Dieter Graefe has died

[Angela]

Dieter Graefe, heir to the rights of John Cranko’s ballets, has died on Saturday, April 20th, at his home in Stuttgart. He was ballet secretary and administrative director at Stuttgart Ballet, first with John Cranko and then with Marcia Haydée. In his will, Cranko had named the long-time friend and collaborator as heir to his estate and the rights to his ballets. Since then, Graefe has licensed Cranko's works outside Stuttgart and Munich. After Cranko's early death in 1973, Graefe was entrusted with the temporary management of the Stuttgart Ballet together with ballet mistress Anne Woolliams, until Glen Tetley became director a year later. Graefe remained ballet secretary and was promoted to deputy ballet director in 1983 and administrative director of the Stuttgart Ballet during Marcia Haydée's time as AD. In 1985 he moved to Canada with his partner Reid Anderson, and in 1996 they both returned to Stuttgart, when Anderson was appointed AD of the company. In 2020, together with Reid Anderson, Graefe founded the John Cranko Trust which already receives all royalties - and in future all the other income - from Cranko's estate with all proceeds going to the John Cranko School.

 

An obituary on Stuttgart Ballet’s website

[Sabine0308]

What a loss for Stuttgart and the Cranko world. May he rest in peace.

So Reid Anderson is now the only owner of the Cranko rights?

[Angela]

I guess they already belong to the Cranko Foundation, but I'm not sure.  This ist what Anderson said at the press conference for the opening of the new Cranko School in 2020 about the Foundation: “Everything will then go to the school. To protect the school forever.” In another interview, he said that the Cranko Foundation has two important goals: the well-being of the school and the integrity of Cranko's ballets – so it ressembles the trusts that manage the copyrights to Balanchine’s or Jerome Robbins’s ballets. The Cranko Foundation has a board of trustees who not only manage the rights, but also care for coaches and ballet masters who work with the companies that dance Cranko’s works.