{{Short description|American ballet dancer (1930–2025)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox person | name = Ray Barra | image = Ray Barra (1a).jpg | alt = Sepia publicity headshot of a smiling, clean-shaven, lean man with black curly hair and strong features | caption = Barra, {{circa|1970}} | birth_name = Raymond Martin Barallobre Ramirez | birth_date = {{Birth date|1930|01|03}} | birth_place = San Francisco, California, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2025|03|26|1930|01|03}} | death_place = Marbella, Spain | occupation = {{plainlist| * Ballet dancer * Ballet master * Choreographer * Ballet director }} | organizations = {{plainlist| * American Ballet Theatre * Stuttgart Ballet * Berlin State Ballet * Hamburg Ballet * Bavarian State Ballet * {{nowrap|Spanish National Dance Company}} }} }}
'''Raymond Martin Barallobre Ramirez''' (January 3, 1930 – March 26, 2025), known professionally as '''Ray Barra''', was an American ballet dancer, ballet master, choreographer and ballet director who worked mostly in Europe. He was a soloist with the American Ballet Theatre and from 1959 a principal dancer of the Stuttgart Ballet, where he danced parts in creations by John Cranko including Romeo in ''Romeo and Juliet'' with Marcia Haydée as Julia, and the title role in ''Onegin''. He created major roles in ballets by Kenneth MacMillan, ''Las Hermanas'' and ''Song of the Earth''. After retiring from the stage due to an injury, he worked as a ballet master first with the Berlin State Ballet, then with John Neumeier at the ballet of the Oper Frankfurt and the Hamburg Ballet. He was associate director of the Spanish National Dance Company, and created several choreographies internationally.
== Early life and career == Born Raymond Martin Barallobre Ramirez<ref name="Bopp" /><ref name="Brug" /><ref name="Tanznetz" /> in San Francisco on January 3, 1930,<ref name="Tanznetz" /><ref name="OUP" /> he grew up in a Spanish family. The boy was attracted to dance when he watched films of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Eleanor Powell and Ginger Rogers at age eleven. He studied ballet at the School of Ballet in San Francisco with the Christensen brothers, influential in early American ballet.<ref name="Salas" /> He studied further at the American Ballet Theatre School in New York City.<ref name="Brug" /> In 1949 he became a member of the San Francisco Opera Ballet. He had to serve in the military for two years during the Korea War, stationed in Japan.<ref name="Bopp" /> From 1953 to 1959 he danced with American Ballet Theatre (ABT), already as a soloist.<ref name="Brug" /><ref name="Bavarian" /> He starred in ''Paean'', by Herbert Ross to music by Ernest Chausson in May 1957, alongside Nora Kaye, John Kriza and Lupe Serrano.<ref name="Salas" /> During this time, he also danced on Broadway and in can-can to make money. When the ABT troupe toured in France in 1959 and a fire caused the production to be closed for a year, Barra remained in Europe.<ref name="Brown" />
He was a principal dancer of the Stuttgart Ballet, then directed by Nicholas Beriosov,<ref name="Salas" /> from 1959.<ref name="Brug" /> When John Cranko came to Stuttgart in 1961, Barra was one of few dancers remaining in the company.<ref name="Hüster" /> He created roles in his productions, such as the title role in ''Romeo and Juliet'' with Marcia Haydée as Julia (1962) and the title role in ''Onegin'' (1965), both regarded as among the most important male characters in 20th-century ballet.<ref name="Brug" /><ref name="Tanznetz" /> He also appeared as the Prince in ''Swan Lake''.<ref name="Salas" /> and the Prince in ''Firebird'' (1964)<ref name="Tanznetz" /> He created major roles in ballets by Kenneth MacMillan, Pepe in ''Las Hermanas'' based on Lorca's play ''The House of Bernarda Alba'', again alongside Haydee (1963),<ref name="Brown" /> and ''Song of the Earth'' (1965).<ref name="Bopp" />
