Anastasia Concerto Danses Concertantes Las Hermanas Journey Manon Pas de Deux Imperiale Pavane Requiem Romeo and Juliet Side Show The Sleeping Beauty Solitaire Triad The Wild Boy Winter's Eve |
Kenneth MacMillan was born
in Dunfermline, Scotland in
1929. His strength of purpose
can be traced back to the very
beginning of his career when
he read an advertisement
announcing that scholarships
for boys were available at the
Sadler's Wells (now Royal)
Ballet School. He was
determined to make his way
there and he did. Sir Kenneth
completed his dance training
at the Sadler's Wells School
and in 1946 became a
founding member of the
Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet,
a new company formed by
Ninette de Valois. He gained
his first dance experience at
the Wells and then moved to
Covent Garden. In 1952, he
returned to the Wells and
there found his true vocation
as a choreographer. At
Sadler's Wells a gifted group
of young dancers was in the
process of forming a
Choreographic Group to give
performances of new works.
The first performance by the
Group was on February 1,
1953 and the hit of the
evening was MacMillan's first
ballet,
Somnambulism, to
music by Stan
Kenton.
The following year he staged a
story ballet, Laiderette,
and Dame Ninette decided to
commission an entirely new
work from MacMillan:
Danses Concertantes.
This work immediately
established MacMillan as a
choreographer of
note.
In 1966, MacMillan received an
invitation to direct the ballet
company at the Deutsche Oper
in West Berlin. Encouraged to
accept by Dame Ninette, he
took over the company and
staged his own productions of
The Sleeping Beauty
and Swan Lake. He also
created the one-act ballet
Anastasia which was
subsequently to become the
third act of his full-length
Anastasia.
Sir Kenneth had proved himself
as the natural successor to
Ashton as Director of The Royal
Ballet, a post he assumed (at
first in association with John
Field) at the beginning of the
1970-71 season. Sir Kenneth
continued to choreograph and in
1974 created both
Manon (his third
full-length work) and Elite
Syncopations. In 1976,
MacMillan made
Requiem for the
Stuttgart Ballet and in 1978 he
created for that company My
Brother, My Sisters.
Mayerling was first
produced at Covent Garden on
February 14, 1978. As in so
many ballets, he took a
compassionate view of doomed
characters, seeking to show why
tragedy overtakes them.
Mayerling had a triumph
at its American premiere in Los
Angeles in 1978 and was the
subject of a London Weekend
Television film which won the
1978 music category of the
prestigious Prix Italia -- the first
ballet ever to do
so.
More recent works have been
La Fin du Jour, which
draws inspiration from the style
of the 1930's and the
fashionable way of life shattered
by World War II, and
Gloria, a lament and a
thanksgiving for the generation
that perished in World War I.
MacMillan created his fifth
full-evening ballet,
Isadora, in 1981. It
received its world premiere at
Covent Garden on April 30,
1981.
Sir Kenneth made his debut as a
director of plays when he staged
Ionesco's The Chairs and
The Lesson at the New
Inn, Ealing. He also produced
Strindberg's Dance of
Death at the Manchester
Royal Exchange
Theatre.
He received his knighthood in
the 1983 Birthday Honours, and
resided in London with his wife,
Deborah and daughter
Charlotte. Sir Kenneth died in
London in October, 1992 at the
age of 62. At the time of his
death he was choreographing a
revival of the musical
Carousel.
Sir Kenneth was an Artistic
Associate of American Ballet
Theatre from
1984-1989. |
All rights reserved.