Florent petit biography. Master of Liberal Arts

Roland Petit died at the age of 88. The French choreographer became famous for his dance stories told with pure Gallic chic and grace.

The holder of the Order of the Legion of Honor did not like anniversaries. I could not stand it when, by the next date, they paid him compliments about the excellent appearance. Although he looked really great. He was youthful, fit and amazingly active. In addition, he is always surrounded by young dancers and choreographers, including Russians. For Mikhail Baryshnikov and Nikolai Tsiskaridze he staged The Queen of Spades. Maya Plisetskaya presented "The Death of a Rose". Ulyana Lopatkina directed the recital.

He transferred his favorite ballets to the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theaters. Opened to the general public Svetlana Lunkina and Alexander Volchkov. He dreamed of staging a play about Mayakovsky in Russia, and he himself was going to dance the main role.

Naturally, this Russophile became the first foreigner to be awarded the State Prize of Russia. And even though the aforementioned performance - the aforementioned "The Queen of Spades" - was not one of his successes, the decision of the Russian leadership does not raise objections. For Petit is not only French, but also our pride. Love for Russian teachers - Boris Knyazev and Olga Preobrazhenskaya - he carried through his whole life. And Diaghilev's wish, expressed to Jean Cocteau: "Surprise me!", Was taken as a guide to action.

The master was distinguished by his indomitable energy from childhood. During the day he studied dance, performed in the theatrical crowd in the evening, returned home after midnight, and went to general education lessons early in the morning. At the end of the dance course, he organized his own troupe. Petit's first major success was the ballet Comedians to music by Henri Sauguet, staged in 1945 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysees.

The ability to tell an amazing story in a few gestures and to unmistakably choose not widespread music made the choreographer fall in love with not only balletomanes. He was appreciated by all who admired life and enjoyed its pleasures. What in the everyday world is usually called perversion was completely natural for Petya. The world is multifaceted, the maestro inspired, and if you are young, you must taste its temptations. Moreover, youth, according to Petit, is a timeless concept. As long as a person lives with rapture, old age is not terrible for him.

The last greetings from the maestro were conveyed to us in February by the dancers of the Paris Opera. The French performed "Arlesienne". The hero, deceived by his beloved, committed suicide. Of all the performances brought by the guests, this one had a tragic ending. And yet he was the most cheerful, the lightest, the most charming and absolutely relaxed. Like its author - a true Frenchman Roland Petit.

In Geneva, at the age of 88, the French dancer and choreographer Roland Petit, a prominent representative of the world ballet scene of the 20th century, died. Petit is the author of more than 150 ballet performances, including the great ballet "The Youth and Death". Maybe Petit was not a choreographer on the scale of Balanchine or Bejart, but he turned academic dance into a live theatrical performance, and that makes him interesting.

Roland Petit was born in 1924 in France. His mother was the Italian Rose Repeto, who later founded the famous company of ballet shoes Repetto, his father was the owner of a Parisian bistro. Petit showed an early interest in art. He was very fond of dancing to the sounds of the piano in his father's restaurant, who in every possible way encouraged his hobbies. On the advice of one of the visitors, Edmond Petit sent his nine-year-old son to the Paris Opera ballet school, where Gustave Rico and Serge Lifar became his mentors.

After leaving school, the 16-year-old Petit was admitted to the corps de ballet and at 19 he performed his first solo part - in the ballet "Love the Enchantress" by Manuel de Falla. However, the young dancer was not enthusiastic about Lifar's methods of work and did not share his neoclassical views. He wanted to have his say in ballet, so at the age of 21 he left the Paris Opera and began to stage himself as part of "Dance Evenings" at the Sarah Bernhardt Theater.

At that time, Petit moved in the circle of the Parisian bohemia, with many of whom he met thanks to Jean Cocteau. With the writer Petit brought the case: they met when Petit was still a student of the ballet school, and became friends. The choreographer often visited Cocteau, who was visited by famous artists, writers and musicians. Among Petya's new acquaintances were the critic Irene Lidova and Sergei Diaghilev's assistant Boris Kokhno, with whom, with the financial support of Petya's father, founded his first troupe, the Ballet of the Champs Elysees. With this troupe, the choreographer staged one of his most famous ballets - "The Youth and Death" based on the plot of Cocteau.

This one-act ballet to the music of Bach became the quintessence of Petit's work - the hero, a young artist, suffers from unrequited love and, unable to withstand the existential torment, commits suicide. The ballet was a resounding success - unprecedented for those times eroticism and frankness, the image of the femme fatale, extremely bold for the ballet, captivated the audience. Over time, this ballet became one of the most popular productions of the 20th century - it was staged in theaters around the world, and the main roles were danced by outstanding performers, including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev and Nicolas Le Riche.

