Elisabeth Dalton

Born in 1940, the British set and costume designer Elisabeth Dalton studied at the Wimbledon School of Art and the London Slade School of Fine Art with prominent Greek set designer Nicholas Georgiadis. She began her career in 1968 assisting him at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, e.g. in »Aida« and Rudolf Nureyev’s version of »The Nutcracker«. In the same year she worked with the Stuttgart Ballet for the first time designing costumes for John Cranko’s »Salade« and Kenneth MacMillan’s »The Sphinx«. The set and costumes she subsequently designed for Cranko’s ballet comedy »The Taming of the Shrew« in 1969 were a great success and was then adopted by several other ballet companies – also, her alternative set design for his famous »Onegin« (original scenography by Jürgen Rose), which can be also seen at the Vienna State Opera since 2006. Her other works for ballet include stage designs for Cranko's »Romeo and Juliet«, »Pineapple Poll«, »The Lady and the Fool«, »Daphnis und Chloë«, Kenneth MacMillan's »Checkpoint« as well as Marcia Haydée's »The planets« and »Giselle und die Wilis«. Elisabeth Dalton also worked on productions for opera, operetta and musical in Wexford, Houston, San Francisco, Salzburg and Stuttgart – amongst others, for Richard Rodgers’ musical On Your Toes featuring Marcia Haydée and Richard Cragun in the leading roles (1990) – and the Holland Festival. Furthermore, she developed a long-lasting creative relationship with opera director and producer John Cox and designed the set and costumes for his production of Mozart’s opera »Il re pastore« staged in Salzburg (1989). Elisabeth Dalton died in her hometown of Chichester in Sussex in 2004.