In 1966, Barra had to retire from the stage due to an injury during rehearsal<ref name="Tanznetz" /> on his 36th birthday.<ref name="Bopp" /> He worked as ballet master, first from 1966 with the ballet of the Deutsche Oper Berlin<ref name="Bavarian" /> following MacMillan.<ref name="Bopp" /> From 1970 he worked with John Neumeier, first at the ballet of the Oper Frankfurt and from 1973 with his Hamburg Ballet. He worked on Neumeier's ballets ''Romeo und Julia'' and ''The Nutcracker'' (1971), ''Daphnis et Chloé'' (1972), ''Dritte Sinfonie von Gustav Mahler'' (1975) and ''Illusionen – wie Schwanensee'' (1976). He also assisted Neumeyer in freelance productions such as ''Josephs Legende'' (Vienna, 1977), ''The Lady of the Camellias'' (Stuttgart, 1978), and ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' (Stuttgart, 1983),<ref name="Bopp" />
Barra came to the Spanish National Dance Company (Ballet Nacional de Espana/Clásico, later called Ballet del Teatro Lirico Nacional) in Madrid in 1985 and became a member of the directors' team until 1990.<ref name="Bopp" /><ref name="Salas" /> He choreographed there ''Poema divino'' to music by Scriabin (1985), commissioned by {{ill|María de Ávila (ballet master)|es|María de Ávila|lt=María de Ávila}}, the pas de deux ''Nocturne'' to music by Dvořák (1986),<ref name="Salas" /> his version of ''The Nutcracker'',<ref name="Bopp" /> ''La espera'', also known as ''Antes del albor'', on Miguel Ángel Roig-Francolí's ''Cinco piezas para orquesta'' and first performed on September 13, 1987, at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid.<ref name="Madrid" /> ''Álbum'' to music by Mendelssohn (1988), a neo-romantic piece in homage of his mentors, and ''Caín y Abel'' to music by Rafael Reina (1990).<ref name="Salas" /> He choreographed for the Washington Ballet ''Dumky Variations'', on Dvorak's Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 90, played live.<ref name="Anderson" /> It was first performed on February 13, 1991.<ref name="Washington" />
In the 1990s, Barra helped improve the State School of Dance in Athens. He was called to Berlin again in 1994 by Götz Friedrich; his two years of directing the ballet there were regarded as a time of artistic success.<ref name="Bopp" /> He directed classical ballets for the Bavarian State Ballet: ''Don Quijote'' (1991), ''Swan Lake'' (1995) and ''Raymonda'' (2001),<ref name="Bopp" /><ref name="Bavarian" /> all still in the repertoire as of 2025.<ref name="Bopp" /> Barra choreographed ''Leyla and Majnun'' for a company in Istanbul in 1996, ''Canto General'' to settings by Mikis Theodorakis of poems by Pablo Neruda for the Greek National Ballet in 2005 and his version of ''Carmen'' in 2007 for the ballet of the Staatstheater Karlsruhe directed by Birgit Keil.<ref name="Bopp" /><ref name="Hüster" /> He trained the ballet of the Royal Opera House in London in 2012 in a production of ''Las Hermanas'' in memory of MacMillan's 20th anniversary of death.<ref name="Brown" />
== Personal life and death == Barra was openly gay. He was the partner of Erik Bruhn, and then for 54 years of Maximo Barra, with whom he lived on Menorca from the 1980s and later in Marbella. His partner died of cancer in 2018.<ref name="Bopp" />
Barra died in Marbella on March 26, 2025, at the age of 95.<ref name="Tanznetz" /><ref name="Brug" /><ref name="Salas" /> Horst Koegler wrote in a 1964 book ''Ballett in Stuttgart'' that Cranko made the hero the center of the dramatic action which was possible due to Barra's ability to create characters: upright and masculine with a strong human vitality and the gift to be an adaptible partner. A biography of Barra, ''Life in Ballet'', by Victor Hughes who had collaborated with Neumeier as dancer and ballet master, was published in 2020.<ref name="Bopp" />
== References == {{reflist | 30em | refs =
<ref name="Anderson">{{cite news | last = Anderson | first = Jack | title = Review/Dance; The Birds and Elders Wild, the Youth Melancholy | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/23/arts/review-dance-the-birds-and-elders-wild-the-youth-melancholy.html | newspaper = The New York Times | date = November 23, 1992 | access-date = May 8, 2015 }}</ref>
<ref name="Bopp">{{cite web | last = Bopp | first = Annette | translator-last = Hughes | translator-first = Victor | title = A great artist and Mensch. | website = tanznetz.de | date = January 3, 2020 | url = https://www.tanznetz.de/de/article/2020/great-artist-and-mensch | access-date = March 28, 2025 }}</ref>
