Prima ballerina Yvette Chauvire, whose ethereal performances captivated lovers of French classical ballet over nearly four decades, has died aged 99.
The Paris Opera, which she joined as a child prodigy when she was 14, announced late on Wednesday that Chauvire had died overnight on Tuesday, and expressed its sadness.
Chauvire, whose triumph as Giselle revived audiences’ appreciation for 19th-century romantic ballet, had retired in 1972.
Born April 22, 1917, in Paris, she was admitted to the Paris Opera school aged 10, and became a principal dancer at the Opera Garnier 10 years later.
She was just 24 when the Ukrainian-born choreographer Serge Lifar elevated her to the top rank of etoile (“star”) following her stunning performance as the mysterious Babylonian goddess Istar.
“It’s through intense concentration, a total giving of yourself, an immense faith, that you float in a universe that is invisible to the naked eye,” she wrote.
Recognised as a “prima ballerina assoluta”, a rare distinction accorded to only the best female dancers of their generation, Chauvire was Lifar’s muse for most of his three decades at Garnier, until the end of the 1950s.
Lifar cast her in many of his new ballets, such as David Triomphant in 1937 and La Peri in 1955.
In his 1944 work The Mirages, Chauvire danced the character of “L’Ombre” (The Shadow), one of the great repertory roles of the 20th century to which she initiated a number of rising stars.
Her stylistic intelligence and purity of technique were attributed to her teachers Carlotta Zambelli of Italy and the Russians Boris Kniaseff and Victor Gsovsky.
In the 1960s, she headlined with the world’s top ballet companies, starring opposite male legends including Maris Liepa, Erik Bruhn and Rudolph Nureyev in Moscow, New York, London and Milan.
Chauvire, who was awarded France’s highest honour the Legion d’Honneur in 1988, becoming a Grand Officer in 2010, was co-director of the Paris Opera school in the 1960s, with pupils including Sylvie Guillem and Marie-Claude Pietragalla.
This file photo taken on March 3, 1998 shows then-French president Jacques Chirac awarding Chauvire with the National Order of Merit at the Elysee Palace in Paris.
