Roland Petit (13 January 192410 July 2011) was a French

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

company director,

choreographer Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

and dancer. He trained at the

Paris Opera Ballet The Paris Opera Ballet () is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded a ...

school, and became well known for his creative ballets.

Life and work

The son of shoe designer

Rose Repetto Rose Repetto (10 August 1907 – 11 March 1982) was an Italian-born French business owner and shoe designer. In 1947, she established the Repetto ballet shoe company. Life and work Repetto was born around 1907 in Milan Milan ( , , ; ...

, Petit was born in

Villemomble Villemomble () is a Communes of France, commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris. Heraldry Transport Villemomble is served by Le Raincy – Villemomble – Montfermeil (Par ...

, near Paris. He trained at the

Paris Opéra Ballet The Paris Opera Ballet () is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded a ...

school under Gustave Ricaux and

Serge Lifar Serge Lifar (, ''Serhіy Mуkhailovуch Lуfar'') ( 15 December 1986) was a Ukrainian dancer, choreographer, and one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century. Lifar was also a choreographer, director, writer, theoretician abou ...

and began to dance with the corps de ballet in 1940. He founded the Ballets des Champs-Élysées in 1945 and the Ballets de Paris in 1948, at

Théâtre Marigny The Théâtre Marigny () is a theatre in Paris, situated near the junction of the Champs-Élysées and the Avenue Marigny in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 8th arrondissement. It was originally built to designs of the architect Charles Garnie ...

, with

Zizi Jeanmaire Renée Marcelle "Zizi" Jeanmaire (29 April 1924 – 17 July 2020) was a French ballet dancer, actress and singer. She became famous in the 1950s after playing the title role in the ballet ''Carmen'', produced in London in 1949, and went on to a ...

as star dancer. Petit collaborated with

Constant Lambert Leonard Constant Lambert (23 August 190521 August 1951) was a British composer, conductor, and author. He was the founding music director of the Royal Ballet, and (alongside Dame Ninette de Valois and Sir Frederick Ashton) he was a major figu ...

(''Ballabile'' - 1950),

Henri Dutilleux Henri Paul Julien Dutilleux (; 22 January 1916 – 22 May 2013) was a French composer of late 20th-century classical music. Among the leading French composers of his time, his work was rooted in the Impressionistic style of Debussy and R ...

(''Le Loup'' - 1953),

Serge Gainsbourg Serge Gainsbourg (; born Lucien Ginsburg; 2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French singer-songwriter, actor, composer, and director. Regarded as one of the most important figures in French pop, he was renowned for often provocative rel ...

, Yves Saint-Laurent and

César Baldaccini César (born Cesare Baldaccini; 1 January 1921 – 6 December 1998), also occasionally referred to as César Baldaccini (), was a French sculptor. César was at the forefront of the Nouveau réalisme movement with his radical compressions (co ...

and participated in several French and American films. He returned to the Paris Opéra in 1965 to mount a production of ''Notre Dame de Paris'' (with music by

Maurice Jarre Maurice-Alexis Jarre (; 13 September 1924 – 28 March 2009) allmusic Biography/ref> was a French composer and conductor. Jarre is best known for his film scores, particularly for his collaborations with film director David Lean composing all of ...

). He continued to direct ballets for the largest theatres of France, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Canada and Cuba. In 1970 Petit resigned after only four months as director of ballet at the Paris Opera. He resigned by letter from home (because he had no telephone in his office) protesting about poor working conditions, the failure in labour contract negotiations, and thwarting of his plans for three new ballet productions of which management only accepted one. In 1968, his ballet ''Turangalîla'' provoked a small revolution within the Paris Opéra. Four years later, in 1972, he founded the

Ballet National de Marseille The Ballet National de Marseille is a dance company based in Marseille, France. The company combines modern dance and classical ballet. Overview The Ballet National de Marseille was founded by the dancer and choreographer Roland Petit in 1972. T ...

with the piece "Pink Floyd Ballet", created in collaboration with the band of the same name. He directed the Ballet National de Marseille for the next 26 years. For the décor of his ballets, he would work in close collaboration with the painter Jean Carzou (1907–2000), but also with other artists such as

Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...

