Set to Malcolm Arnold’s engaging music, Kenneth MacMillan’s Solitaire, created for Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet in 1956, is a light-hearted treatment of the theme of the outsider, which became...
people » Desmond Heeley
Desmond Heeley (1931–2016). British set and costume designer
Desmond Heeley started his career as an apprentice on Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s production of King Lear, and then went to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he designed the costumes for Peter Brook’s 1955 production of Titus Andronicus with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. He has designed internationally for theatre, opera and ballet, and worked with choreographer Ronald Hynd on productions of Coppélia and The Merry Widow. He also designed John Cranko’s The Lady and the Fool and the costumes for his The Prince of the Pagodas (sets by John Piper), Kenneth MacMillan’s Solitaire, Erik Bruhn’s Swan Lake and La Sylphide, Peter Wright’s Giselle, Nicolas Beriozoff’s Don Quixote, Ben Stevenson’s The Snow Maiden and George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations. In the theatre he created the sets and costumes for Joe Orton’s Loot and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, for which he won two Tony Awards.
2The Prince of the Pagodas was originally choreographed by John Cranko for The Royal Ballet in 1957 and was hailed at the time as the first full-length British ballet. Performed at the Royal Opera...