Johan Kobborg, Production & Additional Choreography

Johan Kobborg has enjoyed a distinguished career as a principal dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet and the Royal Ballet, and as a guest with most major companies around the world. More recently, he has distinguished himself as a choreographer with leading companies, including the Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Zurich Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, San Francisco Ballet, Lithuanian National Ballet and Royal New Zealand Ballet.

From December 2013 until April 2016, Johan was artistic director of the Romanian National Ballet. In June 2015, Mr. Kobborg and Ethan Stiefel’s production of Giselle entered the repertoire. In 2015, the company received a “Performance of the Year” nomination from Dance Europe Magazine. In December 2015, the Romanian company hosted a world ballet stars gala at the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, in collaboration with Alina Cojocaru and dancers and musicians from Mariinsky Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet. The company was nominated as “Company of The Year” by both the England-based Dance Europe magazine and the German Tanz Magazine in 2015.

The Royal Ballet commissioned Johan to create a new production of La Sylphide in 2005. The production was so successful that it was revived twice in London, including the opening night of the 2006 season. He also staged La Sylphide for the Bolshoi Ballet, which was telecast around the world in September 2012. The ballet entered the repertoire of the Bucharest National Opera Ballet Company in December 2013, and with the National Ballet of Canada in 2016. The Lithuanian Ballet, Zürich Ballet and Kobayashi Ballet in Japan, as well as in Bucharest, have also danced this version.

The success of La Sylphide led the Royal Ballet to commission an original work from Johan, Les Lutins, in 2009. The company included the work on a tour to Havana, Cuba. The original cast danced the work at the Dortmund Ballet Festival and the Dance Open Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. Today, the piece is danced in galas and festivals around the world.

In November 2012, Johan and Ethan Stiefel created a new production of Giselle for the Royal New Zealand Ballet. This version was filmed for theatrical release during the 2013-2014 season. The production toured throughout New Zealand and China, and was performed on a US tour in early 2014, and a UK tour in 2015.

One of Johan’s more innovative media appearances occurred in September 2013. Kim Brandstrup created a piece for Johan and Alina Cojocaru, specifically for streaming on iTunes. It is reputed to be one of the first ballet choreographic works envisioned for Apple’s distribution. As soon as it appeared, it became number one on the iTunes classical downloads.

In December 2017, Johan created a brand new production of Don Quixote for the Leonid Yacobson Ballet in St. Petersburg. The production was a huge success and achieved great critical acclaim from both the Russian and foreign press.

Johan has worked intensely with Ralph Fiennes on his new Rudolph Nureyev movie, The White Crow, which was set for worldwide release in 2018.

Johan was born in Copenhagen in 1972, and trained at the Funen Ballet Academy before acceptance into the Royal Danish Ballet School in 1988, at the age of 16. He joined the Royal Danish Ballet in 1989, was promoted to soloist in 1991, and became a principal in 1994. After eleven years of dancing nearly every important role in the Danish company's repertoire, Johan joined the Royal Ballet as a principal in September 1999. He left the Royal Ballet in June 2013, after a final performance of Mayerling, to pursue his choreography and freelance performance opportunities.

In 1993, Johan won the gold medal at the Erik Bruhn Competition in Canada. The following year, he won the Grand Prix at the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Miss., and the Grand Prix at the International Nureyev Ballet Competition in Hungary. In 1996, he was nominated for the Benois de la Danse prize for his role as James in La Sylphide. He has won the Dance Critics Circle award for best male dancer and has received many Danish ballet grants and awards.

In 2006, he was nominated for two Laurence Olivier Awards in London: one for his Royal Ballet production of La Sylphide and another for his performance in Fleming Flindt’s The Lesson. In 2009, his cast for the Bolshoi Ballet production of La Sylphide was nominated for the Golden Masque Award in Moscow, as the best performance of the year. In 2013, Queen Margaret of Denmark personally awarded Johan the high honor of The Order of the Dannebrog. In 2014, his Bucharest production of La Sylphide received the "Performance of the Year" award in Romania.

Tara Simoncic, Conductor

Tara Simoncic is excited to return as a guest conductor with Atlanta Ballet. Ms. Simoncic frequently works with symphony orchestras as well as opera and ballet companies in America and abroad. She is currently the music director of Louisville Ballet, the Flexible Orchestra in New York City and the Greenwich Symphony’s Young People’s Concerts, and she was the music director of Ballet West from 2015-2018. This season, Ms. Simoncic makes her debut at the San Francisco Ballet, with performances of The Nutcracker and Don Quixote, as well as the la Orquesta Sinfónica Provincial de Santa Fe. She will return this season as a guest conductor with the ballet at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and the New York City Ballet. Ms. Simoncic recently conducted performances of Don Giovanni in Trieste, Italy, and The Barber of Seville with the Slovenian National Opera Ballet Theatre. She holds a BM in Trumpet Performance from the New England Conservatory, an MM in Orchestral Conducting from Northwestern University and a Professional Studies Diploma in Conducting from Manhattan School of Music.

Desmond Heeley, Costume & Scenic Designer

Desmond Heeley began his career in the theater as an apprentice in the workshops of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. His practical aptitude for costumes, properties and painting was noticed by Peter Brook, who commissioned Heeley to design the costumes for a production of The Lark by Anouilh in London. Later, as Peter Brook’s assistant at Stratford-upon-Avon, Heeley designed the costumes and properties for the now legendary production of Titus Andronicus with Sir Laurence Olivier.