. The creator of more than 50 ballets across all genres, he choreographed for a plethora of famed international dancers. He refused the free technical effects; he did not stop reinventing his style, language, and became a master in the arts of

pas de deux In ballet, a ( French, literally "step of two") is a dance duet in which two dancers, typically a male and a female, perform ballet steps together. The ''pas de deux'' is characteristic of classical ballet and can be found in many well-known ...

and of narrative ballet, but he succeeded also in abstract ballets. He collaborated also with the nouveaux réalistes including

Martial Raysse Martial Raysse (born 12 February 1936) is a French artist and actor. He lives in Issigeac, France. He holds the record for the most expensive work sold by a living French artist. Biography Raysse was born in a ceramicist family in Vallauris and ...

Niki de Saint Phalle Niki de Saint Phalle (; born Catherine Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle; 29 October 193021 May 2002) was a French sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and author of colorful hand-illustrated books. Widely noted as one of the few female monumental sculp ...

and

Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century.Chilvers, Ian; Gl ...

. '' Le jeune homme et la mort'' ("The Young Man and Death") of 1946 (libretto by

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...

) is considered his magnum opus and it is also his most well-known work; the choreography and the costumes are of astonishing modernity. In his 1949 ballet ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the O ...

'', he made an unusual use of the ''en dedans'', while he gave a non-figurative treatment to ''Turangalîla''. Among the films to which he contributed are ''Symphonie en blanc'' by

René Chanas René Chanas, real name René Lindecker (13 September 1913 - 9 July 1990) was a French film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Filmography Director * 1945: '' The Last Judgment'' * 1947: '' The Crowned Fish Tavern'' * 1948: ' * 1 ...

and François Ardoin (1942 short film on history of dance) in which he appeared as a dancer; the choreography for the 1948 film ''Alice in Wonderland'', '' The Glass Slipper'' in 1954, ''

Anything Goes ''Anything Goes'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, revised considerably by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madc ...

'' (with others) in 1956, and '' Black Tights'' as choreographer, writer, and dancer in 1960.

Honours

In 1994, he was awarded the

Prix Benois de la Danse The Benois de la Danse is a ballet competition held annually in Moscow. Founded by the International Dance Association in 1991, it takes place each year on or around April 29 and it's judged by a jury. The members of this jury change every year and ...

as choreographer.

Personal life

In 1954, Petit married dancer

, who performed in a number of his works. His memoirs were published in 1993 under the title ''J'ai dansé sur les flots'' ("I Danced on the Waves"). He and Jeanmaire had one daughter, Valentine Petit, a dancer and actress. Petit died in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, Switzerland, aged 87, of

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

in 2011.

Ballets

During his career, Petit choreographed 176 works, including: *''Guernica'' (1945) *''Les forains'' (1945) *'' Le jeune homme et la mort'' (1946) *''

'' (1949) *''Ballabile'' (1950) *''Le loup'' (1953) *'' The Lady in the Ice'' (1953) *''

Notre-Dame de Paris Notre-Dame de Paris ( ; meaning "Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris"), often referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a Medieval architecture, medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the River Seine), in the 4th arrondissemen ...

'' (1965) *''Paradise Lost'' (1967) *'' Kraanerg'' (1969) *''Pink Floyd Ballet'' (1972 and later) *''Roland Petit Ballet'' (1973) *''Proust, ou Les intermittences du coeur'' (1974) *'' L'Arlésienne'' (1974) *''

Coppélia ''Coppélia'' (sometimes subtitled: ''La Fille aux Yeux d'Émail'' (The Girl with the Enamel Eyes)) is a comic ballet from 1870 originally choreographed by Arthur Saint-Léon to the music of Léo Delibes, with libretto by Charles-Louis-Éti ...

'' (1975) *''La symphonie fantastique'' (1975) *''Cyrano de Bergerac'' (1978) *''Le fantôme de l'Opéra'' (1980) *''Les amours de Frantz'' (1981) *''The Four Seasons'' (music of

Antonio Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, impresario of Baroque music and Roman Catholic priest. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lif ...

, 1984) *''The Blue Angel'' (1985) *''Clavigo'' (1999) *''Duke Ellington'' (2001) *''Les chemins de la création'' (2004)

References

External links

*
CMI

{{DEFAULTSORT:Petit, Roland 1924 births 2011 deaths Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery Deaths from leukemia in Switzerland Paris Opera Ballet dancers French male ballet dancers French people of Italian descent French ballet choreographers Prix Benois de la Danse winners Commanders of the Legion of Honour Musical theatre choreographers Paris Opera Ballet artistic directors 20th-century ballet dancers