<ref name="Brown">{{cite news | last = Brown | first = Mark | title = Stage set for Las Hermanas' Covent Garden debut | url = https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/nov/16/stage-las-hermanas-covent-garden | newspaper = The Guardian | date = November 16, 2012 | access-date = October 20, 2014 }}</ref>
<ref name="Brug">{{cite news | last = Brug | first = Manuel | url = https://www.welt.de/kultur/article255811272/Tanzstar-Ray-Barra-Dieser-Mann-definierte-das-Mannsein-im-Ballett-neu.html | title = Tanzstar Ray Barra : Dieser Mann definierte das Mannsein im Ballett neu | newspaper = Die Welt | date = March 28, 2025 | language = de | access-date = March 28, 2025 }}</ref>
<ref name="Hüster">{{cite news | last = Hüster | first = Wiebke | url = https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/musik-und-buehne/tanz/ballettmeister-ray-barra-gestorben-seinen-partnerinnen-gab-er-sicherheit-110389279.html | title = Seinen Partnerinnen gab er Sicherheit | newspaper = FAZ | date = March 30, 2025 | language = de | access-date = March 31, 2025 }}</ref> Nicholas Beriozoff
<ref name="Bavarian">{{cite web | title = Ray Barra | url = https://www.staatsoper.de/biographien/barra-ray | publisher = Bavarian State Ballet | language = de | access-date = May 2, 2015 }}</ref>
<ref name="Madrid">{{cite web | title = Ray Barra | url = http://musicadanza.es/cnd/titulos/titulo/?id=45 | website = musicadanza.es | publisher = Centro de Documentation de Musica y Danza | language = es | access-date = May 8, 2015 }}</ref>
<ref name="OUP">{{cite web | title = Ray Barra | url = https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095448455?p=emailAmuf9KcSNyS2Q&d=/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095448455 | publisher = OUP | access-date = October 20, 2014 }}</ref>
<ref name="Salas">{{cite web | last=Salas | first=Roger | title=Muere Ray Barra, bailarín, coreógrafo y director de ballet | website=Scherzo | date=March 28, 2025 | url=https://scherzo.es/muere-ray-barra-bailarin-coreografo-y-director-de-ballet/ | language=es | access-date=March 28, 2025 }}</ref>
<ref name="Tanznetz">{{cite web | url = https://www.tanznetz.de/de/article/2025/ray-barra-im-alter-von-95-jahren-verstorben | title = Ray Barra im Alter von 95 Jahren verstorben | website = tanznetz.de | date = March 27, 2025 | language = de | access-date = March 28, 2025 }}</ref>
<ref name="Washington">{{cite web | title=Wayback Machine | website=washingtonballet.org | date=24 April 2015 | url=http://washingtonballet.org/_pdf/Copy%20of%20TWB%20Rep%20List-%20Updated%202013.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150321192354/http://washingtonballet.org/_pdf/Copy%20of%20TWB%20Rep%20List-%20Updated%202013.pdf | archive-date=21 March 2015 | url-status=dead | access-date=20 April 2025 }}</ref>
}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book | last=Hughes | first=Victor | title=Ray Barra: A Life in Ballet | publisher=The Book Guild Ltd | publication-place=Kibworth, Leicestershire | date=December 19, 2019 | isbn=978-1-913208-07-3}}
===Obituaries=== * {{cite web | title=Bayerisches Staatsballett | website=ballett-journal | date=March 28, 2025 | url=https://ballett-journal.de/bayerisches-staatsballett-stuttgarter-ballett-berlin-ray-barra-nachruf/ | language=de | access-date=March 28, 2025}}
== External links == * [https://www.inka-magazin.de/buehne-klassik/urauffuehrung-des-balletts-carmen-von-ray-barra.html Uraufführung des Balletts „Carmen“ von Ray Barra] November 16, 2007 * [https://www.stuttgart-ballet.de/company/history/the-cranko-era/ History / The Cranko Era] Stuttgart Ballet * {{cite web | title=Ray Barra | website=filmportal.de | url=https://www.filmportal.de/person/ray-barra_7c45ac3a300d4525b01224f47099be35 | language=de | access-date=March 28, 2025}} * {{IMDb name}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Barra, Ray}} Category:1930 births Category:2025 deaths Category:American male ballet dancers Category:Principal dancers Category:Ballet masters Category:Artists from San Francisco Category:Dancers from California Category:Entertainers from San Francisco Category:American people of Spanish descent