Fernand Nault

Fernand-Noël Boissonneault (Fernand Nault), dancer, ballet master, choreographer and teacher: born Montreal, Quebec 27 December 1920; dancer, then ballet master, then co-director of the company school, Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre) 1944-64; assistant, then co-artistic director, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens 1965-74, resident choreographer 1974-89 (emeritus); OC 1977; died Montreal 26 December 2006.

As Fernand Nault liked to recount, there were many candles lit and novenas said on his behalf when, in his late teens, he announced that he would like to become another Fred Astaire. Nault was brought up in a poor, devout Roman Catholic family in Montreal and was intended for the priesthood. Dance, other than in its folk expressions, was sternly frowned upon in the clerically dominated Quebec of his youth.

Nault never became a tap dancer, but he did achieve success in ballet and a measure of recognition from the Church. More than a quarter-century after opting for tights rather than a cassock, Nault staged Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. Its performance in Saint Joseph's Oratory in Montreal during Holy Week of 1969 symbolised the sea change in Quebec society that had occurred since his youth.

There had been limited opportunities for him in Canada. Nault leapt at the chance in 1944 to be auditioned by Anton Dolin for a vacancy in Ballet Theatre (later renamed American Ballet Theatre) in New York. Nault's initial six-week contract turned into a 20-year sojourn with the famous troupe. During this American phase of his career, Nault became a valued character dancer and later a ballet master with a meticulous memory for steps. He also choreographed some of his earliest ballets for ABT workshops.

Nault had meanwhile noted the progress of Montreal's Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, founded in 1957 by Ludmilla Chiriaeff, and in 1964 agreed to stage the company's first Nutcracker. The production was a success. The company has staged it every Christmas since and has toured it within Canada and the United States. Nault, at heart very much a Quebecois, soon agreed to become the company's assistant artistic director and Chiriaeff made him her co-director a year later. Despite the company's chronic financial woes, Nault oversaw a remarkable artistic blossoming that was largely attributable to his own choreographic contributions.

Apart from The Nutcracker, Nault staged other classics such as The Firebird and Les Sylphides and later a one-act Fille mal gardée, originally made for America's Joffrey Ballet. Like several of Nault's works that have enjoyed lasting acceptance, his Fille mal gardée has been restaged outside Canada, as recently as last January by Kansas City Ballet. It was his contemporary works, however, that gave the Canadian company a fresh identity.

Nault's staging of Carl Orff's Carmina Burina, prominently featured during Montreal's Expo 67, sparked international attention. Richard Buckle, the celebrated if controversial Sunday Times critic, even ventured that Nault's Carmina should be acquired by the Royal Ballet. Yet, it was Nault's next major work that, for good and ill, was to have the greatest impact.

Nault, whose choreographic style often bridged the ballet/modern divide, was a devout man throughout his life. Many of his works broadly echoed his own spiritual sympathies. He also had a keen, innovative theatrical sensibility and a strong desire to rid ballet of its dowdy image. It helps explain, at age 48, his interest in The Who's rock opera Tommy, with its secularised theme of a modern, much-abused messiah.

Chiriaeff reluctantly allowed Nault to choreograph it in 1970, but did not anticipate a success and only scheduled four performances. Nault's Tommy was an instant hit and soon revived. Long-haired, modish teenagers in bell-bottoms rubbed shoulders with mink-coated, blue-rinsed matrons in the jostle for tickets. Tommy, during three subsequent years of touring, which included visits to Paris and New York, catapulted Les Grands Ballets Canadiens to international celebrity. The profits, at least temporarily, also helped ease the company's cash crisis.

A whole generation was drawn to ballet for the first time. Years later Vincent Warren, the original pinball wizard, would recall how the odour of pot would waft up to the stage. He also recalled how the predominance of Tommy and the endless touring wore the dancers down. In becoming Les Grands Ballets' signature work, Tommy risked robbing it of its artistic soul. Chiriaeff and Nault, exhausted by the challenge of keeping the company afloat, stepped aside in 1974 and focused their attention on the company school.

Although Nault retained the position of resident choreographer, he had the freedom to work elsewhere, mostly restaging his earlier ballets. From 1984 he had the valuable assistance of the teacher/répétiteur André Laprise whose role became more crucial as Nault faced the debilitation of Parkinson's disease.

Michael Crabb