Le Jeune Homme et la Mort
Ballet
in two scenes
To music by Johann Sebastian Bach
(Passacaglia in С Minor, BWV 582, arranged for full orchestra
by Alexander Goedicke)
Libretto by
Jean Cocteau
Choreography by Roland Petit
Le Jeune Homme et la Mort is one of
the earliest and most famous works by Roland Petit. The ballet was
staged in post-war Paris in 1946 for the recently established
company Les Ballets des Champs-Élysées. The ballet by Roland Petit which we
know today is considered based on mime drama by Jean Cocteau. In actual fact,
both the theme of relationships between an artist and death and
the very image of a girl as death and lovers as death were key themes for
Cocteau; he had his own accounts to settle with women and he himself was an
artist.
A studio. The artist is unable to relax as he waits in torment.
A woman appears: mysterious, sharp and heartless – the typical
crafty Parisian woman – and during her brief visit she prompts the Youth to
commit suicide. Moreover, she is, in fact, Death itself, its unique and
original personification.
Etudes
Music by Carl
Czerny
Choreography by Harald Lander (1948)
Arranged by Knudage
Riisager
Staging by Johnny Eliasen
Lighting
Design: Alexander Naumov
Premiere: 15 January 1948, Royal Danish Ballet,
Royal Theatre, Copenhagen,
Premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre:
18 April 2003
Premiere of a new version of the production:
27 February 2010
Running time: 45 minutes