ROLAND PETIT / program / Palais Garnier / June 2021

Description

A "child of the house", trained at the Opera's Dance School, Roland Petit quickly left the Company to follow his own path as a choreographer and performer. It was with his company that he met with his first successes and it was not until 1965 that he returned to the Paris Opera to create Notre-Dame de Paris. Several years of an uninterrupted, sometimes stormy relationship followed, with creations and entries in the repertoire. To mark the tenth anniversary of the choreographer's death, the Paris Opera Ballet is dedicating a tribute to him, bringing together three of his legendary works. The sultry Carmen, whose success in 1949 propelled Roland Petit and Zizi Jeanmaire onto the international stage; Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, a disturbing duet based on a libretto by Jean Cocteau; and Le Rendez-vous, based on a text by Prévert and set by Brassaï, which brings to life the Paris of the 1950s. Three works that bear witness to the choreographer's particular signature: theatrical pieces built around literary characters, bringing together on the same stage some of the great artists of the period.