In 1948, Petit created a second troupe, the Ballet of Paris, with which in 1949 in London he staged Carmen with Margot Fontaine. The sensual production caused awe among British critics: the author of one of the reviews wrote that he literally heard the buttons on their trousers coming off the men in the audience with a bang. However, the audience accepted the ballet with a bang, and London became an important step for Petit on the way to European recognition and world fame.

In 1964, commissioned by the Paris Opera, Petit staged another outstanding ballet - Notre Dame Cathedral to music by Maurice Jarre. By that time, the choreographer was already a real star - in the 1950s he spent four years in Hollywood, where he brought his troupe on tour. During this time, Petit managed to work with Orson Welles and stage dances in the musical films "Daddy-Long Legs" with Fred Astaire, "Whatever Happens", in which Petit's wife, French ballerina Zizi Jeanmer, played, and a number of others.

In the early 1970s, Petit for several years switched from ballet to "light genres" like cabaret, but already in 1972 the choreographer headed the Marseille ballet, with which he worked until 1998. During this period, Petit showed himself from an unexpected side, starting to stage ballets based on literary works. He was the only one of the outstanding choreographers who dared to stage a ballet based on the cycle of Proust's novels "In Search of Lost Time". This bold attempt has led many critics to reconsider the accusations of superficiality and a craving for tabloid choreography that were made against Petit.

Petit was surrounded by outstanding people of his time in literally all spheres of art. The music for his ballets was written by Henri Dutillet and Henri Sauguet, the scenery for the performances was created by Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst, the costumes were Yves-Saint Laurent and Christian Dior, the libretto was written by Jean Anouillet, Jacques Prevert and Georges Simenon. Petit's memoirs, published in 1993, are almost entirely composed of memories of work and acquaintance with those with whom the choreographer had the opportunity to collaborate or communicate.

Work in Russia and the Soviet Union occupies a special place in Petya's biography. In the 1970s, his "Notre Dame Cathedral" in the USSR, where, unlike London, Jarre's miniskirts and music were not only unknown, but almost forbidden, made a splash. In 1973, Petit staged The Death of a Rose for Maya Plisetskaya at the Bolshoi Theater, and in 1988, Cyrano de Bergerac. Nevertheless, Petit's most memorable ballet at the Bolshoi was The Queen of Spades (2001) with Ilze Liepa and Nikolai Tsiskaridze. For this ballet, Roland Petit was awarded the State Prize of Russia, becoming the first foreigner to receive such an honor. In 2010, at the request of Bolshoi Petit, he staged The Youth and Death in it especially for the main young star of Russian ballet Ivan Vasiliev.

The general director of the Bolshoi Theater Anatoly Iksanov expressed condolences over the death of Petit and promised to arrange an evening in the theater in memory of him. "This is a great loss for the entire ballet world and personal grief for us, the Bolshoi Theater, in which a lot is connected with Roland Petit. Roland Petit is a whole era in the history of world ballet. We will always remember this great creator," he said. There is nothing to add here.

The Queen of Spades. Ballet to the music of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony. The Bolshoi Theatre.
Choreographer Roland Petit, conductor Vladimir Andronov, artist Jean-Michel Wilmott

And what kind of operatic will pass by the name "The Queen of Spades" ... even if it is ballet. Even if it is not opera music that is used, but symphonic music, but the music of that symphony created by Tchaikovsky in close proximity to the opera and in the same circle of tragic problems.

I did not pass by the Bolshoi Theater poster either ...

“The most French of the French ballet masters,” as Roland Petit is called, has addressed the Russian “The Queen of Spades” more than once, bewitched by the deceptively careless simplicity of Pushkin’s infernal “anecdote” and the colossal spiritual tension of Tchaikovsky's music. Experiments with the score of the opera did not lead to success, and the choreographer decided to merge the script he created with the Sixth, Pathetique Symphony. Petit chose the path not of dancing instrumental music, but of creating a narrative ballet, which he always preferred. The choreographer himself believes that his libretto ideally suited the music of Tchaikovsky's last creation, with the only concession that episodes and whole parts of the symphony were reversed. As a result, the musical drama of the ballet, of course, differs from the symphony, but the revision of the score was done by the director himself very neatly.

The design of Roland Petit's ballet is a series of Hermann's monologues-dialogues with himself, with the Countess, Liza, Chekalinsky, and the players. Reflecting, like Hamlet, Hermann is really in constant tense communication with his own ego throughout the performance, finding, as it seems to him, answers in disputes with images from his inflamed imagination.

