In Frederick Wiseman’s documentary “La Danse” (2010) there is a very spicy marital quarrel in the middle of the ballet hall of the Palais Garnier in Paris. The choreographer Pierre Lacotte and his wife, the ex-ballerina Ghislaine Thesmar, are crouching in front of the mirror and arguing about handsome and less handsome dancers’ bottoms. The fact that they are actually here to help a young colleague study roles doesn’t bother them any more than the camera.
Long since reached the stage of Philemon and Baucis in terms of age, they tease each other until the film director mercifully fades out. Anyone who doesn’t know that this couple has been married since 1968 and has pushed romance back into the repertoire of the big ballet houses hardly understands the irony of this not at all romantic exhibition match.
Sometimes he maltreated dancers with original corsets
Like many legendary dance figures, Pierre Lacotte, born in Chatou in 1932, began his career at the Paris Opera ballet school, where he later made his debut. In 1954 he left the house and rode through various companies until he landed the big coup in 1971. The first program ever to be shown in color on television screens in France was Lacotte’s reconstruction of “La Sylphide” – the masterpiece that founded the era of romantic ballet in 1832 and has shaped our image of classical dance to this day.
Thereafter, Lacotte salvaged treasure after treasure from the dust of the archives. From Moscow to Milan, from Buenos Aires to Berlin, he brought works from the 19th century back to the stage – including hits like “Paquita” or “Coppélia”. He meticulously tried to reproduce the original versions and even abused his dancers with constricting original corsets.
This is the only way, he explained in an interview, that “the perfume of the past” can be captured. His own creations up to the literary adaptation “Le Rouge et le Noir”, which premiered in 2021, are solid handicraft products, while his reconstructions are solitaires. Seen in this way, Lacotte has brought to life what his favorite author Stefan Zweig conjured up between two book covers: “The World of Yesterday”. On April 4th he will be 90 years old.