Le Jeune Homme et la mort

Ballet in one act, with choreography by Petit, music by J. S. Bach, libretto and costumes by Cocteau, and sets by Georges Wakhevitch. Premiered 25 June 1946 by the Ballets des Champs-Elysées at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris with Babilée and Philippart. A young Parisian painter waits in his attic for the young woman he desperately desires. When she arrives she rejects him, and he eventually hangs himself. The woman then places a death-mask on his face and takes him away, out onto the neon-lit rooftops of Paris. The music, in stark contrast to the violence of the drama, is an orchestrated version of Bach's serene Passacaglia in C minor, performed without the Fugue. A very influential work in French post-war ballet, it was seen at the time as shockingly erotic. It also provided Babilée with his most famous role. Petit restaged it for American Ballet Theatre in 1951; ABT revived it for Baryshnikov in 1975. Petit also restaged it for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1990. Other stagings include Ballet National de Marseilles (1984), Berlin Opera Ballet (1985), and the Boston Ballet (1998).