Giselle

Sir Peter Wright
Choreographer

Sir Peter Wright CBE made his debut as a professional dancer with the Ballets Jooss during World War II and in the 1950s worked with several dance companies, including the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, for which he created his first ballet, A Blue Rose in 1957. In 1959, he was appointed Ballet Master to the Sadler’s Wells Opera and teacher at The Royal Ballet School.   In 1961, Sir Peter went to Stuttgart as teacher and ballet master to the company being formed by John Cranko. There he choreographed several ballets, including The Mirror Walkers, Namouna, Designs for Dancers and Quintet and mounted his first production of Giselle, which he has subsequently produced for The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and many other international companies. His other interpretations of the classics include The Sleeping Beauty, Coppélia, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker and these productions now feature regularly in opera houses throughout the world. During the 1960s, he established himself as a successful director of television ballets and choreographed various West End musicals and revues.   In 1969, Sir Peter returned to The Royal Ballet as Kenneth MacMillan’s Associate Director. In 1977, he was appointed Director of Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, taking the company to Birmingham in 1990, when it became Birmingham Royal Ballet. On his retirement in 1995, he was made Director Laureate of Birmingham Royal Ballet.   He received the Evening Standard Award for Ballet in 1981 and in 1985 was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE). In 1990, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from London University, the University of Birmingham conferred on him the title of Special Professor of Performance Studies and he was presented with the Elizabeth II Coronation Award from the Royal Academy of Dancing. In 1991, he was made a Fellow of the Birmingham Conservatoire of Music. He also won the 1991 Digital Premier Award, which he used to commission a new ballet. He was awarded a knighthood in the 1993 Queen’s Birthday Honours list, in 1994 an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Birmingham and the Critics’ Circle Award in 1995 for Distinguished Services to the Arts. He is President of the Benesh Institute (Dance Notation) and a Vice President of the Royal Academy of Dance.   Sir Peter retired in 2003 from the Governors of The Royal Ballet School after 30 years of service. He won the de Valois Award from the British National Dance Awards for the most outstanding achievement of 2004. His book Wrights & Wrongs was published by Oberon Books in 2016.   More recent productions include Swan Lake in Buenos Aires (2013), revivals of The Nutcracker by The Australian Ballet (2014, 2019), a revival of The Sleeping Beauty, designed by Philip Prowse, for the Vienna State Ballet (2014), a new production for the Hungarian National Ballet (2016), a revival of Giselle in Munich (2016) and a new production in Sarasota (2019). His choreography is incorporated in the new production of The Nutcracker for the Birmingham Royal Ballet by David Bintley at the Royal Albert Hall in London (2017, 2018 & 2019).

Christopher Saunders
Guest Rehearsal Director

Christopher Saunders is Rehearsal Director and Principal Character Artist with The Royal Ballet.

Born in Gosport, UK, he trained with Joan Stevenson. At age nine, he made his professional debut in Gypsy with Angela Lansbury. He trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined the company in 1983. Christopher was promoted to Soloist in 1991 and Principal Character Artist in 1997. In 2001, he was appointed Ballet Master, Senior Ballet Master in 2014 and Rehearsal Director in 2017.

His many roles include the title role in Don Quixote, Lord Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker, Von Rothbart in Swan Lake, Monsieur GM in Manon, Elgar in Enigma Variations, Yslaef in A Month in the Country and Kostcheï in The Firebird, many of which he performs today.

As Ballet Master, he worked closely with Dame Monica Mason and Monica Parker on the Kenneth MacMillan repertory, Patricia Neary on George Balanchine’s ballets and Christopher Wheeldon on his works. This close collaboration has led him to stage works by MacMillan, Wheeldon, Balanchine, Sir Fredrick Ashton, Jerome Robbins, Carlos Acosta and Bronislava Nijinska for The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and many companies across Europe, Japan, Australia and the US.

He celebrated 40 years with The Royal Ballet in February 2023.

