Three cards, roland petit and Russian terpsichore. Master of Liberal Arts We don't need this kind of ballet

Biography of Roland Petit

When he was twelve years old, his Italian mother, Rose Repetto, separated from her husband and left Paris, so Roland and his younger brother Claude were raised by their father, Edmond Petit. In the future, Edmond Petit repeatedly subsidized theatrical performances of his son.

Roland Petit from childhood showed interest in art, was fond of recitation, drawing, cinema. His father, on the advice of one of the patrons of the bistro, gave Roland to the ballet school of the Paris Opera when he was nine years old. At the school, Petit studied with the famous teacher Gustave Rico, his classmates were later known as Jean Babilet and Roger Fenonjoie. Petit also attended private lessons of Russian teachers Lyubov Egorova, Olga Preobrazhenskaya, Madame Ruzann.

In 1940, Roland completed his studies, and received a place in the corps de ballet of the Paris Opera. In 1943, Serge Lifar, director of the Opera, entrusted him with the first major solo performance in the ballet "Love Enchantress". Around the same time, Petit, together with Jeanine Sharra, a famous French ballerina and choreographer in the future, organized several ballet evenings at the Sarah Bernard Theater. At one of the first evenings, Roland - presented his first experience in choreography - a small concert number "Spring Jump".

Choreographer's productions

And in 1945, Petit staged his first ballet "Comedians" at the Theater of the Champs Elysees. Developing success, Petit organized his own troupe "Champs Elysees Ballet".

A year later, Petit created the one-act ballet The Youth and Death. And, for more than 60 years, this ballet has regularly appeared in the repertoires of theaters around the world. Petit conceived a one-act ballet for his troupe's dancer, Jean Babilé, and turned to Jean Cocteau, one of the most brilliant French writers of the 20th century. Its plot is simple - there are only eight lines in the original poetic libretto. The plot is tragic. This production is considered suitable for mature, established artists who are able to bring their own reading to it. The ballet was conceived under a popular jazz composition, but just before the premiere, Cocteau decided that classical music would be more suitable. Picked up Bach's Passacaglia. The choreography has remained the same, it was not "adjusted" to the music, as a result, the "Passacaglia" literally soars above the story told by the duet of dancers. There are several films based on this ballet - performed by R. Nureyev and Zizi Zhanmer and M. Baryshnikov in the film White Nights (1985)

In 1948, Petit assembled a new troupe, the Ballet de Paris, whose place of prima ballerina was taken by Zizi Jeanmer, and staged the ballet Carmen to Bizet's music. The romantic story of Merimee in the hands of Petit becomes the story of a tragic confrontation between two strong personalities - Carmen and José (Petit himself performed his part). Each of them defends their love, as they understand it, with all their might. And for both, fidelity to their love becomes the highest exertion of strength, a struggle in which to give in means to betray love and betray oneself. In his production, Petit renounces the festive flavor - the scenography is deliberately simple, the gestures, instead of ballet grace and conventionality, are sensual on the verge of rudeness. In the ballet, a distinct taste of cabaret is noted - this is how Petit from “Somewhere in Spain” brought the story of Carmen as close as possible to his time. And the theme of love as a tragic confrontation between a man and a woman, set back in the ballet "Youth and Death", will be traced in many productions of Petit,

The ballet "Carmen" was a success. It, in Petit's reading, has been staged and, obviously, will continue to be staged by ballet troupes around the world. The bright duo of Jeanmer and Petit attracted the attention of Hollywood and received an invitation to cooperate. There, several films-musicals are filmed for Petya's choreography. And in 1960, Terence Young made the film One, Two, Three, Four or Black Stockings (1-2-3-4 ou Les Collants noirs), which included Petit's productions such as Carmen, Cyrano de Bergerac ”,“ Adventurer ”and“ Mourning Day ”. Roland Petit performed three male roles - Cyrano, Jose and the Bridegroom himself.

In 1978, Roland Petit staged the ballet The Queen of Spades, especially for Mikhail Baryshnikov. Unfortunately, the performance did not last long on the stage - bound by contracts, Baryshnikov could not maintain the required schedule, and other performers invited to play the role of Hermann did not satisfy Petya. And in 2001, Roland Petit received an invitation from the Moscow Bolshoi Theater to stage The Queen of Spades on its stage, but did not resume the 1978 performance. He created a completely new ballet - he did not use the music of Tchaikovsky's opera, but his Sixth Symphony. Hermann was danced by Nikolai Tsiskaridze, the Countess - by Ilze Liepa.

