Bertrand Castelli (December 3, 1929, Salon-de-Provence – August 1, 2008) was a French producer, director, lighting designer, choreographer, painter and writer best known as the executive producer of many productions of the rock musical Hair in partnership with the show's main producers Michael Butler and Annie Fargue. Castelli was instrumental in helping the show reach Broadway and would later lead the effort to introduce Hair to a worldwide theatre audience.
Beginning as an innovative lighting designer for ballet and opera, Castelli tried screenwriting, playwriting, choreographing and directing before becoming a producer of Hair in New York and then masterminding its many international productions. In later years, he became the artist in residence of a Mexican resort Belmond Maroma, where he created paintings for every room in the resort.
Castelli was born in Salon-de-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, of Corsican heritage. During World War II, he got a job operating the projector at a cinema. Castelli and his friends began to paint and to write and perform plays, operas and ballets to cast aside the gloom of Nazi-occupied Paris. At the age of 17, after the war, he toured Germany operating the lights for a small circus, learning theatre arts and developing innovative lighting techniques.
Castelli began his professional artistic career in France working for ballet and opera companies in Paris, starting with lighting design. To finance his ambitions to create a serious ballet, at the age of 21 he first created a short ballet called 'Le colleur d'affiches' in which he costumed dancers as large advertising posters, which came to life advertising each product through a three-minute solo. He boldly pitched the unique concept to large companies such as Perrier, Cartier, Christian Dior and Cointreau. The companies were intrigued and provided financing. He then was able to stage a first-class production of his ballet Les Algues, composed by Guy Bernard, and hired the ballerina Janine Charrat to choreograph and dance the lead role. The ballet earned him considerable success and gave him an "entrée to the society of artists" that, at the time, included Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Jean-Paul Sartre. He traveled in Paris art circles and rubbed elbows with Pablo Picasso, Marcel Marceau and Jean Cocteau. According to his daughter, he once worked as Picasso's assistant, and he was an occasional lover of Françoise Gilot, the mother of two of Picasso's children. For the next few years, he created, produced and directed works for Les Ballets Africaines, Champs Elysees Theatre and the Marquis de Cuevas Ballet Company. Other ballets that he worked on were Face To Face and Green Light, Red Light. ...
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