The choreographic vocabulary of the ballet is based on the classics, but significantly transformed by the twentieth century. It cannot be said that here Roland Petit made some global discoveries in the field of the dance language. His handwriting is well recognizable, the master, it seems, and does not care about this performance consists in how the director compares episodes, how he distributes tension, how he correlates plastic tempo with music, how he acts with light and color - in other words, in the drama of the show. This, I think, is the main advantage of the production.

Roland Petit himself carefully chose the performers for the implementation of the creative project and did not want to work with anyone else. Here, in principle, only one cast is involved.

In Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Petit found a dancer-actor with magnificent body lines, temperament, nervous artistic nature and high-class technique. With the passion of a maniac, Petya loaded the hero with so many dance difficulties that at times the artist was not even up to the problems of the image.

Tsiskaridze is very good on his own: to become, step, jump, relaxed completeness of poses, finally, the charm of male beauty - everything is with him. However, at times, some narcissism closes him in the usual romantic guise. Realizing the original vocabulary of Roland Petit, he sometimes suddenly becomes Albert from Giselle ... But the masterfully constructed drama of the performance powerfully draws the hero into a death spiral, the dancer forgets about romanticism and all the growing technical difficulties. Its vortex jumps with spins (literally from a place!) Have an energetic power that will take your breath away. The impression that Hermann Tsiskaridze is just flying to the finale, although in fact the movements become even wider, slower. Tension is gaining momentum, the pulse quickens, the inevitability of the tragic march of the concluding part of the symphony leads Hermann to a denouement with incredible force. A short, almost grotesque convulsion - and it's all over ... To bring the increase in tension to the brim is only up to a real artist.

The hero of Petya and Tsiskaridze is not from the category of "little people", although at times he is flawed (bent knees, shifted feet and shoulders), almost crushed (crawling on his knees, the dancer performs leitmotions in a transformed form, which were repeatedly repeated in his plastic score of the main monologues). Sometimes he looks like a capricious, demanding, sometimes naive child: what is the astonished look at the pistol after the unexpected death of the Countess!

Like Meyerhold in the famous "The Queen of Spades" in 1935, Roland Petit does not accentuate the love line of Hermann and Lisa. This is the whole episode in which the girl gently takes the initiative. Hermann's longing for love is intertwined with his painful search for the secret of cards - the musical basis of one of the main monologues of the hero and a duet with Lisa turns out to be the famous side theme of the first part of the symphony. The duet with Lisa is simple, but very good, largely thanks to Svetlana Lunkina, genuinely noble, with clean classical lines of dance and the charm of her appearance. The ending of this duet is interesting: Lisa gently turns Hermann's head towards herself, kisses him and runs away. But he comes back - with a key in his hand.

The magic of love instantly dissipates. Further - a meeting with another lover. With a gray-haired, almost disembodied creature that Hermann manipulates like a rag doll. Here Hermann is demanding and pleading, raping and caressing. And she, Countess, Ilze Liepa, is longing, trembling, breaking, but not giving up. Her death is also instantaneous and convulsive: something from the splash of the wings of a mortally wounded bird ...

Countess Ilze Liepa in Roland Petit's performance is the finest hour of the ballerina, who, perhaps, has been waiting for a real role all her life. In my opinion, this is a case of perfect fusion with the image in which the director invented it, and at the same time maintaining the distance between the character and the performer. Gloomy, rotten sensuality is combined with intellect, wrestling passion - with eerie irony. Liepa's plasticity, musicality, acting talent, her amazingly flexible hands are the luxurious material from which the choreographer and dancer have created a masterpiece.

The color and silhouette transformations of the Countess's costume are magnificent: a dark cloak with a metallic sheen is thrown over a cloak with fats of the color of caked blood - one can guess the outline of the peak sign; under them is a dress flowing over the body, black or light gray.

The dominant white-gray-black graphics in the performance with a slightly noticeable splash of pale pink and yellow, the gradual onset of dark red in all its shades is a separate topic. Graphic design is quite a fashionable fad. However, the tact and taste with which Jean-Michel Wilmotte (set design) and especially Louise Spinatelli (costumes) designed the performance, gave it the charm of a high style phenomenon. Here the lightness and transparency - from the classical clarity of Pushkin's prose, the color of caked blood - from the pain of Tchaikovsky's harmonies, and the overall laconic image of the performance made a noble counterpoint to the piercing tension of the music of the Sixth Symphony and its original stage embodiment.