Critics about the ballet "The Queen of Spades" by Roland Petit:

"The design of Roland Petit's ballet is a series of monologues-dialogues of Hermann with himself, with the Countess, Lisa, Chekalinsky, and the players. Reflecting, like Hamlet, Hermann throughout the performance really is in constant intense communication with his own ego, finding, as it seems to him, answers in disputes with images from his inflamed imagination.

The choreographic vocabulary of the ballet is based on the classics, but significantly transformed by the twentieth century. It cannot be said that here Roland Petit made some global discoveries in the field of dance language. His handwriting is well recognizable, the master, it seems, does not care about the performance of this performance is how the director compares the episodes, how he distributes tension, how he correlates the plastic tempo-rhythm with music, how he influences light and color - in other words, in the dramaturgy of the spectacle. This, I think, is the main merit of the production.

Roland Petit himself carefully chose the performers for the implementation of the creative project and did not want to work with anyone else. There is only one cast involved here.

In Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Petit found a dancer-actor with magnificent body lines, temperament, nervous artistic nature and high-class technique....

Countess Ilze Liepa in the play by Roland Petit is the finest hour of a ballerina who, perhaps, has been waiting for a real role all her life. In my opinion, this is a case of perfect merging with the image that the director came up with, and at the same time maintaining a distance between the character and the performer. Gloomy, rotten sensuality is combined with intellect, wrestling passion - with eerie irony. The plasticity, musicality, acting talent of Liepa, her amazingly flexible hands are luxurious material from which the choreographer and dancer created a masterpiece."

During his long career, Roland Petit created more than 150 ballets. He has worked with the largest ballet companies in the world. Leading dancers of the 20th century were involved in his productions. Collaborated with the brightest people whose names are inseparable from the creative heritage of France - Jean Cocteau, Picasso (Petit created a ballet based on his painting "Guernica"), Yves Saint Laurent. Roland Petit died of leukemia in 2011, and his creative legacy is still in demand.

Used materials from Wikipedia and planetatatalantov.ru

French and Russian ballet have enriched each other more than once. So the French choreographer Roland Petit considered himself the "heir" of the traditions of S. Diaghilev's "Russian Ballet".

Roland Petit was born in 1924. His father was the owner of a diner - his son even had a chance to work there, and later in memory of this he staged a choreographic number with a tray, but his mother was directly related to ballet art: she founded the Repetto company, which produces clothes and shoes for ballet. At the age of 9, the boy declares that he will leave home if he is not allowed to study ballet. Having successfully passed the exam at the Paris Opera School, he studied there with S. Lifar and G. Rico, a year later he began performing in mimance in opera performances.

After graduating in 1940, Roland Petit becomes a corps de ballet dancer at the Paris Opera, a year later he is chosen as a partner by M. Burg, and later he gives ballet evenings with J. Charra. At these evenings, small numbers are performed in the choreography by J. Sharr, but here R. Petit presents his first work - Ski Jumping. In 1943 he performed the solo part in the ballet "Love the Enchantress", but he was more attracted to the activities of the choreographer.

After leaving the theater in 1940, 20-year-old R. Petit, thanks to the financial support of his father, staged the ballet "Comedians" at the Theater of the Champs Elysees. The success exceeded all expectations - which made it possible to create their own troupe, called the Champs Elysees Ballet. It lasted only seven years (disagreements with the theater administration played a fatal role), but a lot of performances were staged: “Young Man and Death” to music and other works by R. Petit himself, productions by other choreographers of that time, excerpts from classical ballets - “La Sylphide” , "Sleeping Beauty", " ".

When the "Ballet of the Champs-Elysées" ceased to exist, R. Petit created the "Ballet of Paris". The new troupe included Margot Fonteyn - it was she who performed one of the central roles in the ballet to the music of J. Frances "Girl in the Night" (R. Petit himself danced the other main part), and in 1948 he danced in the ballet "Carmen" on music by J. Bizet in London.

Roland Petit's talent was appreciated not only among ballet fans, but also in Hollywood. In 1952, in the film-musical "Hans Christian Andersen", he played the role of the Prince from the fairy tale "The Little Mermaid", and in 1955, as a choreographer, he participated in the creation of the films "The Crystal Slipper" based on the fairy tale "Cinderella" and - together with the dancer F. Astaire - "Long-legged daddy."

