Charles Jude

(choreographer and stage director)

EDUCATION AND WORK
Former principal dancer of the Opéra de Paris, Charles Jude has been director of the Ballet de l’Opéra Bordeaux since autumn 1996. After studying at the Conservatoire de Nice under Alexandre Kalioujny, Charles Jude successfully auditioned to join the ballet company of the Opéra de Paris in 1971. Promoted to the rank of premiere danseur  in 1975, he won the Bronze Medal at the Tokyo International Ballet Competition with Florence Clerc. In 1977, he was named Principal Dancer after his magnificent turn in “Ivan the Terrible” (Yuri Grigorovich). His dancing successfully combines a feline fluidity (“L’Apres midi d’une faune”, chor. Vaslav Nijinsky) with all the elegance of the classical style (“Etudes”, Harald Lander), making him uniquely suited to princely roles. Between 1978 and 1996, he danced many of the great classical roles (“Giselle”, and Rudolf Nureyev’s versions of “The Nutcracer”, “Swan Lake”, “Raymonda”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “The Sleeping Beauty”, “Cinderella”, “La bayadère”, “Don Quixote”), and some of the emblematic works of the Ballets Russes “LeSpectre de la Rose”, “L’Apres midi d’une faune”, “Petrushka”, etc.). Noteworthy collaborators have included Marcia Haydée, Claire Motte, Gislaine Thesmar, Noëlla Pontois, Florence Clerc, Elisabeth Platel, Monique Lourdières, Sylvie Guillem, Carolyn Carlson, Cyntia Gregory, Natalyia Makarova, Isabelle Guérin, Carla Fracci, Alessandra Ferri, Elisabetta Terabust, Maiya Plissetskaya and more. 

He has also tackled the repertoire of the greatest neoclassical and contemporary choreographers, including George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Anthony Tudor, John Cranko, Maurice Béjart, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, John Neumeier, Jiři Kylián, Glen Tetley, Michaël Clark, Carolyn Carlson, Louis Falco, Jose Limon and John Butler. A committed disciple of Rudolf Nureyev, it was from the master himself that Charles Jude learned his trade, both as a dancer and choreographer. Between 1980 and 1992, he was a regular feature in the “Nureyev and Friends” tours, while also appearing as a guest principal with the Royal Ballet in London, the Vienna State Ballet, the Ballet of the Teatro alla Scala and the Royal Danish Ballet, in addition to performances in Rome, Naples, Berlin, Stockholm, The MET and elsewhere. A teacher at the CNSM in Paris, he also taught alongside Marika Besobrasova at the Académie de Danse de Monaco. Since his appointment as Director of the Ballet de l’Opéra de Bordeaux in 1996, Charles Jude has continued to dance (“L’Apres midi d’une faune”, “Petrushka”, “Suite en blanc”, “The Four Temperaments”, “Serenade”, “The Prodigal Son”, “Icarus”, “Aureole”, “La Pavane du maure”), while also turning his distinctive choreographic style to re-readings of such classic ballets as “The Nutcracker”, “Giselle”, “Coppélia”, “The Sleeping Beauty”, “Swan Lake”, “The Wooden Prince” and “Don Quixote”). He choreographed a new production of “Romeo and Juliet” in March 2009.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Charles Jude won the Nijinski Prize in 1976 and the Lifar Prize in 1988, and has been appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (1990), Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (1996) and Officier des Arts et des Lettres (2001).