{"id":14588,"date":"2022-01-31T08:41:53","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T08:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=14588"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:21","slug":"betty-nichols-orbit-roland-petit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2022\/01\/31\/betty-nichols-orbit-roland-petit\/","title":{"rendered":"Betty Nichols’ Orbit: Roland Petit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Betty Nichols and Roland Petit<\/h2>\n

\"Cyrano<\/h2>\n

In 1949, Betty Nichols embarked on a three-month trip to Europe, referred to as a \u201ccultural vacation,\u201d with her savings from performing on Broadway. While in Paris, Nichols danced for Roland Petit as a member of Les Ballets de Paris.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Betty Nichols – Black History Month in Dance, Alastair Macaulay<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More about Roland Petit<\/h2>\n

Trained at the Paris Op\u00e9ra Ballet school, Roland Petit joined the company in 1940 but left in 1944 to create and perform his own works at the<\/span> Th\u00e9\u00e2tre<\/span> Sarah Bernhardt<\/span>\u00a0in Paris. In 1945 Petit was instrumental in creating Les Ballets des Champs-Elys\u00e9es, where he remained as principal dancer,<\/span> ballet<\/span> master, and choreographer until 1947. In 1948 he formed the Ballets de Paris de Roland Petit (1948\u201350, 1953\u201354, 1955, and 1958), which made several tours of Europe and the United States. Dancers who rose to prominence in his companies include Jean Babil\u00e9e, Colette Marchand, Leslie Caron, and Ren\u00e9e (\u201cZizi\u201d) Jeanmaire, whom he married in 1954.\"Roland<\/span><\/p>\n

His choreography was often angular or acrobatic and was considered theatrical in its use of mime dance, occasional singing, and props such as cigarettes and telephones. His works included the realistic ballet <\/span>Les Forains<\/span><\/i> (1945; \u201cThe Strolling Players\u201d), a study of indigent circus performers; the imaginative creation <\/span>La Croqueuse de diamants<\/span><\/i> (1950; \u201cThe Diamond Cruncher\u201d), whose heroine eats the gems her associates steal; and <\/span>L\u2019Oeuf \u00e0 la coque<\/span><\/i> (1949; \u201cThe Soft-Boiled Egg\u201d), in which the leading female dancer hatches from an egg in hell. <\/span>Carmen<\/span><\/i> (1949) was one of Petit\u2019s most popular ballets; the choreography was passionate and erotic, and Jeanmaire became famous for her interpretation of the title role. <\/span>Le Jeune Homme et la mort<\/span><\/i> (1946; \u201cThe Young Man and Death\u201d) and <\/span>Les Demoiselles de la nuit<\/span><\/i> (1948; \u201cThe Ladies of the Night\u201d) were among his other popular ballets.<\/span><\/p>\n

Petit staged several music hall revues for his wife and choreographed the dances for the films <\/span>Hans Christian Andersen<\/span><\/i> (1952), <\/span>The Glass Slipper<\/span><\/i> (1955), <\/span>Daddy Long Legs<\/span><\/i> (1955), <\/span>Anything Goes<\/span><\/i> (1956), and others. The ballet film <\/span>Black Tights<\/span><\/i> (1962) consisted of Petit\u2019s works <\/span>La Croqueuse de diamants, Cyrano de Bergerac, A Merry Mourning<\/span><\/i> (originally presented in 1953 as <\/span>Deuil en 24 heures,<\/span><\/i> \u201cA 24-Hour Mourning\u201d), and <\/span>Carmen.<\/span><\/i> Petit also staged several of his ballets for Sadler\u2019s Wells Ballet (now the Royal Ballet), for the Royal Danish Ballet, and for other troupes. From 1970 to 1975 he owned and operated the Casino de Paris, producing revues starring Jeanmaire. In 1973 he became director of the Ballet de Marseille, a post he held until 1998. Petit choreographed a modern version of <\/span>Copp\u00e9lia<\/span><\/i> in 1975 and a new <\/span>Phantom of the Opera<\/span><\/i> for the Paris Op\u00e9ra Ballet in 1980.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roland Petit, Britannica<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Princeton
\nVictoria Merengwa
\nNeenah Young
\nNicole Young<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Betty Nichols and Roland Petit In 1949, Betty Nichols embarked on a three-month trip to Europe, referred to as a \u201ccultural vacation,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[289,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-betty-nichols-constellation","category-universe"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14588"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15286,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14588\/revisions\/15286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}