One of the unforgettable figures of the performing arts, with thirty-five years of presence on the stage of the Paris Opera, died on February 17, at the age of 78.
By Rosita Boisseau
The magnetic images of Michaël Denard, star dancer of the Paris National Opera, and the inflamed declarations of artists illuminated the networks during the announcement of his death, Friday, February 17, at the Bretonneau Hospital, in Paris. High intensity performer, also actor, company director and pedagogue, he was 78 years old and suffered from generalized cancer. “His astral beauty and her personality of fire, like the bird of Béjart, inspired us so much, declared the star Germain Louvet on his Instagram account. It is an honor to have met you.” While ‘Agnès Letestu evoked “her piercing blue gaze, her enthusiasm, her iconic tights of woolen generously knitted and offered to all, her little accomplices and benevolent words for each dancer, all generations combined”.
With thirty-five years of presence on the stage of the Paris Opera, Michaël Denard, born in 1944, in Dresden (Germany), a French father and a German mother, remains an unforgettable figure of the performing Arts. It was for him that in 1970 Maurice Béjart created the fire bird, on the music of Igor Stravinsky. In red academic, he pierced the space of lively and angular gestures, embodying this phoenix reviving his ashes and this revolutionary figure desired by the choreographer. In the photos and films of him in this deeply unusual piece, he vibrates with technical limpidity and bewitching power. “He was followed by an audience of fans and expected as a rockstar,” recalls Brigitte Lefèvre, Director of Dance at the Paris Opera from 1995 to 2014.
Coming late to dance, Michaël Denard took his first lessons at the age of 18, in Tarbes, and quickly found himself engaged in the Ballet de l’Opéra corps, in 1965. Four years later, he is promoted first dancer of the company and was crowned star in 1971. As part of the Parisian institution, he exploded in all registers. It turns out to be more than perfect as a fairytale prince for the Lac des Cygnes, Giselle or the Sylphide with Ghislaine Thesmar, more than impeccable in the parts signed Alvin Ailey, Alwin Nikolais or Merce Cunningham. George Balanochine, master of American neoclassicalism, he was made to measure orpheed and Eurydice, on Gluck’s music, in 1973.
That is to say the amplitude of her talent as a interpreter ready to make a bite, with grace and delicacy, of all the aesthetic tilms. “He was not only solar in his dance and of impeccable, but honest, never mean, negative or courtier elegance, remembers Claude de Vulpian, Étoile de l’Opéra. We also had a lot of fun in work, which Don’t spoil anything. “
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