April 10, 2023, 9:01 AM
April 10, 2023, 9:01 AM
French choreographer Pierre Lacotte, Known for his adaptations of 19th-century ballets for the world’s largest companies, he died Monday at the age of 91, his wife, dancer Ghislaine Thesmar, told AFP.
“Our Pierre left us at 4:00 in the morning,” said Thesmar, specifying that he died in a clinic in Seyne-sur-Mer (south of France) due to sepsis after a wound infection.
“It’s very sad, I was still full of projects and I was writing a book“said his wife, whom he married in 1968.
His last creation was in October 2021, when he was almost 90 years old: the ballet adaptation of the novel “Red and Black”, by Stendhal, for the Paris Opera.
“He loved the (Paris) Opera, it was his only home,” said his widow.
Lacotte, born April 4, 1932 on the outskirts of Paris, He joined the Parisian opera school in 1942, and became principal dancer in 1951.
An ankle injury forced him in 1968 to limit his activities. It was then that she decided to focus on the archives of old ballets.
Among others, he reconstructed “La sílfide”, the first pointe ballet (1832), “Coppélia” (1870), “La hija del Faraón” (1862) or “Paquita” (1846), for some of the most prestigious stages of the world, from the Bolshoi in Moscow to the Paris Opera, passing through the Mariinsky in Saint Petersburg and the Staatsoper in Berlin.
