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Juan Carlos Copes, Who Introduced Tango to Broadway, Dies at 89

Juan Carlos Copes, Who Brought Tango to Broadway, Dies at 89

This obituary is part of a series about people who died from the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

Tango was originally a ballroom dance performed in neighborhood gatherings and dance halls. But Juan Carlos Copes turned it into dance for the stage, with a complex, highly polished choreography that could delight an audience for an entire evening.

Mr. Copes moved across the dance floor for seven decades. Most of the time he danced with a partner – at times with his wife – María Nieves Rego. They came to define a new style of tango called “estilo Copes-Nieves”.

“I’ve seen two styles danced,” said Copes in a 2007 interview with tango magazine “La Milonga Argentina”. “One with many steps and the other smooth and elegant. My innovation was to combine the two into one. “

Mr. Copes died on January 15 in a clinic in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. He was 89 years old. The cause were complications from Covid-19, said his daughter Johana Copes.

Mr. Copes and Mrs. Nieves may have had their greatest influence on the show “Tango Argentino”, which premiered in Paris in 1983 and became an international juggernaut. She toured Europe and Asia before coming to Broadway in 1985, where she was nominated for several Tonys. The show, in which the couple re-starred, returned to Broadway in 1999 when it was nominated for Best Revival.

“Tango Argentino” led to a worldwide resurgence of tango, which had fallen out of favor even in Argentina and was replaced by the emergence of predominantly American pop music. Tango clubs have opened all over the world.

“The fact that we tango artists today even have a profession is thanks to Copes,” said New York-based dancer Leonardo Sardella, who has often performed with Johana Copes, in an interview.

Mr. Copes stayed in the spotlight, dancing and choreographing dozens of tango shows in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1998 he starred in the dance film “Tango” by the Spanish director Carlos Saura alongside the Argentine ballet dancer Julio Bocca, to whom he had taught tango. (He also taught Liza Minnelli.)

Mr Copes was born on May 31, 1931 in Mataderos, a district of Buenos Aires, to the bus driver Carlo Copes and the housewife María Magdalena Berti and grew up in the Villa Pueyrredón, another district on the outskirts. His maternal grandfather, Juan Berti, was a pianist who specialized in tango.

As a teenager he studied electrician. But he also attended tango evenings in social clubs, where he met Ms. Nieves.

In 1951, the couple took part in a major dance competition at Luna Park Stadium, where they won the grand prize among 300 couples. This led to appearances in clubs and cabarets and in 1955 to her first tango show at the Teatro El Nacional.

Mr. Copes and Mrs. Nieves went on tour four years later with the composer Astor Piazzolla. The itinerary included the United States, where they landed the first of several spots on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1962. The footage from this first performance shows the super-fast footwork, sharp kicks, and streamlined style that had made them so popular.

They married in Las Vegas in 1964. The marriage ended in 1973, but they continued to dance together until 1997, despite being very opposed to each other.

“We’d scold each other when we went on stage and carry on when we left the stage. But in between there were the real Copes nieves, ”said Copes in a 2007 interview.

After divorce became legal in Argentina, he married Myriam Albuernez in 1988.

Together with his daughter Johana, who has become his main partner in recent years, he is survived by Mrs. Albuernez. another daughter, Geraldine; and five granddaughters.

“He taught me how to breathe tango,” said Johana Copes. “His dance had a delicacy and purity that was difficult to achieve. I now understand why he always wanted to prepare, rehearse and dance. I understand this need. “

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Elias Rahbani, Lebanese Composer Who Sought New Sounds, Dies at 82

Elias Rahbani, Lebanese Composer Who Sought New Sounds, Dies at 82

On the Friday evening before the coronavirus hit Beirut, a pulsating crowd of partygoers stomped on the roof of a warehouse overlooking the harbor, dancing retro and fresh to music at the same time. His beat was unstoppable, his sound a mixture of lush Arabic diva melody, French pop from the 1960s and disco.