But Roland Petit is already experienced enough to create a multi-act ballet. And he created such a production in 1959, taking as a basis the drama of E. Rostand "Cyrano de Bergerac". A year later, this ballet was filmed along with three other productions of the choreographer - "Carmen", "The Diamond Eater" and "Mourning for 24 hours" - all these ballets were included in Terence Young's film "One, two, three, four, or black tights" . In three of them, the choreographer himself played the main roles - Cyrano de Bergerac, Jose and the Bridegroom.

In 1965, Roland Petit staged the ballet Notre Dame Cathedral at the Paris Opera to music by M. Jarre. Of all the actors, the choreographer left four main ones, each of which embodies a certain collective image: Esmeralda - purity, Claude Frollo - meanness, Phoebus - spiritual emptiness in a beautiful "shell", Quasimodo - the soul of an angel in an ugly body (this role was played by R. Petit). Along with these characters, there is a faceless crowd in the ballet, which can both save and kill with equal ease ... The next work was the ballet Paradise Lost, staged in London, revealing the theme of the struggle of poetic thoughts in the human soul with coarse sensual nature. Some critics saw it as "a sculptural abstraction of sex". The final scene, in which the woman mourns the lost purity, seemed quite unexpected - it resembled an inverted pieta ... Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev danced in this performance.

Having headed the Ballet de Marseilles in 1972, Roland Petit takes the verses of V. V. Mayakovsky as the basis for the ballet performance. In this ballet called Light the Stars, he himself plays the main role, for which he shaves his head. The following year, he collaborates with Maya Plisetskaya - she dances in his ballet "The Sick Rose". In 1978 he staged the ballet The Queen of Spades for Mikhail Baryshnikov, and at the same time a ballet about Charlie Chaplin. The choreographer was personally acquainted with this great actor, and after his death he received the consent of the actor's son to create such a production.

After 26 years of directing the Marseille Ballet, R. Petit left the troupe due to a conflict with the administration and even banned his ballets from being staged. At the beginning of the 21st century, he collaborated with the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow: Passacaglia to the music of A. Webern, The Queen of Spades to the music of P. I. Tchaikovsky, his Notre Dame Cathedral was staged in Russia. The program “Roland Petit Tells”, presented at the Bolshoi Theater on the New Stage in 2004, aroused great interest among the public: Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Lucia Lakkara and Ilze Liepa performed fragments from his ballets, and the choreographer himself spoke about his life.

The choreographer passed away in 2011. Roland Petit staged about 150 ballets - he even claimed that he was "more prolific than Pablo Picasso." For his work, the choreographer has repeatedly received state awards. At home, in 1974, he was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor, and for the ballet The Queen of Spades he was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation.

Music Seasons

Roland Petit died at the age of 88. The French choreographer became famous for his dance stories told with pure Gallic chic and grace.

The owner of the Order of the Legion of Honor did not like anniversaries. He could not stand it when, by the next date, he was complimented about his excellent appearance. Though it looked really good. He was youthful, fit and amazingly active. In addition, he is always surrounded by young dancers and choreographers, including Russians. For Mikhail Baryshnikov and Nikolai Tsiskaridze, he staged The Queen of Spades. Maya Plisetskaya presented The Death of the Rose. Ulyana Lopatkina directed the creative evening.

He transferred his favorite ballets to the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters. Opened to the general public Svetlana Lunkina and Alexander Volchkov. He dreamed of staging a play about Mayakovsky in Russia, and he himself was going to dance the main role.

It is natural that this Russophile became the first foreigner to be awarded the State Prize of Russia. And although the noted performance - the aforementioned "Queen of Spades" - did not belong to the number of his successes, the decision of the Russian leadership does not raise objections. For Petit is not only French, but also our pride. Love for Russian teachers - Boris Knyazev and Olga Preobrazhenskaya - he carried through his whole life. And Diaghilev's wish, expressed to Jean Cocteau: "Surprise me!", He took it as a guide to action.

The master was distinguished by indomitable energy from childhood. During the day he studied dance, in the evening he performed in a theater crowd, he returned home after midnight, and early in the morning he walked to general education lessons. At the end of the dance course, he organized his own troupe. Petit's first major success was the ballet Comedians to music by Henri Sauguet, staged in 1945 at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.

