Immortality is a big word. But as long as people continue to be moved by ballets like John Cranko's Onegin, his Romeo und Julia, or Kenneth MacMillan's Lied von der Erde, the name Ray Barra will not be forgotten.
Ray Barra was born to Spanish parents in San Francisco on 3 January 1930. After years of training in San Francisco, he danced with the American Ballet Theatre in New York and came to Stuttgart in the late 1950s, shortly before John Cranko took over as ballet director. For just under six years, Barra's dancing personality shaped the roles that would later become part of ballet history. A man, not a youth; a born partner, not an egocentric; not a virtuoso, but possessing a highly refined technique; and not a cynic, but a person with a loving approach to life. It is no coincidence ...