The musical mix did not require modern adjustments by a DJ. It was just another Elias Rahbani experiment.

From the 1960s to 1980s, Mr Rahbani, a Lebanese composer and lyricist who died of Covid-19 on January 4 at the age of 82, wrote instant classics for the Arab world’s most popular singers, commercial jingles, political anthems, movie soundtracks and Music for underground and experimental Arab artists.

The Rahbani sound was omnipresent. Many Lebanese people remember the jingles he wrote for picon cheese or Rayovac batteries, or the love themes he composed in 1974 for popular TV shows and films such as “Habibati” (“My Beloved”). His style changed often: he was one of the first composers to combine western electric instruments with traditional Arabic and combine western genres – prog rock, funk, R&B – with traditional Lebanese dabke folk dance music.

“His music is engraved in the memory of all Lebanese,” said Ernesto Chahoud, a Lebanese DJ who runs the Beirut Groove Collective, which hosted the camp parties. “He’s made great Arabic music, great Lebanese music, and at the same time he’s done all these western styles. That’s why it’s timeless. That’s why a lot of people want to hear his music today. “

He was never the face of the songs, unlike the celebrities he wrote for, including Fayrouz, the legendary Lebanese singer with the passed out voice, or Sabah, the film and music star with the golden hair. Along with his older brothers Mansour and Assi Rahbani – the musical duo of the Rahbani brothers – Elias Rahbani was popular among Lebanon’s political, religious and class divisions.

Still, he had ambitions that exceeded the borders of tiny Lebanon. One of his sons, Ghassan, said Mr Rahbani nearly signed a contract with a French company in 1976 that would have given him a wider audience and perhaps greater control over the rights to his music. it would also have meant moving to France. However, at the last minute he was overtaken by an onslaught of fondness for his country and decided not to sign.

Updated

Jan. 26, 2021, 7:36 ET

“My father lived with regret for the rest of his life,” said Ghassan Rahbani. Mr Rahbani died in a hospital in Beirut, his family said.

When he rejected the French treaty, Lebanon had just gotten into civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the fighting from 1975 to 1990. When it became too dangerous for Mr. Rahbani to travel to his usual studio in Beirut, he set up a makeshift facility in his apartment north of the city. He later evacuated to a rental property further north.

But he stayed productive.

Mr. Rahbani produced more than 6,000 tunes, said Mr. Chahoud. He wrote for pop stars; He wrote for an Armenian-Lebanese band, The News, who rode Mr. Rahbani’s psychedelic rock compositions to gain international recognition. He has written for political parties across the spectrum, including the Baathist Party of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

When asked about his political sympathies, he refused to be labeled. “I am above all, and everyone comes to me,” he once said, according to his son Ghassan.

Elias Hanna Rahbani was born on June 26, 1938 in Antelias, Lebanon, north of Beirut, to Hanna Assi Rahbani, a restaurant owner, and Saada Saab Rahbani, a housewife. The elder Mr. Rahbani played the bouzok, a lutel-like instrument. He died when Elias was 5 years old.

Elias Rahbani told Mr. Chahoud that he started playing the piano as a child after hearing hymns from the monastery near his family home. He became a pianist, but an injury to his right thumb forced him to switch to composing at the age of 19, said his son Ghassan. He finally got his big break while working for Radio Lebanon and writing songs for the singer Sabah.

Mr. Rahbani often worked with his older brothers who became famous for having written much of Fayrouz’s music. Although Mr. Rahbani wrote for many mainstream artists, he increasingly experimented with new sounds from around the world and often provided the material that helped kick-start the careers of little-known Lebanese bands and singers. Funk, French-Arabic, Latin American music, psychedelic rock and the French pop yé-yé all influenced his work.