The ability to tell an amazing story in a few gestures and unmistakably choose non-consumer music made not only balletomanes fall in love with the choreographer. He was appreciated by all who admired life and enjoyed its pleasures. What in the ordinary world is usually called perversions was completely natural for Petya. The world is multifaceted, the maestro inspired, and if you are young, you need to taste its temptations. Moreover, youth, according to Petya, is a timeless concept. As long as a person lives with rapture, old age is not terrible for him.

The last greetings from the maestro were given to us in February by the dancers of the Paris Opera. The French performed "Arlesian". The hero, deceived by his beloved, committed suicide. Of all the performances brought by the guests, this one had a tragic ending. And yet he was the most cheerful, the lightest, the most charming and absolutely relaxed. Like its author - a true Frenchman Roland Petit.

It has become a modern classic. His ballets are danced on various stages of the world. They quote him, learn from his performances ...

On July 10, 2011, the French dancer and choreographer, the creator who changed the history of the ballet of the 20th century, Roland Petit, passed away.

At the age of 9, in 1933, Roland Petit entered the dance school of the Paris Opera. After 7 years, at 16, he enters the stage of the Opera as a corps de ballet dancer. In 1943, Petit was already on the middle rung of the ballet hierarchy - he received the rank of soloist, "plot", above him - "stars" and "premiers", a rank below - "luminaries" and the first composition of the corps de ballet. Serge Lifar later wrote that it was he who discovered Petit, giving him a solo part in the ballet "Love the Enchantress".

Nikolai Tsiskaridze worked with Roland Petit, talks about him:

“Roland Petit is one of the outstanding current classics. In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting and most relevant choreographers. He was very lucky, because he himself and his consciousness were formed, as he himself says, in besieged Paris, where people were forced, due to the fact that there was no entry or exit to Paris, to engage exclusively in art, somehow they had to amuse and entertain themselves.

And during this period, he falls into the company of the greatest people, he meets Jean Cocteau, with the legendary secretary of Serge Diaghilev Boris Kokhno, who opens the way for him to bohemian Paris, where Petit meets the greatest artists of that period, actors, set designers.

Under the influence of Jean Cocteau and Boris Kokhno, Petit left the troupe of the Paris Opera and founded his own troupe, which was called the "Champs Elysées Ballet". Before that, he is already beginning to try to stage his individual opuses on the stage of the Sarah Bernard Theater - weekly ballet evenings were organized there, where he presents his first choreographic opuses.

He then organizes his troupe, which includes some of his classmates and friends from the Paris Opera. This group did not last very long, because due to a disagreement with the management of the theater, Petit was forced to leave this troupe. A little later, he again organizes his performance and his troupe, which is called the "Ballets of Paris".

From my point of view, as a great choreographer, Roland Petit was born in 1947, when he staged one of the greatest ballets ever staged in the world - this is “The Youth and Death”, the libretto for this performance is made by Jean Cocteau and in general, this is his idea, making this show. From that day on, a very bright, very famous choreographer Roland Petit appears in the world.

In 1949, his ballet “Carmen” appears in London, which for three months goes to London seven, eight times a week, then this performance moves to Paris, where it runs for two months, then they leave for New York , where they also perform this performance for two months. From the day after the production of Carmen, Roland Petit has already become an international star. He is invited to different theaters, he puts this performance and subsequent ones in different troupes of the world and receives an invitation from Hollywood.

At the end of the 50s, he ended up in Hollywood, where he worked with Fred Astaire, put on dances for various films. In particular, one of these films about Hans Christian Andersen, where there are a lot of ballet scenes, is shot in the film by his future wife Rene Zhanmer, who went down in history under the name Zizi Zhanmer. And he directs a lot for various great Hollywood dancers and works, he says, with his childhood idol Fred Astaire. He said, “What can I teach you, I have been learning from you all my life.” And Fred Astaire said, “no, but I will study with you now.” It was a very interesting collaboration, Roland Petit learned a lot of new things for himself and never left his love for the revue.

Already when he returned to Europe for his wife, Zizi Zhanmer, he created a lot of programs, revues for variety and in particular, for “Cabaret de Paris”, where his programs are completely staged every day, and Zizi Zhanmer is the main star. All the scenery and costumes for them are made by such great artists as Roman Tyrtov, who went down in history as Erte.