In the composition of the performance, not the last and not a duty role is assigned to mass scenes. The role of the corps de ballet, which is difficult to call such here, increases with each subsequent appearance. It is very beautiful, although in many ways the famous waltz in five-quarters is danced traditionally in the episode of the ball. In the final scene, the mass of dancers surrounding the gambling table creates a disturbing mobile background, perfectly accompanying the already almost pantomime duel between Hermann and Chekalinsky.

At times it is strange to see how the director does not seem to trust himself - all the players, including Hermann and Chekalinsky, play out the outstretched palm like a thrown card. In the case of the Countess, this does not seem enough to the director - he introduces fake cardboard boxes that look like obvious rudiments of a good old drum ballet. There are not many annoying irritants in the play, but they are there. What can you do…

Whether Roland Petit managed to solve the mystery of the three cards on the stage of the Bolshoi will be shown by the stage life of the ballet The Queen of Spades. But the fact that the French choreographer managed to stir up the creative passion of Russian dancers is a fact, and very gratifying. Unlike opera, something significant has finally happened in the Bolshoi ballet.

November 2001

The article uses photographs by I. Zakharkin.

He has become a modern classic. His ballets are danced on various stages around the world. They quote him, learn from his performances ...

On July 10, 2011, the French dancer and choreographer, the creator who changed the history of the 20th century ballet, Roland Petit, passed away.

At the age of 9, in 1933, Roland Petit entered the dance school of the Paris Opera. 7 years later, at 16, he enters the stage of the Opera as a corps de ballet dancer. In 1943, Petit was already on the middle rung of the ballet hierarchy - he received the rank of soloist, "suzhe", above him - "stars" and "premieres", a rank below - "luminaries" and the first corps de ballet. Serge Lifar later wrote that it was he who discovered Petit, giving him a solo part in the ballet Love the Enchantress.

Nikolai Tsiskaridze worked with Roland Petit, tells about him:

“Roland Petit is one of the outstanding classics of today. In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting and most relevant choreographers. He was very lucky, because he himself and his consciousness were formed, as he himself says, in besieged Paris, where people were forced, due to the fact that there was no entry or exit, to engage exclusively in art, somehow themselves themselves should have been amused and entertained.

And during this period he finds himself in the company of the greatest people, he meets Jean Cocteau, the legendary secretary of Serge Diaghilev, Boris Kokhno, who opens the way for him to bohemian Paris, where Petit meets the greatest artists of that period, actors, set designers.

Under the influence of Jean Cocteau and Boris Cochnot, Petit left the Paris Opera and founds his own troupe, which was called the Ballet de Champs Elysees. Before that, he already began to try to stage his individual opuses on the stage of the Teatro Sarah Bernhardt - there were organized weekly ballet evenings, where he presents his first choreographic opuses.

Then he organizes his troupe, which includes some of his classmates and friends from the Paris Opera. This collective did not last very long, because due to a disagreement with the management of the theater, Petit was forced to leave this troupe. A little later, he again organized his own performance and his troupe, which is called the Ballets of Paris.

From my point of view, as a great choreographer, Roland Petit was born in 1947, when he puts on one of the greatest ballets that have been staged in general in the world - this is “The Youth and Death”, the libretto for this performance is made by Jean Cocteau and, in general, this is his idea. the creation of this performance. From that day on, a very bright, very famous choreographer Roland Petit appears in the world.

In 1949, his ballet "Carmen" appears in London, which for three months is staged in London seven, eight times a week, then this performance moves to Paris, where it goes on for two months, then they leave for New York , where this performance is also performed for two months. From the day he staged Carmen, Roland Petit has become an international star. He is invited to various theaters, he puts on this performance and subsequent ones in different troupes of the world and receives an invitation from Hollywood.

In the late 50s, he ended up in Hollywood, where he worked with Fred Astaire, choreographed dances for various films. In particular, one of these films about Hans Christian Andersen, where there are a lot of ballet scenes, his future wife Rene Jeanmer, who went down in history as Zizi Jeanmer, is shot in the film. And he does a lot for various great Hollywood dancers and works, as he says, with his childhood idol, Fred Astaire. He said, "What can I teach you, I have learned from you all my life." And Fred Astaire said, “no, but I’m going to study with you now.” It was a very interesting collaboration, Roland Petit learned a lot of new things for himself and never left his love for the revue.

Already when he returned to Europe for his wife, Zizi Jeanmer, he creates a lot of programs, revues for the stage and in particular, for “Cabaret de Paris”, where his completely staged programs are released every day, and Zizi Jeanmer is the main star. All sets and costumes for them are made by such great artists as Roman Tyrtov, who went down in history as Erte.

