, won accolades from Belgian Television which prompted him to leave the Opera to pursue his choreographic research. In 1955, Pierre Lacotte established his own company Les Ballets de la Tour Eiffel, which performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. At the same time, he continued his career as a performer in France and abroad. Solicited by numerous festivals which commissioned pieces from him, he became director of the Ballets des Jeunesses Musicales de France in 1963, creating numerous works for the group, including Bifurcations, Hamlet, Penthésilée and La Voix (in collaboration with Edith Piaf). In 1968, while writing a book about romantic ballet, he uncovered hitherto unpublished documents pertaining to Philippe Taglioni’s La Sylphide (1832) which spurred him to revive the work. Initially produced for television (1971), La Sylphide was then staged at the Palais Garnier: The performance premiere took place on June 9, 1972 with Ghislaine Thesmar and Michaël Denard. Henceforth regarded as the “specialist” in reconstituting works from the romantic repertoire, he revived Coppélia (1973), the pas de six from La Vivandière (1976), and the pas de deux from Papillon (1976) for the Paris Opera. Other revivals would follow: Marco Spada (1984), Firebird (Paris Opera Ballet School, 1991) and Paquita (2001). In 2013, he created Célébration, to mark the tricentenary of the French School of Dance. In 1985, after giving adage classes at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Paris Opera, Pierre Lacotte became co-director of the new Ballets de Monte Carlo with Ghislaine Thesmar. He would leave the post in 1988 to join the Verona Opera Ballet. From 1991 to 1999, he was artistic director of the Ballet de Lorraine in Nancy.
Partners of the Paris Opera’s 350th anniversary
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Sponsor of Crystal Pite's production
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Sponsor of Opera's Battle
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Sponsor of Les Indes galantes
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