In 1965, Petit returns to the illustrious troupe of the Paris Opera, where he studied, where he once started, and he directs the first performance for the Paris Opera, along with Yves Saint Laurent, who makes the costumes. He puts on the performance “Notre Dame Cathedral”, which has the effect of an exploding bomb: this was unusual at the Paris Opera, few people saw such plasticity. Much of what Roland Petit came up with, other choreographers borrowed from him. This is very easy to prove: if you look at the biography of Roland, in what year what did he stage, and what innovations did he introduce in general and what works later appeared around the world, then this is clear. Fortunately, almost all of Roland is recorded.

At the time when he is staging Notre Dame Cathedral, he is invited to be both artistic director and director of the Paris Opera Ballet Company, which did not last very long. Because he could not put up with it and find a common language with the stars. He said that he was not interested in this work, and he voluntarily left the walls of the Paris Opera for the second time. And to this day he returns there, and puts his performances for this illustrious team.

In 1972 he comes to Marseille, where he receives a complete carte blanche. There, Petya is the king and god for everyone, only his will is carried out. In general, he dreamed of such a troupe, and he created it: the ballet in Marseille becomes the second most important troupe in France and has existed for many years. For 26 years he was the director of this team. In the same place, in Marseille, he opens a ballet school at the theater. Under his leadership, a special building for the ballet theater is being built. And at the end of the 20th century, he left Marseille forever, ceased his directorship and continued his life, staging various performances. As well as restoring the old, and putting new ones.

I was insanely lucky, I was very lucky, because he staged his big, last performance for me and for me at the Bolshoi Theater in 2001, the ballet The Queen of Spades. From this began our and creative friendship and just friendship in life. For me, this person is very dear and very interesting to me, because you can talk with him on absolutely any topic. And it's always interesting.

In the history of the second half of the 20th century there is not a single great person, be it an artist, a composer, an actor, even some scientific luminaries, with whom Roland Petit would not collaborate, creating various performances. There are a lot of stories, both funny and sad, but thanks to all of them, those great works were created that go around the world.

Roland has a very great simplicity in relationships, and humor. Without these two components, it is unthinkable for me. And all this is very strongly reflected in his work. His choreography is extremely simple. And very often, when I looked at some numbers that I had never seen before, I always had a feeling: why didn’t I come up with this or someone nearby? Why did such a simple thing come to his mind?

He really does not like it when artists remake the text or engage in embellishment. Because he always puts not only a very simple and very clear drawing, very accurately falling on musical accents. Petit very accurately gives the actors directing instructions: in what emotional state it should be performed, with what facial expressions and where you can extract emotion from yourself, and where you can’t.

Only Russian artists he allowed to improvise in his choreography. He allowed Maya Plisetskaya to do this, even in the ballet “Proust, or Perebot of the Heart” for her, where she also had dance pieces, he assigned her a special musical moment where she could improvise exactly the way she does. Thank God it's recorded. It was the same with Mikhail Baryshnikov, and with Rudolf Nureyev, and with Ekaterina Maksimova and Vladimir Vasiliev, when he invited them to perform his performances of The Blue Angel, and now we were lucky with Ilze (Ilze Liepa, - ed.), but this trust had to be earned.

He refuses to work with many artists and is generally reputed to be a very intractable person. Very often, when he puts on his performances, he ordered the music, in particular, as was the case with "Notre Dame Cathedral" or the play "Clavigo". It was to composers who at that time were very popular and relevant ... But very often Roland Petit created performances to already existing symphonic music. And his approach is always different and individual.

Sometimes he puts a scene without music, and then he tries to put this scene on music. In particular, the play “The Youth and Death” is staged in this way, where the music of Johann Sebastian Bach is used, and where in no case does he allow the artists to focus on musical accents, all the time hinting that the music sounds outside of what is happening on the stage, this a background that exists outside the room where the main characters exist. Or, for example, the play "Proust". He selected the music of various French composers. French composers, who created precisely at the time when Marcel Proust lived.

When we staged “The Queen of Spades” (this performance was set to the pathetic symphony of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), he allowed himself to swap parts, which, of course, caused very great dissatisfaction with all music critics and musicians. But he was very careful with all the musical accents. And he followed us very precisely so that we would fulfill it.

Initially, when he took the music of Tchaikovsky, he took it performed by Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein performed this symphony differently, in contrast to the tradition that was inherent in Russian performance. When asked why you chose Bernstein in particular, he said that the accents are much clearer here. You can say that he allows himself any liberties with music.

