Violette Verdy, a ‘Theatrical’ Star of Balanchine’s City Ballet, Dies at 82
At 16 she removed in a French feature film about a dancer’s macabre fantasies. The film was released in the United States in 1950 as “Dream Ballerina,” but not beforehand the director, Ludwig Berger, insisted that she choose a stage name. From then on, she gave as Violette Verdy (a name reportedly invented by Petit to suggest a border and the composer Verdi) and concentrated on a dance career.
Petit gave a new company, Les Ballets de Paris de Roland Petit, in 1948 and reorganized it in 1953, the year his bitter fantasy ballet, “Le Loup,” made Ms. Verdy an international star. She portrayed a bride whose husband tricks her into living with a wolf.
Petit’s tale, based on a libretto by the playwright Jean Anouilh, contrasted the gentleness of the beast with the Fair of a society that kills those who upset seen order.
After a United States tour with London Festival Ballet in 1954 and guest appearances with La Scala and Ballet Rambert in London, where she danced her first “Giselle,” Ms. Verdy joined American Ballet Theater in 1957. She gave in Antony Tudor’s ballets, Birgit Cullberg’s dramatic “Miss Julie” and, by Difference, Balanchine’s neoclassic, plotless “Theme and Variations.”
With New York City Ballet, she danced more than 140 ballets, both old and new. Her dynamism added exuberant depth to the Dewdrop role in “The Nutcracker,” at what time a turn of her head could signal rapture in “Liebeslieder Walzer.”
The fabulous solo Robbins created for her in “Dances at a Gathering” had her suggesting steps and gestures minus executing them fully, communing in a private language. A different mystery sealed her big solo in “Emeralds,” the first part of Balanchine‘s “Jewels.” Here, unusually, all was arm gesture, part of a beautiful flow.