In 1965, Petit returns to the renowned Paris Opera troupe, where he studied, where he once started, and he directs the first production for the Parisian opera, together with Yves Saint Laurent, who makes the costumes. He puts on the play “Notre Dame Cathedral”, which has the effect of an exploding bomb: they were not used to this at the Paris Opera, very few people have seen such plastic. Many of what Roland Petit invented, other choreographers borrowed from him. This is very easy to prove: if you look at Roland's biography, in what year what he staged, and what innovations he introduced in general and what works later appeared around the world, then this is clear. Fortunately, Roland is almost entirely recorded.

While he is staging Notre Dame Cathedral, he is invited to be both artistic director and director of the Paris Opera ballet company, which did not last very long. Because he could not come to terms in any way and find a common language with the stars. He said that he was not interested in this work, and he voluntarily left the walls of the Paris Opera for the second time. And to this day he returns there, and puts on his performances for this famous collective.

In 1972 he came to Marseille, where he received a complete carte blanche. There, Petit is the king and god for everyone, only his will is fulfilled. In general, he dreamed of such a troupe, and he created it: the ballet in Marseille is becoming the second most important troupe in France and has existed for so many years. For 26 years he was the director of this group. In the same place, in Marseille, he opens a ballet school at the theater. Under his leadership, a building special for the ballet theater is being built. And at the end of the 20th century, he left Marseille forever, ceased to be a director and continued his life, staging various performances. As well as restoring the old, and putting new ones.

I was incredibly lucky, I was very lucky, because he staged his last big performance for me and for me at the Bolshoi Theater in 2001, the ballet The Queen of Spades. This was the beginning of our creative friendship and just friendship in life. For me, this person is very dear and very interesting to me, because you can talk with him absolutely on any topic. And it's always interesting.

In the history of the second half of the 20th century, there is not a single great person - be it an artist, composer, actor, even some scientific luminaries - with whom Roland Petit would not collaborate, creating various performances. There are a lot of stories, both funny and sad, but thanks to all of them, those great works were created that go around the world.

Roland has a very great simplicity in relationships, and humor. Without these two components, he is unthinkable for me. And all this is very strongly reflected in his work. His choreography is extremely simple. And very often, when I looked at some numbers that I had never seen before, I always had a feeling: why didn't I come up with this or someone nearby? Why did such a simple thing occur to him?

He really doesn’t like it when artists alter the text or do the decoration. Because he always puts not only a very simple and very clear drawing that very accurately falls on the musical accents. Petit very accurately gives the directors' instructions to the artists: in what emotional state it should be performed, with what facial expressions and where it is possible to extract emotion from oneself, and where it is not.

He allowed only Russian artists to improvise in his choreography. He allowed Maya Plisetskaya to do this, even in the ballet “Proust, or Overflowing of the Heart” for her, where she also had dance pieces, he gave her a special musical moment where she could improvise exactly as she does. Thank goodness it's written down. It was the same with Mikhail Baryshnikov, and with Rudolf Nureyev, and with Ekaterina Maksimova and Vladimir Vasiliev, when he invited them to perform his performances "Blue Angel", and now we were lucky with Ilze (Ilze Liepa, - ed.), but that trust had to be earned.

He refuses to work with many artists and is generally reputed to be a very intractable person. Very often, when he puts on his performances, he ordered music, in particular, as was the case with "Notre Dame Cathedral" or the play "Clavigo". It was to composers who were very popular and relevant at that time ... But very often Roland Petit created performances based on already existing symphonic music. And his approach is always different and individual.

Sometimes he puts a scene without music, and then tries to put this scene to music. In particular, this is how the play “The Youth and Death” is staged, where the music of Johann Sebastian Bach is used, and where in no case does he allow the artists to focus on musical accents, all the time hinting that the music sounds outside of what is happening on the stage, this a background that exists outside the room where the main characters exist. Or, for example, the play "Proust". He selected the music of various French composers. French composers, who were creating at the time when Marcel Proust lived.

When we staged “The Queen of Spades” (this performance was staged on the pathetic symphony of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), he allowed himself to swap the parts, which, of course, caused great discontent among all music critics and musicians. But he was very careful with all the musical accents. And he followed us very precisely so that we would do it.

Initially, when he took Tchaikovsky's music, he took it performed by Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein performed this symphony differently, in contrast to the tradition that was inherent in Russian performance. When asked why you chose Bernstein, he said that the accents are much clearer here. You can say that he allows himself any liberties with music.