When he staged the ballet “Carmen” in 1949 to music for the opera (this was the first time they took the music for the opera “Carmen”, completely redrawn it, completely remade it, and staged a ballet), there were also a lot of angry articles by musicologists and musicians who did not want to put up with it, but this performance lives on.

Soon he will be 60 years old, and the performance is still running in various theaters around the world and is a resounding success. So, probably, the winners are not judged, probably, the artist is right.

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“If they ask me where you come from, who you inherit, I would say: Diaghilev. Its principles are very important to me: real, strong music and scenery, correlated with the choreography,” said the famous French choreographer Roland Petit.

He was born on January 13, 1924 in Paris, the son of a small bistro owner. I became interested in dancing early. “At the age of nine, I said that I would leave home and not return if they didn’t send me to ballet,” he recalled. On the advice of one of the visitors to the bistro, the child was taken to the exam at the Paris Opera School. He withstood the competition, which surprised him a lot - the teachers looked only at the physical data of the child. And from the age of ten he already performed in mimance in Wagner's operas, in Gounod's Faust.

“At that time there were no strict rules forbidding children to work, and we were not paid anything. So from the age of ten I went to bed after midnight. Then he got up early - did his homework and with a knapsack behind him walked two or three kilometers across Paris to the school in de Hall, where our cafe was located, to the Opera. Heroism! But I, in order to dance, was ready to walk all night on foot, ”said Petit. In the same school, Rene Jeanmer studied, whom her friends called Zizi. The teenagers became friends.

When he was twelve years old, his Italian mother, Rose Repetto, separated from her husband and left Paris, so Roland and his younger brother Claude were raised by their father, Edmond Petit. In the future, Edmond Petit repeatedly subsidized theatrical performances of his son.

In 1940, Roland Petit completed his studies and was accepted into the corps de ballet of the Paris Opera. He was only sixteen. And on May 3, 1941, the famous dancer Marcel Burga gave a concert in the Salle Pleyel and chose a seventeen-year-old newcomer as her partner. Then Petit, together with Jeanine Sharra, later a famous dancer and choreographer, gave several joint evenings of ballet. Their repertoire consisted of small ballets, concert miniatures and pas de deux choreographed by Serge Lifar, Petit and Charr. On the first of these evenings, Petit showed his first independent production - the concert number "Ski Jump". And at the beginning of 1943, when Petit was still a corps de ballet dancer, the director of the Paris Opera, Serge Lifar, entrusted him with a large solo part in the ballet "Love the Enchantress" to the music of Manuel de Falla.

But Petit did not stay at the Opera - he left when he was twenty years old, in November 1944. He decided that he would become a choreographer and invested all his father's money in his first ballet "Comedians". The debut took place at the Champs-Elysées Theater and was extremely successful - this is how Petya got his own group "Champs Elysees Ballet". The basis of the repertoire was the performances of Petit, but the troupe also performed performances by other contemporary authors and fragments of the ballets Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Sylphide. On June 25, 1946, the premiere of the ballet "The Youth and Death" by Roland Petit based on the script by Jean Cocteau to the music of J. - S. Bach took place. But at the end of 1947, the Champs-Elysées Ballet ended its existence due to disagreements that arose between the choreographer and the administration of the Champs Elysees Theatre.

In May 1948, Petit created a new troupe, the Ballet de Paris. The troupe included, among others, Jeanine Sharra and Zizi Zhanmer, as well as the star of the English ballet Margot Fontaine. On May 21, 1948, Petit's ballet "Girls of the Night" to the music of J. Francais with Fontaine and Petit in the lead roles was shown at the Marigny Theater. The young choreographer gradually gained fame, and on February 21, 1949, the premiere of the ballet Carmen to the music of J. Bizet with Roland Petit and Zizi Jeanmer in the lead roles took place at the Prince's Theater in London. The performance was performed without interruption for four months in London, two in Paris and three months in the USA, later it was repeatedly resumed on different stages of the world.

Hollywood professionals immediately appreciated Petya's talent. The famous dancer Fred Astaire invited him to collaborate on the film Uncle Long Legs. Hollywood played a special role in the relationship between Roland Petit and Zizi Zhanmer. At that time, they worked together a lot, but constantly argued and quarreled. One fine day, Zhanmer flew to Hollywood for a few hours to prove to her friend what she was capable of for him. When Petit returned from America, they got married. This was in 1954. And in October 1955, their daughter Valentina-Rose-Arlette Petit was born.

