The first after Petipa – Newspaper Kommersant No. 62 (7507) dated 04/11/2023

Pierre Lacotte, a French choreographer, great stylist and passeist, who revived the fashion for old ballets all over the world, has died at the age of 92. A choreographer to whom Russia owes no less than France, and who loved Russia no less than France.

The professional rise of Pierre Lacotte was so rapid, and his life so long, that in his biography three centuries were mixed up in the most improbable and most unconstrained way. He studied with former luminaries of the 19th century, and his last ballet – a three-act performance “Red and Black” – composed for the new generation of the Paris Opera in 2021.

Pierre Lacotte entered the corps de ballet of the Paris Opera in 1946, at the age of 14, but an extremely savvy teenager. At school, he was taught by the French pedant Gustav Rico and the virtuoso Carlotta Zambelli, who went through the harsh exercises of the Milanese school: both made their artistic careers at the end of the 19th century. But the meticulous boy took private lessons from Russian emigrant ballerinas, firmly remembering all the features and differences of the three main ballet schools. Russian came to his heart especially: all his life he called Lyubov Yegorova his main teacher, who graduated, in turn, from Enrico Cecchetti, an Italian virtuoso who brought up not only a galaxy of imperial primaries, but also all the premiers of the Diaghilev troupe.

Tall, long-legged, stately, with excellent natural abilities and a bright head, the young Lacotte made an excellent career at the Paris Opera, becoming the first dancer by the age of 19. But the exuberant artistic life of the post-war era knocked him off his well-worn rut: the classical premier left the Opera and began to compose on his own; in the 1950s he headed the Eiffel Tower Ballet, in the 1960s – the Ballets des Jeunesses Musicales de France, staging 35 ballets there and marrying the best ballerina of the troupe Ghislaine Tesmar.

It is possible that the dancer-choreographer Lacotte would have remained a prolific, but not very original, contemporary author leading second-tier troupes, if not for an industrial injury that locked him at home and forced him to look for new sources of inspiration.

The injury turned out to be fatal: Lacotte, who did not forget the stories and shows of his longtime mentors, again became passionately interested in ballet antiquity. Having dug up mountains of ancient documents, engravings, reviews and memoirs, he reconstructed the main romantic ballet in the history of the ballet theater – the famous “La Sylphide” by Filippo Taglioni, giving the crown role of Maria Taglioni to his wife, Ghylaine Tesmar. French television, having recorded and shown this “La Sylphide”, struck a sensation. The revived ballet turned out to be so charming, lively and authentic that the theaters of many countries immediately wanted to stage it: the fashion for passeism flared up in the world. For Lacotte, the most important of the customers was the Paris Opera, where his wife, Sylphide, was immediately enrolled in the position of etoile, bypassing all existing rules. For us, the most important was the tour of the main Parisian troupe, which showed La Sylphide in the Kremlin in 1977: unlike Western avant-garde artists, romantic French ballet could be staged in the USSR.

The Soviet ballet people took advantage of this immediately. Already in 1979, the Kirov (now the Mariinsky) Theater produced An Evening of Ancient Choreography from fragments of forgotten ballets reconstructed by Lacotte; in the same year, Novosibirsk ventured into his two-act La Sylphide; In 1980, the progressive Theater of Kasatkina and Vasilev commissioned Lacotte to produce an original production of Natalie, or the Swiss Milkmaid, starring Ekaterina Maksimova. And although the choreographer did not remain without work in his homeland (for five years he headed the Monte-Carlo Ballet, for ten years – the Nancy Ballet, in between he tutored at the Paris Opera), he considered Russia to be his second home. In the late 1990s, when he came to judge the Maya competition, Lacotte stunned me with his ardor (see “Kommersant” dated August 26, 1998): “I am glad to visit Russia, I love this country very much no matter what. If I could find some troupe here to lead it… I know that you are in a crisis, and if I could somehow help, in some way… But maybe Russia doesn’t need a Frenchman ? However, Petipa was also here … “

This interview, in which, answering a routine question about plans, Lacotte dreamed of reconstructing Marius Petipa’s first ballet The Pharaoh’s Daughter, became an unexpected salvation for the Bolshoi Theater, which at that time was bogged down in a deep repertoire crisis. Having read about these dreams in Kommersant, the ballet artistic director of the Bolshoi Alexei Fadeechev took the risk of realizing them – and called Lacotte to stage a three-act, firmly forgotten colossus. The choreographer also took on the role of the artist, creating sketches for the scenery and five hundred costumes: “Since I know exactly what I want, in order not to waste time, I took up the work myself.”

The choreography he composed, with its exquisite pedantry, lively tempos, abundance of entrecha and complex coordination, proved to be a huge test for the troupe, accustomed to the leisurely Russian classics in Soviet editions. But Muscovites passed the test. Moreover, Lacott’s “The Pharaoh’s Daughter” woke up the troupe – the corps de ballet pulled itself up, and a new generation of leaders loudly declared itself in solo parts. And in 2000, the Bolshoi Theater was finally able to present a performance worthy of the status of the capital.

The jealous Petersburgers ordered Lacotte their own exclusive – the ballet “Ondine”. At the Paris Opera, he reconstructed Paquita, at the Parisian school – Coppelia, at the Bolshoi staged his old ballet Marco Spada, at the Stanislavsky Museum – La Sylphide, in Athens – Ivanovo’s The Nutcracker.

A phenomenal memory, studying with the luminaries of pre-reform ballet, a researcher’s flair, a choreographer’s imagination, and the unmistakable taste of a true Frenchman allowed him not to delve into the notations of old ballets: his “remakes” looked more than just more convincing than scientific reconstructions.

They did a good job collecting cash. And they are collecting: two years ago, a series of a new three-act ballet “Red and Black” to the music of Massenet was held at the Paris Opera with crowded halls. 89-year-old Lacotte, who retained his creative irrepressibility, not only retold Stendhal in the refined old French ballet language, but also again acted as the artist of his performance.

And in Moscow, the choreographer Lacotte seems to be completely immortal. His “Daughter of the Pharaoh”, only once retouched after a forced break, has been on the Bolshoi poster for more than 20 years, bringing up more and more new prime ministers and primaries; You can’t get tickets for the April performances. And the resumption of the Lacotta ballet “Marco Spada” is scheduled for June, and there is no doubt that a full house at the premiere will be provided. The most Russian of the French of the twentieth century would have rejoiced at such fidelity. “People in Russia have a soul,” he said. “These are people who know how to love. I am like that too – I need it.”

Tatyana Kuznetsova