Violette Verdy (1933–2016). French ballerina, teacher and director

Violette Verdy, originally Nelly Armande Guillerm, was born in Brittany, France, in 1933. In 1942 her mother took her to Paris to acquire the best ballet training available, which involved working with Carlotta Zambelli, Rousanne Sarkissian and Victor Gsovsky. By 1945 she was in the corps de ballet for Roland Petit and then part of his Les Ballet des Champs Élysées. In 1949 she starred in Ludwig Berger’s film Ballerina (released in 1950), which is when she changed her name to Violette Verdy. In 1953 she made her first trip to the United States of America, again with Petit and his Les Ballets de Paris. The following year, as well as dancing with London Festival Ballet, she performed at La Scala, Milan, in two ballets of Alfred Rodrigues and also in Coppélia and Giselle with Ballet Rambert.

The next phase of Verdy’s life began when Nora Kaye asked her to become a member of American Ballet Theatre in 1957. She joined George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet the following year. While she continued to dance with many companies in many countries, it was with Balanchine and Jerome Robbins that Verdy’s brilliance shone brightest, and where many leading roles were created on her. Her two decades in New York anchored her destiny and confirmed her place in ballet history.

Violette Verdy retired from dancing in 1977 and became the first female artistic director of the Paris Opéra Ballet, remaining until 1980. Her directorial skills honed, she went on to Boston Ballet, where she stayed until 1984 and then became distinguished professor of Music (Ballet) at Jacobs School of Music in Indiana University. In later years, Verdy undertook guest teaching residences with many of the world’s leading ballet companies, including the Bolshoi Ballet, where she was the first foreign teacher to work there since the 1917 Russian revolution. Verdy was given many honours and awards, not least the Légion d’Honneur. She could dance, act, choreograph, direct, teach and, most of all, inspire. All her responses were in the music and the multiple layers of meaning that imbued her dancing. Violette Verdy died in Bloomington, Indiana, in 2016.