I have always believed that the most important thing in life is to do what you want. And so that those people who surround me, with whom I work, are ready to move with me in the same direction. And, probably, so that their curiosity is inherent in me, - Roland Petit once said. And he never denied himself anything! When he came up with the idea of ​​a ballet based on the painting "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso, he went to Picasso himself and managed to captivate him with the idea so much that the great artist made costumes for the ballet.

It was time to stage at last the first large multi-act ballet. Petit chose a rather complicated plot - Edmond Rostand's romantic drama Cyrano de Bergerac. The premiere took place on April 17, 1959.

In 1960, Petit, in collaboration with director Terence Young and with the participation of Maurice Chevalier, created the film One, Two, Three, Four, or Black Tights. The film includes Petit's ballets The Diamond Eater, Cyrano de Bergerac, Mourning for 24 Hours and Carmen.

The next major work was "Notre Dame Cathedral" on the stage of the Opera. The audience saw this ballet on December 12, 1965. When the choreographer was invited to the Paris Opera for this work, he was also invited to the position of head of this theater, but quickly left the troublesome position. On February 23, 1967, Petit staged the ballet Paradise Lost at the Covent Garden Theater in London, where the main parts were performed by Margot Fontaine and Rudolf Nureyev.

At the same time, the choreographer added one new thing to the treasury of ballet expressive means - more precisely, he saw this innovation at the "lesson" with the teacher B. Knyazev, but he was the first to guess to transfer it to the stage. Petit staged a pas de deux for the famous dancer Gehlen Tesmar. She was taller than her partner, and it was evident. He remembered Knyazev and asked to put four square meters of linoleum on the stage. The artists danced lying down - and this idea was picked up by other choreographers.

In 1972, Petit became director of the Marseille Ballet. And where did he start?

Long before that, Petit met in Moscow with a woman who played a special role in the fate of Mayakovsky - Lilya Brik. Then a friend sent him from America a collection of poems by this poet in English. Petit read poetry and decided to stage a ballet. He danced Mayakovsky himself - and for this role he shaved his head for the first time. This "hairstyle" remained with him forever. The performance was called "Light the Stars!".

On January 12, 1973, the premiere of the ballet "The Sick Rose" took place, the main parts of which were performed by Maya Plisetskaya and Rudy Briand.

The French government appreciated the merits of the choreographer - in 1974 he became a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

Then Petit became interested in Pushkin. The result is the ballet The Queen of Spades, staged in 1978 for Mikhail Baryshnikov. And then Petit conceived a ballet about Charlie Chaplin.

Once, together with my wife and daughter, I was invited to a dacha with friends, ”he recalled. “Charlie Chaplin was among the guests. We spent 15 unforgettable days together. And when this genius died on December 25, 1977, I turned to his son with a request to allow me to stage a ballet about his great father. He didn't mind. When I realized my idea, Chaplin's son liked my work.

Petit worked actively and fruitfully. In the same 1978, he moved his "Notre Dame Cathedral" to Leningrad, to the Kirov Theater (now the Mariinsky). Of the major works, one must recall the ballet "My Pavlova", the "personal" version of the ballet "Swan Lake", "Clavigo" based on Goethe's romantic drama.

The Ballet de Marseilles troupe was led by Roland Petit for 26 years. Then there was a conflict with the administration. After leaving the theater, Petit settled in Geneva and forbade the troupe to show their performances.

But friendship with the Moscow Bolshoi Theater began. In 2001, Roland Petit staged a program there, consisting of two performances - "Passacaglia" to the music of A. von Webern, staged by him for the Paris Opera in 1994, and the new ballet "The Queen of Spades" to the music of Tchaikovsky. For "The Queen of Spades" Petit in the same year was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation.

On February 15, 2003, the premiere of Roland Petit's ballet Notre Dame de Paris took place at the Bolshoi Theater.

On October 30 and 31, 2004 in Moscow, on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater, the program "Roland Petit tells" was shown. Petit talked about his life, and members of the Suren Jean Vilar troupe Lucia Lacarra, Nikolai Tsiskaridze and Ilze Liepa danced excerpts from his works.

Petit often repeats that he is more prolific than Picasso. It is difficult to compare an artist and a choreographer, but one and a half hundred ballets give him the right not to make such comparisons ...

D. Truskinovskaya