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Michaël Denard is a French dancer and actor, born November 5, 1944 in Dresden
and died on February 17, 2023 in Paris
Biography
Youth and beginnings
Born of a German mother, ballerina at the Dresden opera, and a French father in Dresden
a few months before his bombardment, he spent his youth in Tarbes.
Michaël Denard started dancing late, the year of his baccalaureate, in Tarbes, with Marie Garcia then with Yvette Le Rohellec. In 1963, he joined the Capitole de Toulouse ballet corps,
and in 1964, for one season, in that of the Opéra de Nancy.
He goes up to Paris, where he follows the courses of Solange Golovine. His first appearance in Paris took place in 1965, with the European Ballets of Lorca Massine. In 1966, Pierre Lacotte invited him to the Jeunesses musicales de France where he danced for the first time with Ghislaine Thesmar, who would become his privileged partner (Combat de Tancrède and Clorinde at the Festival d'Aix).
Paris Opera
Michaël Denard enters at the end of 1966 on audition at the ballet of the Paris Opera as supernumerary.
He quickly rose through the ranks: coryphée in April 1967, subject in Mars 1968,
Principal Dancer in Mars 1969.
On December 19, 1969, after taking part in the Paris International Dance Festival with
the Young Opera Dancers, he was invited to dance Siegfried with Lynn Seymour (Odette-Odile)
in Swan Lake (Kenneth MacMillan version) at the Berlin Opera.
1970 marks the development of his career. He was first the partner of Yvette Chauviré in Le Mariage d'Aurore, during the tour of the Opera troupe in Russia.
Then his meeting with Maurice Béjart will propel him among the great dancers of the time.
Béjart creates for Josyane Consoli How beautiful Princess Salomé looks tonight…. She chooses him as her partner. In April, Maurice Béjart invited him to come and dance Roméo at the Ballet du XXe siècle in Brussels with Laura Proença (Juliette) and Paolo Bortoluzzi (Mercutio).
Then he creates for him Fire Bird, the premiere of which is given on October 31 by the Opera troupe at the Palais des SPORTS in Paris, as part of a Béjart/Stravinsky programme.
He will dance this role all over the world.
On July 15, 1971, he learned of his nomination as a star dancer in New York, where he was invited by the American Ballet Theater for its summer season. The same year, he received the Nijinsky Prize.
At the beginning of 1972, he danced James with Ghislaine Thesmar in La Sylphide reassembled by Pierre Lacotte for French television. This ballet entered the Paris Opera ballet repertoire on June 9, 1972. From guest artist, Ghislaine Thesmar becomes star dancer. From now on, Michaël Denard and she will form a prestigious couple and be programmed together in most of the great classical, romantic and contemporary ballets. This did not prevent Michaël Denard from also being the partner of many great ballerinas of the time, from Claire Motte to the JEUNE Sylvie Guillem: Noëlla Pontois, Natalia Makarova, Cynthia Gregory, Natalia Bessmertnova, Élisabeth Platel, Françoise Legrée,
Lynn Seymour and more.
Throughout his career, he will create or take over ballets by major choreographers of the time such as George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, John Neumeier, Iouri Grigorovich, Merce Cunningham, Carolyn Carlson, Lucinda Childs, Antony Tudor, Hans van Manen , Glen Tetley,
Roland Petit, Maurice Béjart, etc.
Just as he offers very innovative interpretations of characters such as Siegfried du Lac or Prince Albrecht de Giselle, he leaves his mark on key roles in the repertoire, such as the Apollo musete
by George Balanchine. He has the opportunity to dance several versions (up to four for the
Swan Lake by Bourmeister, Bruhn, MacMillan, Nureyev) of all the great ballets,
on the most prestigious stages in the world - Kirov, Bolshoi, American Ballet Theater,
Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Opera in Rome, Monnaie Theater in Brussels, Opera in Berlin, etc.
As soon as he joined the Opera, he also worked with many young choreographers and he always remained faithful to the Théâtre du Silence, a company founded by his friends Jacques Garnier and Brigitte Lefèvre, defectors from the Opera ballet, participating in many their creations and dancing with them around the world, from the Avignon Festival to Tokyo, via the United States, Italy or England.
His farewell party took place on December 9, 1989 but he continued to officiate between the walls
of the Paris Opera by becoming a professor and ballet master for the company, while continuing to appear occasionally on stage in character roles: mother Simone in La Fille mal garde (role in which he made his final farewell in July 2009, at the age of 65)
or Duval Père in La Dame aux camélias.
Ballet master and actor
After his official retirement, he never left the world of dance or the stage. On January 9, 1990, he premiered at the Berlin Opera, with the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, the role of the narrator in Ring um den Ring.
This Wagner Ring revisited by Maurice Béjart will then tour around the world.
Between 1993 and 1996, he embarked on a new experience, as Director of Dance at the Berlin Opera, whose musical direction is provided by Daniel Barenboim.
He also devotes himself to teaching, within the Opera itself or as a guest professor in many prestigious foreign courses and institutions, including the Mariinsky in Saint Petersburg (ex-Kirov).
Having taken acting lessons from the start of her career at the Grenier de Toulouse,
then with various teachers and specifically Jean-Laurent Cochet, in order to complete his interpretations as a dancer, he gradually approaches roles combining dance and theater
(The Diary of a Madman directed by Alain Marty, Hippolyte directed by Jean-Pierre Miquel and Alain Marty, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian directed by Bob Wilson), but also actor roles as in Un mari ideal of Oscar Wilde. In 2018, he played the Blue King (played on screen by JEAN MARAIS ) in the stage adaptation of the musical film Peau d'âne by Jacques Demy and Michel Legrand,
created on the occasion of the reopening of the Marigny theater.
He also works for cinema and television, notably Les Filles du Lido
and La Rumba with Roger Hanin.
He is also the very first guest of the emission Number one of
Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier, April 5, 1975.
Dead
He died on February 17, 2023 at the Bretonneau hospital in Paris,
from generalized cancer.
In tribute, the dancer Germain Louvet declares: "Her astral beauty and her fiery personality,
like Béjart's L'Oiseau, have inspired us so much".