When he staged the ballet “Carmen” in 1949 to the music for the opera (this was the first time when they took the music for the opera “Carmen”, completely redrawn it, completely remade it, and staged the ballet), there were also a lot of angry articles by musicologists and musicians who did not want to put up with it, but this performance lives on.

Soon he will be 60 years old, and the performance continues to this day in various theaters around the world and is a resounding success. So, probably, the winners are not judged, perhaps the artist is right. "

culture News

Roland Petit ballet "Le Fant ô me de l "Opé ra". 1980

O audio recording
musical score
ballet 1982.

Ballet production group:

Choreographer ............. Roland Petit
Composer ................... Marcel Landowski
Scenery ...................... Giulio Coltellacci
Costumes .. ..................... by Franca Squarciapino
Conductor ......................... Patrick Flynn
Poster by ........... Rene Gruau
Producer ...................... Rolf Liebermann

Performers:

Ghost .......................... Peter Schaufuss
Girl ......................... Dominique Khalfouni
Young man ........ Patrick Dupont
Madame Carlotta ...... Sylvie Claver

Ballet audio recording:

Conductor ......................... Marc Soustrot
Vocals ............................... David Wilson Johnson
Comments ............... Michelle Bouget

Musical compositions:

L "Opera aux premieres heures du matin / The Opera in the Small Hours - Opera after midnight
Madame Carlotta danse a decroucher le luster cer soir! / Madame Carlotta Could Bring Down the Chandelier This Evening! - Madame Carlotta can make the chandelier fall tonight!
La Jeune Fille traverse le miroir / The Young Girl Steps Through the Mirror - Young girl goes through the mirror
Le Fantome conduite le bal / The Phantom Conducts the Ball - The ghost rules the ball
Un premier baiser. Horreur ... c "est in monstre! / A First Kiss? ... Horrors, He" s a Monster! - First kiss? ... Oh horror, he's a Monster!
Les rats / The Rats - Rats
La messe de mariage ou la danse des morts / The Wedding Mass, or the Mass of the Dead - Wedding Mass or funeral mass

The ballet premiered in April 1980.
The audio recording was released in 1982.

The Phantom of the Paris Opera.

The French did not shoot films based on The Phantom of the Opera, did not stage musicals. It seemed they were the only one who disliked the popular novel of their compatriot, Gaston Leroux. But there was a Frenchman who said his weighty word in this topic - he staged a ballet. His name was Roland Petit.

The poster for the ballet Petin was painted by René Gruo, the famous graphic artist,
famous illustrator of fashion magazines (Harper's Bazaar, Vogue).
He also owns posters for many famous movies,
for example, to the film "Sweet Life" by Fellini. In addition, Gruo created
sketches of models of clothes, theatrical and ballet costumes.

Composer Marcel Landowski talked about the creation of the ballet as follows: "When the producer Rolf Lieberman, in his own words"who has long wanted to stage a play based on the famous novel by Gaston Leroux ", invited me to write music for ballet"Phantom of the Opera"and immediately, my first reaction to this proposal was the thought of a choreographer who once struck my imagination - Roland Petit. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest choreographers who ever lived. If I were asked to choose from many great choreographers , I would have no doubt who to choose "...

... "For the ballet" The Phantom of the Opera "we left only the most basic scenes, clear and understandable for the public, we worked them carefully, and it was for them that I wrote the music. As for the music, here I am on my own field, but when the conversation comes about choreography, then I want to be in a different place "...

... "Roland Petit has his own, individual language, with which he embodies music into dance. It can be called not formalistic, not intellectual, but rather more sensual. Petit disciplines and"trims"He shapes his dancers, resembling a sculptor sculpting from clay. Choreographically, Petit continues the line outlined in the ballet by Serge Lifar. Petit does a lot to penetrate the art of ballet into ever wider masses of spectators."

However, in ballet, the most monstrous act that can be blamed on the Phantom is his vigilant concern for his beloved, almost a dog's devotion (remember "... he hovered around me like a faithful slave, and surrounded me with the most tender care ... like a beaten dog looks at its owner ..." ), although at the same time he completely does not pay attention to the horror that he and his "helpfulness"they call the girl. To bring her to the forefront, he makes a grandiose misfortune for the prima ballerina Madame Carlotta, dropping the chandelier right in the middle of her performance. Yes, yes, you heard right, the prima ballerina, not the prima donna, and of course the young a girl, the object of the Phantom's passionate love, as in the book, not a promising young singer from the choir, but a young and talented ballerina from the corps de ballet (which allowed Petit to stage a realistic and cute scene in a ballet class ). In ballet, even more than in the book, the girl is a passive figure with whom something happens, but who herself does nothing.

