In the wake of a long year of pouting after being forced into a somewhat early retirement from the Ballet National de Marseilles, Roland Petit seems to have at last recovered, and is happily back on the creative track. Petit, who, along with Maurice Béjart, is indisputably one of the greatest choreographers France has produced in the 20th century, will be the first guest artist of honor this season on the Palais Garnier stage with his new world creation, Clavigo, a two-act ballet running October 15-27.
Petit started his career at the Paris Opera Ballet School back in 1933 and stayed 11 years in the corps de ballet, until he plucked up the courage to hand in his resignation, aware that he would never find himself on the list of the “chosen ones” gradually groomed to become soloists or étoiles. This was a very daring move at the time for a dancer who should have simply been content with the lifetime job security and fringe benefits the Opera offered. But Petit had another plan. His autonomous spirit led him to create Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées, one of the first private ballet companies which catapulted the legendary ballerina who was soon to become his wife, Zizi Jeanmaire, into stardom.
Later, in 1972, he launched an even bigger project, the Ballet National de Marseilles, which he directed for 26 years, building up a unique repertoire of brilliant works, such as Notre-Dame de Paris, La Symphonie Fantastique, The Phantom of the Opera, and Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, many of which have entered the repertoires of the world’s leading ballet companies. Last year, when Petit stepped down from the artistic director’s chair, he tried to veto, to no avail, the nomination as his successor of Paris Opera étoile Marie-Claude Pietragalla, in whom he didn’t feel confident, and — created a big scandal by withdrawing all rights for his former company to perform his choreographies. Pietragalla had to start from scratch, recruiting new dancers and commissioning new ballets, in addition to her own.
Casting grudge aside and back home at the Paris Opera now, Petit’s new production, Clavigo, based on Goethe’s 1774 play by the same name, promises to be one of his finest, if not most ultra-romantic, works yet. Goethe based his story on a real Clavigo, an ambitious Don Juan “love her and leave her” type from Madrid who broke one too many hearts, including that of French writer Beaumarchais’s sister, Lisette.
Petit has loosely based his ballet on the frivolous libertine lifestyle of this character and his liaisons dangereuses, but “true blue” to the Paris Opera tradition, he couldn’t resist throwing in a Faustian theme, along with an attractive array of unattainable female phantoms to torment and punish the restless spirit of the hapless hero.
Clavigo, chor. Roland Petit, music by Gabriel Yared, starring Nicolas Le Riche and Clariemarie Osta, Oct 15-27, 7:30pm, Opéra National de Paris-Palais Garnier, pl de l’Opéra, 9e, Mº Opéra, tel: 08.36.69.78.68.