In the 1970s, Mr. Rahbani was one of the first musicians to introduce western drums, electric guitars and synthesizers to Arabic music and use them in albums such as the traditional oud (which also resembles a lute) and the durbakke (a small hand drum) one inserted “Mosaic of the Orient.” Mr Chahoud said tracks on the album had been sampled far outside Lebanon, including by the Black Eyed Peas.

In recent years, Western-influenced Arabic music from Mr. Rahbani’s time has become popular in clubs and on internet radio in the Middle East and beyond. It is often played by DJs browsing vintage record and tape archives to find and promote songs by lesser known artists. well-known Arab artists.

But in Lebanon, Mr. Rahbani never left the soundtrack.

Hwaida Saad contributed to the coverage.

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Entertainment

Charlene Gehm, Protean Dancer With the Joffrey, Dies at 69

Charlene Gehm, Protean Dancer With the Joffrey, Dies at 69

Charlene Gehm, a dancer who delighted audiences and critics alike with her excellence in an unusually wide range of roles with the Joffrey Ballet and other troupes, died on January 10 at her Manhattan home. She was 69 years old.

Her husband, Gary MacDougal, said the cause was cancer.

The audience, who saw Mrs. Gehm perform at the Joffrey from 1976-1991 when it was based in New York (it’s now in Chicago) knew that she could give as best as she could while she pulled in combat, dragged and thrown around knockdown duets from William Forsythe’s “Love Songs”.

In contrast, when she worked with Rudolf Nureyev as a guest artist on Joffrey’s 1979 revival of Nijinsky’s “L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune”, she was an expert on silence, minimalism and poses with an archaic profile. He was the mythical fawn, and she was the wonderfully dead nymph that aroused him.

In “Les Patineurs” by the English choreographer Frederick Ashton, Frau Gehm was able to demonstrate her strong classical technique; In his “wedding bouquet” her presents could be seen as a funny comedian. As Jennifer Dunning wrote in the New York Times, Ms. Gehm’s appearance as a tipsy wedding guest could make you laugh, even though she appreciates its “subtlety, grace and a touch of bittersweet.”

In the 1970s she danced in a variety of other works as a member of the Washington National Ballet, including George Balanchine’s ballets, a production of “The Sleeping Beauty,” and a version of “Cinderella” choreographed by Ben Stevenson. her early mentor. On the way, Jerome Robbins, who had seen her in his works for ballet companies, hired her for the Broadway revival of his 1980 musical “West Side Story”.

For all of her success in different styles, Ms. Gehm (pronounced with a hard G) had her own distinctive stage presence. As a willowy blonde, she was “beautiful” in Mr. Stevenson’s words and was “not like Marilyn Monroe, but Grace Kelly”. For Mr. Stevenson, Mrs. Gehm’s versatility was a perfect match for the new, small American forces of the 1960s and 1970s.

As co-director of the National Ballet with Frederic Franklin, Mr Stevenson needed dancers “who can do anything,” he said in a telephone interview, adding, “I only had 28 dancers.”

Ms. Gehm was “very valuable and choreographers always wanted to use her in new ballets,” he said. “She was a good classical dancer with a confident technique and beautiful line, more of a soloist than a prima ballerina. She had a very positive personality. “

Denise Charlene Gehm was born on December 14, 1951 in Miami to Verna Mae (Wiley) Gehm and Charles William Gehm. Her mother was a waitress who became a caterer, and her father was a high school chemistry teacher. Her older daughter Jeannie died in a car accident in 1962 at the age of 18.

At the age of 6, Charlene was enrolled in the Marion Lorraine Dance School by her local mother, which taught various genres. When she was 8 years old, a booking agency arranged for Charlene to appear on evening shows at Miami’s tourist hotels. Her mother made costumes for her acrobatic routines, and her father created the props. In one act she was a sea urchin emerging from a clam; in another she was a jockey on a horse jumping over small hurdles. The music came from her mother’s record player.