However, despite such a narrow framework, Dominic Kalfuni was able to invest in this part more than anyone else could: she looked amazing and danced flawlessly.

Dominic Kalfuni (Girl). The scenery is just a hint of real trees.
Something like Giselle.

Patrick Dupont there was no difficulty in looking unusually touchingly young, since at the time the ballet was staged he was only twenty years old; he also danced his part masterly, bringing light, graceful panache to the performance. According to critics at the time, with good leadership, he "can become outstanding premier danseur - lead soloist "And Dupont did not disappoint expectations. It should be noted that Dupont's part - the part of the young lover - sometimes attracted even more attention than the part of the Phantom. According to the English journalist of the magazine" Dancing time" Freda Pitt ( Freda Pitt): " Petit put more energy into the part of the young man than into the part of the Ghost, "although I expected a lot from her."

Phantom's lead role was originally intended for a star such as Rudolf Nureyev , but Petya had problems with a capricious star, who did not consider it obligatory for herself, for example, to appear at a rehearsal.

Peter Schaufus , a wonderful Danish dancer - the one Petit chose to replace Nureyev. This is not to say that Shaufus's talents were not amazing. On the contrary, the same Pitt admits that he began his performance with an unusually powerful and complex solo, perfectly using his amazing technique, but notes that the creative impulse is not expressed as strongly as he would like. Highlighting memorable pas de deux, in which the Phantom subjugates a frightened girl, Pitt states that Petit in this ballet still did not throw a worthy challenge to the talents of Schaufus.

Since the make-up of the Phantom can hardly be called terrifying, the ballet dancer had to rely only on his presence on stage and on the aura of deceit he created, combined with mental anguish and suffering. However, many French critics did not skimp on praise for Schaufus, noting his impeccable style, his virtuosity as a partner, great strong supports and the depth with which he embodied the dramatic image.

" When he dances, the forgotten Shadow seems to return to the stage from the depths of the theater ", - they wrote about him.

The make-up of the ballet Phantom was extremely light, almost conventional: slightly accentuated cheekbones, outlined with dark eye sockets. The mask (when it was) covered only the middle part of the face from the upper lip to the forehead.

Critics, in their own words, lacked such a Petya as he showed himself in such productions as Coppelia, The Nutcracker, The Bat, Notre Dame Cathedral and even in The Queen of Spades.

The blame was attributed to the fact that the action and choreography "slowed down"a very prosaic and commissioned score by Marcel Landowski, whose music turned out to be quite smalldansantna... Petit's concept and approach were thoroughly romantic, but Landowski's music, although harmonious, was too modern, unacceptable for the light and floating, like a butterfly, Madame Carlotta's ballet or for the stage in the foyer, where the dancers met their fans. She was also not suitable for the ball scene, where the formidable figure of the Phantom proudly and frighteningly walks among the guests in a mask and a red cloak (thank God the Red Death has come ); this scene, by the way, gives a reason to admire the ornate Grand Staircase, an exact copy of the real one, created according to the art concept Coltellacci.

European team consisting of Giulio Coltellacci and Franchi Squarciapino, who had already worked with Petya on the ballet "The Flying Mouse" (La chauve- Souris ), again did a great job at the Opera, although apart from the falling chandelier (falling at a decent distance from the audience onto the stage ) and a girl passing and disappearing in a mirror polished to a metallic sheen, there are not so many stage tricks in the ballet, as one would expect from such a plot and its texture, especially in the last scenes, in the Phantom's lair, although the scene where the young man is tied and haunted by long-tailed rats, well set.

As he wrote with delight in "Les saisons de la Danse" French ballet critic And ndre-Philippe Ercy ( Andre-Philippe Hersin) , " the endless whip-like tails of a multitude of rats attacking a Young Man looking for his beloved in a gloomy dungeon bring an exciting imprint of sado-masochistic motives" .

Patrick Flynn ( famous conductor) , invited at the last moment, conducted as always professionally and amazingly, and it should be noted that from the moment of his appearance in the orchestra pit, the dancers gained a powerful support in the fight against Landowski's difficult music.

The disadvantages of ballet, in addition to bland music, also include the lack of a wider and richer outline of the plot. Too many flat, nameless sketch characters that do not carry any special meaning; introduction of a comment into the course of action; the main characters are reduced to three, and then all are also without a name: Phantom, Girl and Young Man. The only character with a name left is the unlucky Madame Carlotta. Because of all of the above, the ballet itself and the whole story unfolding on the stage left many with the impression of anonymity and facelessness.

