New official POB site

[Estelle]

On the Paris Opera site, there is now a new subsite dedicated especially to the ballet:

http://www.opera-de-paris.fr/ballet/

So there is (at last!) a list of all the dancers of a company, biographies and photographs of the étoiles and premiers danseurs (but I'd like to see some biographies and photographs of the corps de ballet dancers).

It also includes a list of all the étoiles since that grade was officially created in 1940 (Lycette Darsonval being the first étoile), and some information about the history of the company, with a few nice little pictures and photographs

(like Zambelli and Staats in "Javotte", Spessivtseva in "Giselle", Renault and Chauviré in "Les Mirages", Ritz and Toumanova in "Palais de Cristal"... But it's a pity they can't be enlarged).

[balletstar811]

Is there a reason why every single dancer they pictured has brown hair? Are there no blondes in this company?

[su-lian]

I think it's just the lighting and the way the hair is tied with gel etc, because Agnès Letestu is blonde, so are Maurin, Pujol, Abbagnato and Riqué. For men, there are bart, Delanoe and paquette who are also blond.

[cygneblanc]

Balletstar811, not every single dancer pictured has brown hair. Principal Elisabeth Maurin is blonde as well soloist Eleonora Abbagnato. And only principals and soloists are pictured, not the corps de ballet, and there are a lot of blonde dancers in it, Severine Westermann and Emilie Hasboun eg

[cygneblanc]

Sulian, we were posting at the same time

[Estelle]

su-lian, do you really think that Jean-Guillaume Bart is blond? For me he's brown-haired... Or perhaps you meant Manuel Legris (whose hair is between blond and light brown)?

[Marc Haegeman]

Trouble with this site is that there is too much red saturation in the photos, which accounts for the many brownish and reddish hair colours.

[su-lian]

Estelle, I think they're both in between: not really blond, but nott really brown either. I suppose some sort of light brown.