John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English-Australian composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements. He served as the Principal Conductor of the Royal Ballet from 1959 to 1972, Principal Conductor of the Australian Ballet from 1972 to 1977, and Musical Director of the American Ballet Theatre from 1978 to 1980. He continued to conduct regularly for the Royal Ballet until 2001.
Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold, better known as Ferdinand Hérold, was a French composer. He was celebrated in his lifetime for his operas, of which he composed more than twenty, but he also wrote ballet music, works for piano and choral pieces. He is best known today for the ballet La Fille mal gardée and the overture to the opera Zampa.
Marius Ivanovich Petipa, born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa, was a French and Russian ballet dancer, pedagogue and choreographer. Petipa is one of the most influential ballet masters and choreographers in ballet history.
Comic ballet is a subcategory of narrative ballet, and denotes a dramatic work of a light or comic nature. Catherine d'Medici enjoyed the Italian custom of staging entertainments where classical or allegorical legends were retold through music and dancing, and she introduced this custom to France. It was Catherine's court festival director, Baltazarini da Belgiojoso who staged and choreographed the 'Ballet Comique de la Reine'. This ballet was presented at the Petit Bourbon on 15 October 1581, and related the story of Circe.
La Fille mal gardée is a comic ballet presented in two acts, inspired by Pierre-Antoine Baudouin's 1765 painting, La réprimande/Une jeune fille querellée par sa mère. The ballet was originally choreographed by the Ballet Master Jean Dauberval to a pastiche of music based on fifty-five popular French airs. The ballet was premiered on 1 July 1789 at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France under the title Le ballet de la paille, ou Il n'est qu'un pas du mal au bien.
Jean Dauberval, a.k.a. Jean D’Auberval,, was a French dancer and ballet master. He is most noted for creating the ballet, La fille mal gardée, one of the most enduring and popular works of the ballet repertoire.
The Sergeyev Collection is an assemblage of materials that document the repertory of the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg as it existed at the turn-of-the 20th century. The collection consists primarily of choreographic notation and music for many of the notated works. Also included are designs for stage décor and costumes, photos, and theatre programmes for performances of the Imperial Ballet at the turn-of-the 20th century. The choreographic notations of the Sergeyev Collection record—in varying degrees of detail—the original works and revivals of the choreographer Marius Petipa, who served as Premier Maître de ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres from 1871 until 1903. Also included is notation for choreography by Lev Ivanov, who served as Second Maître de ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres from 1885 until his death in 1901. The dance sections of several operas are also among the notated choreographies of the Sergeyev Collection, the majority of which are the work of Petipa and Ivanov, respectively.
Alexander Gorsky, a Russian ballet choreographer and a contemporary of Marius Petipa, is known for restaging Petipa's classical ballets such as Swan Lake, Don Quixote, and The Nutcracker. Gorsky "sought greater naturalism, realism, and characterization" in ballet. He valued acting skills over bravura technique. His interpretations of ballets were often controversial and he often used artists outside the dance world to create sets and costumes. The victim of deteriorating mental health in his later life, he died in a mental hospital.
Jean-Michel Damase was a French pianist, conductor and composer of classical music.
André Isidore Carey was a French ballet dancer. A student of Auguste Vestris, he arrived in Stockholm in 1815 as premier danseur in the Royal Swedish Ballet until 1823. He débuted in December 1815 in La Fille mal gardée by Jean Dauberval, choreographed by Jean-Baptiste Brulo and with a company also including Sophie Daguin.
Jean-Baptiste Brulo was a French ballet dancer, choreographer and ballet master, the son of the French dancers Jean-Baptiste Brulo and Marie-Thérèse Tabary. He danced at Bordeaux (1771–74) then at Montpellier, where his elder brother Mathias was ballet master and his nephew Philippe was theatre director. Brulo arrived at Stockholm in 1803 with his wife Catherine, at the same time as Filippo Taglioni. He became the Royal Swedish Ballet's premier danseur and choreographer, composing ballets for it. He left Sweden in January 1819 for Copenhagen, but the date and place of his death are unknown.
Attila-Akyla Silvester was a famous Greek dancer, choreographer and director. He is most famous for the ballet presentations of Orpheus, La Fille Mal Gardée and Zorba the Greek.
Alexander Marshall Grant was a New Zealand ballet dancer, teacher, and company director. After moving to London as a young man, he became known as "the Royal Ballet's most remarkable actor-dancer in its golden period from the 1940s to the 1960s."
Thiago Soares is a Brazilian ballet dancer and choreographer. He is a former principal dancer with The Royal Ballet in London, and guest principal in other theatres around the world.
Heinz Spoerli is a Swiss dance maker, internationally known. After a long career as a ballet dancer and company director, he is now widely considered to be one of the foremost European choreographers of his time.
La fille mal gardée, Frederick Ashton's Royal Ballet production, began in 1959 when British choreographer Frederick Ashton created a new version of La fille mal gardée for the Royal Ballet of London. This production premiered on 28 January 1960, with Nadia Nerina as Lise, David Blair as Colas, Stanley Holden as the Widow Simone, and Alexander Grant as Alain. Since its inception Ashton's staging has become a celebrated classic of the ballet repertory.
Lutfi Zohidova was a Soviet and Tajik ballet dancer.
Aziza Azimova was a Soviet and Tajikistani ballet dancer and actress.
Faust ballets are a set of ballets, choreographed between the 18th and 20th centuries, based on the legend of Faust. As early as 1723, London-based John Rich put on a Faust-inspired ballet pantomime called The Necromancer at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. In the 19th century several productions took Faust as their subject matter including August Bournonville's 1832 production Faust for the Royal Danish Ballet.