Charlene also studied ballet with the nationally known teachers Georges Milenoff and Thomas Armor. She received a scholarship to the Harkness Ballet School in New York and began her professional career in 1969 with the Harkness Youth Dancers, directed by Mr. Stevenson. The troupe was funded by Rebekah Harkness and converted into the Harkness Ballet.

In 1971, Ms. Gehm followed Mr. Stevenson to the National Ballet, which closed in 1974. Ms. Gehm spent that year with the Chicago Ballet, where Mr. Stevenson was brief co-director with Ruth Page. After performing with the Ballet de Caracas in 1975, she joined Joffrey.

She married Mr. MacDougal in 1992; As managing director, he was director general of the New York Ballet, which was active in the Republican Party in Illinois and was appointed by President George Bush to various posts, including as a US delegate to the United Nations. They also had a home in Chicago.

In addition to her husband, Mrs. Gehm’s survivors also include her step-sons Gary MacDougal Jr. and Michael MacDougal.

After retiring from the Joffrey Ballet in 1991, Ms. Gehm received a bachelor’s degree in arts administration from New York University. She became interested in medieval studies and received a Masters degree in Columbia in 1998 with the title “History of Stained Glass in Canterbury Cathedral”. She also participated in the MacDougal Family Foundation’s scholarship programs, where she served as president.

After Mr. MacDougal became the founder and chairman of the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund, an American government program to promote free markets in Bulgaria – now called America Foundation for Bulgaria – in 1991, Ms. Gehm accompanied Mr. MacDougal on 25 trips to Bulgaria focused on the visit families in the Roma population who receive help from the Foundation Sometimes she took ballet classes at the Bulgarian National Ballet to keep in shape.

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Hank Aaron, legendary baseball participant, dies at age 86

Hank Aaron, legendary baseball player, dies at age 86

The Atlanta Braves’ right outfield player Hank Aaron (see close-up photo) has been named to the National League All Star team for the 16th consecutive year.

Bettmann | Getty Images

Famer Hank Aaron’s National Baseball Hall has died at the age of 86, a spokesman confirmed on Friday.

Aaron was a pioneer and trailblazer in the sport. Almost 50 years ago, Aaron Babe overtook Ruth in home races and now lives in second place behind Barry Bonds.

At a time when 17.4% of major league baseball players were African American, Aaron managed to break up as an icon, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.

Hall of Famer Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves swings on the ball circa 1960

Sport in focus | Getty Images

Aaron began his baseball career with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Baseball League after leaving his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, with only two dollars in hand.

“My mom told me that was all she had to give me and be very careful with,” Aaron said in an interview with NBC News.

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Elijah Moshinsky, Met Opera Director With Fanciful Contact, Dies at 75

Elijah Moshinsky, Met Opera Director With Fanciful Touch, Dies at 75

His anti-picture-book concept with a strong set turned out to be more effective for the powerfully voiced, dramatically volatile Mr. Vickers. The production (which can be seen on video) and the performance of Mr. Vickers were triumphs and changed the general understanding of opera.

The next year Peter Hall, director of the National Theater in London, invited Mr. Moshinsky to direct a production of Thomas Bernhard’s play “The Force of Habit,” which Mr. Moshinsky described as a comedic parable in the BBC interview with a “group of circus performers.” tries to play Schubert’s “Forellen” quintet, but can’t. ” The production was a dismal failure and only lasted six performances.

But that same year, Mr. Moshinsky found his booth with an acclaimed production of Berg’s “Wozzeck” for the Adelaide Festival, presented by the Australian Opera (now Opera Australia). In the following years he directed more than 15 productions for the company, including “Boris Godunov”, “Werther”, “Dialogues des Carmélites” and “Don Carlos”. At the Royal Opera he presented remarkable productions of “Lohengrin”, “Tannhaüser” and “The Rake’s Progress” as well as some Verdi rarities, including “Stiffelio” and “Attila”.

Mr. