"Our stone abandoned us at 4:00 in the morning," said Ms. Thesmar, adding that he died in a clinic in La Seyne-sur-Mer in the Var (south of the France) of sepsis after the infection of a wound.
"It's very sad, he was still full of projects and was writing a book," said his wife since 1968.
"He was full of energy and had plans for companies" including the Rome Opera Ballet, she added.
His last creation dates back to October 2021 --at almost 90 years old: the ballet adaptation of Stendhal's novel, "Le Rouge et le Noir" for the Paris Opera. "He loved the opera, it was his one and only home," Thesmar said.
Born on April 4, 1932 in the Paris region, Pierre Lacotte joined the Paris Opera School in 1942 despite fragile health and entered the corps de ballet and became a principal dancer in 1951.
Interested in choreography, he founded the Ballets de la Tour Eiffel company, after resigning from the Opera, then led a career as an independent dancer and choreographer from 1959.
In the early 60s, he was one of the protagonists of the resounding defection to flee to the West of the legendary dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
An ankle injury forced Lacotte to slow down his activity in 1968 and it was then that he devoted himself to researching archives of old ballets, pushing him to recreate "La Sylphide", the first ballet on pointe (1832).
These reconstructions will become his passion. He will resurrect, among others, "Coppélia" (1870), the "Pas de six de La Vivandière" (1844), "La Fille du Pharaon" (1862), "Paquita" (1846) for the greatest stages in the world, from the Bolshoi to the Paris Opera, via the Mariinsky, the Berlin Staatsoper.
French dancers Michaël Denard (l) and Ghislaine Thesmar (c) rehearse a scene from the Opera "Coppélia" with French choreographer Pierre Lacotte (r), December 20, 1974 in Paris © - / AFP/Archives
"He was a lover of the classical and romantic period but he liked what was modern," Brigitte Lefèvre, former director of dance at the Opera, told AFP.
© 2023 AFP