Known for his adaptations of 19th-century ballets for the world’s greatest companies, French choreographer Pierre Lacotte died on Monday at the age of 91, his wife, ballerina Ghislaine Thesmar, told AFP.
“Our Pierre left us at 4 am”, stated Thesmar, specifying that he died in a clinic in Seyne-sur-Mer (south of France), due to septicemia, after an infection of a wound.
“It’s very sad. I was still full of projects and writing a book”, lamented his wife, with whom he had been married since 1968.
His last creation was in October 2021, at almost 90 years old: the ballet adaptation of Stendhal’s novel ′′ The Red and the Black ′′ for the Paris Opera.
“He loved the (Paris) Opera, it was his only home,” added his widow.
Born on April 4, 1932, outside Paris, Lacotte entered the Parisian opera school in 1942 and became a principal dancer in 1951.
An ankle injury forced him, in 1968, to limit his activities. It was then that he decided to focus on ancient ballets.
Among others, he rebuilt “La sílfide”, the first pointe ballet (1832), “Coppélia” (1870), “The pharaoh’s daughter” (1862), or “Paquita” (1846), for some of the most prestigious stages in the world. world — from the Bolshoi, in Moscow, to the Opera, in Paris, passing by the Mariinsky, in Saint Petersburg, and the Staatsoper, in Berlin.