Richard Cragun, one of the most important dancers of the 20th century has died at 67. His legendary partnership with Marcia Haydée, the ground-breaking work at Stuttgart Ballet with John Cranko, and his beauty and virile strength as a dancer, will earn him a permenant place in dance history.
Yesterday, August 6, he suffered a seizure triggered by a lung infection, and died in Rio de Janeiro soon after being admitted to hospital. His ex-partner in life and in dance, Marcia Haydée, said,
Richard was one of the best dancers in the world. Even after our separation, we were the best of friends; I could call him anytime.
He was born in California in 1944. He studied tap-dance and ballet but also attended the Banff School of Fine Arts in Canada, and he continued to draw all his life. Cragun went to the Royal Ballet School in London and completed his studies in Copenhagen where he spent a year as a private pupil of Vera Volkova.
In 1962 he made the most important decision of his career and joined the Stuttgart Ballet, and in 1965 he was promoted to principal dancer. It was here that his 30-year partnership with Marcia Haydée started, though he also partnered Fonteyn and most other leading ballerinas of the day. Cragun was a handsome man on-stage and off , and when he created Petruchio for Cranko in 1969 in Taming of the Shrew the role fitted him like a glove.
He retired from the stage in 1996, and after three years as ballet director at Berlin's Deutsche Oper he moved with his partner, Brazilian choreographer Roberto de Oliveira, to Rio de Janeiro. Here they launched DeAnima Ballet Contemporâneo for youngsters from the black slums.
Cragun had been ill for some time after having a stroke in 2005, and complications with the drug cocktail which allowed him to live with AIDS.
His younger brother Lawrence said,
Rich was very talkative and creative. He was always down to earth and never had a big ego. He was always looking to help people.
Richard Cragun leaves his partner with whom he has lived the past 14 years. He will be cremated tomorrow.
Career:
He was noted for his interpretations of Romeo and Onegin in Cranko's stagings and created many roles for Cranko, including parts in L'estro armonico (1963), Opus 1 (1965), Mozart Concerto (1966), Présence (1968), Taming of the Shrew (1969, the role of Petruchio), Brouillards (1970), Poème de l'extase (1970), Carmen (1971), Initials R.B.M.E. (1972), and Traces (1973).
He also created roles in Peter Wright'sThe Mirror Walkers (1963), MacMillan's Song of the Earth (1965), Requiem (1977), and My Brother, My Sisters (1978), Tetley's Voluntaries (1973) and Daphnis and Chloé (1975), Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias (1978) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1983), which showcased his enduring partnership with Haydée, Forsythe's Orpheus (1979), and Kylián's Forgotten Land (1981).
Cragun also created roles in ballets by Béjart, including La Danse (1983) and Operette(1985).
In 1990 he starred in the Stuttgart revival of the Broadway musical On Your Toes. He retired from the stage in 1996 and was appointed artistic director of the Berlin Opera Ballet. He left Berlin in 1999 to start a new ballet company in the Brazilian city of Curitiba.
Obituaries:
New York Times – Richard Cragun, Stuttgart Ballet Dancer, Dies at 67
The Telegraph – Richard Cragun
The Guardian – Richard Cragun obituary
The Sacramento Bee – Obituary: Sacramento native Richard Cragun found international fame as ballet dancer
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
Richard was an all around great person. I arrived in Stuttgart shortly after he did and He, Marcia, Egon and I were there fabulous 4. I spent only one year there but it wasd one of the best of my career. I truly miss him and the others as well. RIP Ricky!!
So sad.
Richard Cragun was such an inspiration to so many of us and i remember so well my late wife Prima Ballerina Assoluta, Phyllis Spira speaking so highly of him and Marcia’s very special partnership and times she spent with them both. Rest in Peace to a great artist.
Richard now takes the Dance to a higher level. A new adventure begins with one of the greats.
What a loss! Richard was not only a great friend but also a true inspiration for me. His artistic purity, his genuine humbleness and his wholeness as both artist and man was and will remain a true manifestation of greatness for generations to come
My god; first Nureyev, then Bujones, and now Richard. All our gods are leaving us too soon (hang in there, Misha!). I can’t begin to count the number of nights and matinees I spent in standing room at the Met whenever Stuttgart came to town. I was at the old ABT School in those years and a bunch of us would go to every performance. I got to know Birgit and Vladimir a little, but Richard… I would have keeled over had I ever met him. There was no one like him. I will now go and watch my old videotape of “R.B.M.E.” and have a good cry.
Richard was a close and exceptional friend of mine and of so many others. That he was one of the great dancers of our time needs no comment. But his humanity, his endless kindness, his unwillingness to adopt the vanities of ‘stardom’ when he was very much a star, make him exceptional.
The most moving moment at yesterday’s cremation ceremony in Rio came when the flower covered coffin began to move away and Richards friends and admirers, led by Marcia Haydee, stood, applauded and cried out “Bravo” as they had so many times at the end of his magnificent performances. It was a spontaneous and appropriate ovation and send-off. Richard deserved no less.
Thank you for such a well-put comment. It must have been very moving. I’ve put your words as a separate post so more visitors will know about Cragun’s last bravo.
Robert Christopher commented on gramilano:
Richard was an all around great person. I arrived in Stuttgart shortly after he did and He, Marcia, Egon and I were there fabulous 4. I spent only one year there but it wasd one of the best of my career. I truly miss him and the others as well. RIP Ricky!!
So sad.
I hadn’t realised Richard Cragun was dead until looking at the Internet today. I feel an enormous star has gone out. As a young Irishman in Stuttgart in the 1960s I saw his performances with
Marcia Haydee in Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew. I have never forgotten their combination of lyricism and strength. I am so grateful for modern technology that we can see his performances courtesy of video/DVD. Presuming there is an Afterlife, I hope he is giving master classes there
I am still very sad and very sorry that I never went to Stuttgart to see Richard Cragun live on stage.
Does anybody know something about Richard Cragun’s “D’Anima” ballet project for favela kids, is it continued? Hope very much a friend and author who knew Richard Cragun in person is going to write his biography, may be based on his letters and drawings.( What made an American teenager leaving his home to fulfill his dreams of a ballet career, develop a German province theatre into a world famous Ballet Mekka, a devoted friend and handsome man, who stepped back from the sunny side of the ballet Olymp to help the rest of his life poor kids in Brazil, investing all his money and power to offer them a chance? For all that he did this in silence, without much ado. A story for a movie!)