Support America’s National Ballet Company® DONATE NOW
Repertory Archive
André Levasseur
Credits
Biography
André Levasseur was born in Paris in 1927. He first studied design at the École de la Haute Couture Parisienne, and began his career as a fashion designer, working for Christian Dior for several years. During this period, he designed his first work for the theatre, John Taras’s Piege de Lumiere.
Following this came other works for the theatre: Hector Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette for the Marquis de Cuevas, given in the courtyard of the Louvre, Pas de Trois for the Paris Opera, costumes for Serge Lifar’s Les Noces Fantastiques, Homage to a Princess for London Festival Ballet, Comme les Dieux for the Theatre de l’Oeuvre in Paris, and Fanfare Pour le Prince for the Prince Rainier-Grace Kelly wedding. For five seasons he designed a number of costumes for the cabaret in Monte Carlo.
Levasseur’s works for The Royal Ballet have been the Frederick Ashton ballets La Peri (in collaboration with Ivor Hitchens) in February 1956, which he redesigned in August 1957, Birthday Offering in May 1956, and La Valse in March 1959. His last work for The Royal Ballet was another Ashton work in May 1962, the Raymonda Pas de Deux, danced by Svetlana Beriosova and Donald Macleary.
Levasseur died on January 31, 2006, in Nanterre, Hauts-de-Seine, France.