From this point on, his work was to be seen in the theater, the opera, and the ballet - at the onset, the Ballet Rambert, then with John Cranko and Kenneth MacMillan ballets at Sadler’s Wells and Covent Garden, including Benjamin Britten’s only full-length ballet, Prince of the Pagodas. Continuing with Cranko, he designed for London’s West End, including a musical in conjunction with Lord Snowdon, employing advanced photographic techniques.

His work at the Old Vic Theatre with artistic director Michael Benthall ranged from Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde. On the operatic scene, he designed I Puritani for Joan Sutherland at Glyndbourne and La Traviata and Iolanthe for the Sadler’s Wells Opera. He designed for the Marquis de Cuevas Ballet in Paris, and for the Opera at La Scala in Milan.

In London, he designed the original productions of several new plays by some of the leading British writers, Joe Orton’s Loot, Robert Bolt's Gentle Jack (starring Dame Edith Evans), Carving a Stone by Graham Greene (starring Sir Ralph Richardson) and In Praise of Love directed by John Dexter. A long association with artistic director Michael Langham began with a production of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon. A year later, he did another Hamlet at another Stratford — this time in Ontario, Canada, starring Christopher Plummer. He designed some eighteen productions in Ontario, finding time in between to do Swan Lake for the National Ballet of Canada with Erik Bruhn and later, for the same company, Giselle, as well as the opera Cosi Fan Tutte. When Langham left the Festival to be artistic director of the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Heeley followed. Among the many productions he worked on there, notable successes were Oedipus, the King and Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker.

Sir Laurence Olivier invited him to join forces with Sean Kenny to design the opening production of the newly formed National Theatre at the Old Vic in London in 1967. Again, the play was Hamlet, and this time the star was Peter O’Toole.

Later at Sir Laurence’s invitation, he designed the original production of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. He then re-created the production on Broadway and won two Tony Awards for the sets and costumes.

Sir Rudolph Bing commissioned him to design Norma for Joan Sutherland at the Metropolitan Opera. Following this, he designed Pelleas and Melisande for the Met. In the 1970s, Mr. Heeley also designed a highly successful three-act version of The Merry Widow directed by Sir Robert Helpmann in Australia, which was presented on Broadway and then in London’s West End, starring Dame Margot Fonteyn. He also designed the sets and costumes for the Stuttgart Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty.

For John Dexter, Mr. Heeley designed the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Don Pasquale starring Beverly Sills. He has designed Theme and Variations (1978) for American Ballet Theatre; Titus Andronicus at the Stratford Festival in Canada; Teible and Her Demon for the Guthrie Theatre; and on Broadway, the revival of Camelot starring Richard Burton.

Mr. Heeley designed the New York City Opera’s productions of Brigadoon and South Pacific, the London Festival Ballet’s (now English National Ballet) production of Coppélia, the Vienna State Opera’s Maria Stuarda and The Merry Widow for the National Ballet of Canada.

Over the past ten years, Houston Ballet has emerged as Mr. Heeley’s artistic home in America. The company has four works by Mr. Heeley in its repertoire: The Nutcracker (1987), Solitaire (1991), The Sleeping Beauty (1990) and Coppélia (1992). Additionally, in September 1995, Houston Ballet presented Mr. Heeley’s production of The Merry Widow from the National Ballet of Canada.

Mr. Heeley has received numerous awards throughout his distinguished career. In 1994, he became the first person to receive the Theater Development Fund’s Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award. The Allan Jones Memorial Award followed in 1995, and in 1997, he was the recipient of the prestigious Institute for Theater Technology Award in recognition of his lifetime contribution to the performing arts.

In 1997, Mr. Heeley celebrated fifty years of working in the theater. From June 3 - November 9, 1997, the Stratford Festival in Ontario mounted a massive retrospective exhibition featuring sets, designs, costumes and properties that chronicled Mr. Heeley’s half century of achievement. Recent projects Mr. Heeley has designed at the Stratford Festival include Camelot in 1997, Amadeus and Measure For Measure.

Biography courtesy of American Ballet Theatre (www.abt.org).

Joseph R. Walls, Lighting Designer

Joseph R. Walls has designed several pieces for Atlanta Ballet, including Ricardo Amarante’s The Premiere, Gemma Bond’s Denouement, Tara Lee’s blink and Andrea Miller’s Push. He has also designed for STEPS Panama, Staibdance, RAIIN Dance Theater, Inland Pacific Ballet, Charlotte Ballet, and The Washington Ballet at the Kennedy Center. This past summer, Walls created the lighting design for Sundance Mountain Resort’s summer theatre. He has also been nominated for the prestigious Premios Escena award for best lighting design in Panama City, Panama. In January 2019, Walls designed the lighting for the World Youth Days 2019 with Pope Francis in Panama. www.jwallsdesign.com

Pre-show Dining at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre
Friday, February 15, 2019 & Saturday, February 16, 2019 | Starting at 6pm

Join us for a special Valentine's buffet. Enjoy romantic evening dining at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on the Grand Tier before La Sylphide. Beat the traffic and dine at your leisure to create an elegant, relaxing, and entertaining evening with Atlanta Ballet.

Special Valentine's buffet includes Champagne. $65 per person.