Desmond Heeley
Set and Costume Designer

Desmond Heeley’s set and costume designs have been seen on the stages of the world’s major opera, ballet and theatre companies during an international career that spanned more than 50 years. He began his career in 1948 with an apprenticeship at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. In 1952, Heeley embarked on a freelance career in London and came to Canada in 1957 to design Hamlet for the Stratford Festival and began an association with the company. His 1968 designs for Tom Stoppard’s Broadway production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead won Heeley two Tony Awards. He was the first to receive this honour, for both set and costume design in a single production.

Heeley’s creations for The National Ballet of Canada include Giselle, Don Quixote, La Sylphide, The Merry Widow, Erik Bruhn’s Swan Lake, Oiseaux Exotiques and Sylvia pas de deux. His work is in museums and private collections across Canada, US and UK.

A former Professor of Design at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Heeley taught and lectured extensively. He won numerous awards including the prestigious Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994. In 2005, Heeley received an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Heeley passed away on June 10, 2016 in New York City. He was 85 years old.

Gil Wechsler
Lighting Designer

Gil Wechsler became the Metropolitan Opera’s first full-time Resident Lighting Designer in 1976. Throughout his 20-year tenure, he designed the lighting for more than 100 opera productions. His responsibilities included the lighting of more than 60 televised opera performances and tours throughout the US and Japan.

Preceding his appointment to the Metropolitan Opera, Wechsler designed more than 30 productions for Lyric Opera of Chicago. He has also designed more than 60 productions for Stratford Festival, including Equus in 1997 and Macbeth in 2004.

Wechsler’s designs for ballet are in the repertoires of American Ballet Theatre, The Royal Ballet, The Harkness Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Berlin Opera Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada. He has also lit productions for Paris Opéra, San Francisco Opera, Teatro Colón and The Sante Fe Opera, as well as multiple works on Broadway.

Wechsler has a fine arts degree from Yale University’s School of Drama.

Conductors
David Briskin
Music Director and Principal Conductor

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Julian Pellicano
Conductor

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Jeff Morris
Stage Manager

Jeff Morris joined The National Ballet of Canada in 1995. Born in Toronto, he studied technical theatre production and administration at Ryerson’s Theatre School (now Toronto Metropolitan University). From 1990 to 1995, he was Production Stage Manager for Toronto Dance Theatre, including the company’s debuts in Berlin, Warsaw, Tokyo and at the Joyce Theater. He was Production Stage Manager for Dancers for Life (1991 – 1997), Stage Manager for Theatre Passe-Muraille (Never Swim Alone) and for the Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists. Since joining the National Ballet, Jeff has stage-managed a wide range of the company’s unique classical and contemporary repertoire, including the world premieres of James Kudelka’s The Four Seasons, Cinderella and An Italian Straw Hat, Crystal Pite’s Emergence and Angels’ Atlas and Guillaume Côté’s Le Petit Prince and Frame by Frame (with Robert Lepage). Company premieres include John Neumeier’s The Seagull, A Streetcar Named Desire, Nijinsky and Anna Karenina and Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale. He is a board member and instructor for SMArts and Festival CoDirector for dance:made in Canada/fait au Canada.

Alex Wommack
Stage Manager

Alex Wommack (she/her) was born and raised in Waco, Texas and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Her passion for ballet led her to work with Alabama Ballet while completing her undergraduate degree. At Alabama Ballet, she stage-managed works by Jiří Kylián, Agnes de Mille and Sir Frederick Ashton. Following graduation, she moved to Seattle and joined the Stage Management team at Seattle Opera, where highlights included Porgy and Bess, The Barber of Seville and Flight. In 2017, she worked with Pacific Northwest Ballet as an Assistant Stage Manager for George Balanchine's The Nutcracker and then joined the company as Stage Manager in 2020. She is a member of AGMA and served two terms as the staging staff representative for the Northwest area on the National Board of Governors. Outside of her professional work, Alex is actively involved with Books to Prisoners, an organization that fosters a love of reading and help break the cycle of recidivism in American prisons.