Australia Dancing - Gnatt, Poul (1923

Gnatt, Poul (1923 - 1995)

Stringer, Walter: Robert Rosen (left) and Poul Gnatt in rehearsal, the Australian Ballet, c. 1965

Born in Vienna of Danish parentage, Poul Gnatt moved with his parents to Denmark in 1925. There, Gnatt and his sister, Kirsten Ralov, joined the ballet school of Copenhagen's Royal Theatre and both graduated into the Royal Danish Ballet in 1939. Gnatt rose to the rank of principal but left the Danish company at the end of the 1940s and danced first with Roland Petit's Ballets des Champs-Elysees and then in London with Metropolitan Ballet. In the 1940s and early 1950s Gnatt was briefly married to Australian dancer Helene ffrance. Another early Australian connection was with Harry Haythorne whom he met while they were both with the Metropolitan Ballet and who remained a lifelong friend.

Gnatt joined the Borovansky Ballet during its 1951-1952 season. He made his Australian debut partnering Kathleen Gorham in the can-can from La Boutique fantasque and featured in leading roles in several other Borovansky productions including The Sleeping Princess, in which he danced the role of Prince Desire, Les Sylphides, Le Beau Danube, in which he appeared as the Hussar, and Edouard Borovansky's own L'Amour ridicule, in which he starred as Jose.

Gnatt toured to New Zealand with the Borovansky Ballet in 1952 and shortly afterwards moved to Auckland with his second wife and their two sons. In Auckland he began teaching ballet and then, with local teachers Beryl Nettleton and Bettina Edwards, began to mount productions and to tour to rural centres in the North Island of New Zealand with lecture/demonstrations on ballet. He established the New Zealand Ballet (later Royal New Zealand Ballet) in 1953 and directed the company until 1962.

In 1962 the board of the New Zealand Ballet appointed a new director, Russell Kerr, and shortly afterwards Gnatt moved back to Australia. In Australia he became a founding member of the faculty at the Australian Ballet School and staged several Bournonville works for the fledgling Australian Ballet. They included the pas de deux from Flower Festival in Genzano in 1964 and Le Conservatoire (Konservatoriet) in 1965. In 1967 Gnatt was appointed artistic director of Melbourne's Ballet Guild, supporting Laurel Martyn who became executive director, and for that company staged a number of works including excerpts from Napoli and a Danish version of Coppelia in which he appeared as Dr Coppelius. In Australia Gnatt also staged his Bournonvilliana, which comprised excerpts from Napoli and Flower Festival in Genzano, for West Australian Ballet.

Gnatt directed the New Zealand Ballet again beginning in 1969 but again left when a new director, Bryan Ashbridge, was appointed. Gnatt pursued his career in Europe and for a time was stage director with the Norwegian Opera and Ballet in Oslo. A naturalised New Zealander, he retired to New Zealand in the early 1990s where he was much honoured for his pioneering work in ballet and where he died in 1995.

For more about Gnatt's New Zealand career, including an audio extract from an interview recorded in 1983 by Philip Liner, see Gnatt, Poul Rudolph in Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.

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Find more about Gnatt, Poul in:

Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
Pictures - Picture Australia
Internet - Google