The same Ercy notes that it was interesting to follow through reviews in magazines for the changes that the picky Petit introduced to the ballet since the day of the premiere. So, for example, at first the ballet opened as a three-act ballet, but Petit soon removed one of the intermissions, eliminating the break as destroying the dramatic tension, and subsequently the ballet went on as a two-act ballet. Also, changes took place in the composition of the performers.

In the second part of the ballet he danced the part of the Phantom J en Gizerli (Jean guizerlix ), the part of the Girl - Claude de Vulpian (Claude de Vulpian) , Boys - Jean-Yves Lormo (Jean-Yves Lormeau) and Jean-Christophe Paré (Jean-christophe pare) .

The second line-up was not inferior to the first, the technical and artistic Gizerli created a complex image of a lonely suffering Phantom; Claude de Vulpian masterly stylized the graceful old-fashioned dance style of the early 1900s, convincingly expressed the horror of her character and his vague impulses; Lormo played less youthful than Dupont did, a Young Man, less spontaneous in his demeanor, but equally believable, drawing the image of a young dandy of the 1900s, a regularLe Foyer de Danse Paré followed in his footsteps, emphasizing more the sentimentality of his character.

Claude de Vulpian and Jean Guizerly.
The ghost is completely without a mask and creepy make-up.

In 1988, the production, which had already been closed by that time (the ballet did not last long on stage ) in Paris, was renewed by Roland Petit for the troupe of the National Ballet de Marseille, and went on the stage of the Marseille Opera (Petit directed the Marseille Ballet from 1972 to 1998 .).

Transferred to the stage of Marseille, the world of the Paris Opera has undergone some changes. As the theater critic noted Gerard Mannoni (Gerard mannoni) , he became more real, more truthful. The decor of the Grand Staircase, the dome of the Opera and the backstage of the Opera of that time, renewed in the Marseille production, undoubtedly made an additional contribution to the poetics of ballet.

In Marseille, the parts were performed by:
As Phantom - Jean Broek ( Jan Broeckx) and D. Graniot (D.Granyo) ; in the role of the Girl - Carlotta Zamparo (Carlotta zamparo) ; Boys - Jean-Charles Verchare ( Jean-charles verchere) ; Madame Carlotta - Pascal Doye (Pascale doye) ; Maitre de Ballet - Khasene Bakhiri ( Hacene Bahiri) .

"as if Christina" - Carlotta Zamparo dances on the stage of the Marseille Opera.

***
Gaston's daughter Leroux Madeleine shared her impressions of the ballet, staged based on her father's novel. Here's what she said: “Eric's ghost was on stage today. And my father's ghost appeared in Lodge number five. He was there, I'm absolutely sure. The dancers barely touched the stage, it was a real phantasmagoria, the presence of another world. so as to summon the ghost of my father. I know for sure that he was at the Opera that evening. "
***

Roland Petit... Strokes for the portrait of the choreographer.

* Roland Petit was born on January 13, 1924 in Paris.
* Roland Petit is said to be the most French of all French choreographers, who managed to convey the spirit and mentality of the nation in his 160 productions. He is the classic of the twentieth century and the founder of modern ballet in France. In his memoirs "I Danced on the Crest of Waves" (1993), Petit wrote that an intelligent person should be honest, intelligent, endowed with curiosity and a sense of humor, perseverance, passion and a fair amount of common sense. Perhaps this is almost a self-portrait of Roland Petit himself. He also proudly emphasizes all his life: "I was very lucky - I was born in Paris, studied at the Opera school."
* Petit calls Dominic Kalfuni "my Pavlova" and dedicated many ballets to her. His admiration for Kalfuni's talents was akin to worshiping the Phantom of Christina, and therefore no one better than Kalfuni could perform the role of the Girl. Crossing of destinies ...

Sources of information:
Gerard mannoni Roland Petit - "L" avant scene ballet Danse ", 1984., Paris ; M agazine Dancing Times, April 1980, London;
Magazine Les saisons de la Danse ", 10 avril, 1980 , Paris;
Magazine Les saisons de la Danse ", 30 janvier 1988, Paris ;
Program Roland Petit choreography evening at the Bolshoi Theater, 2001;
G.A.Andzhaparidze. "Undisputed Classic", "Ripol Classic", 2004;
Audio recording of the score of the ballet by Marcel Landowski.

Note: ballet photos are very rare and hard-won (they were taken not from the Internet). They have never been posted anywhere on other sites. Please do not copy or reproduce without the permission of the authors. Respect the work of others, please!

Note: photos from the ballet are very RARE and were extremely hard to find (they were not found in Internet). Please do not copy them and place them on the web without the permission of the authors. Please, respect other people "s efforts and hard working!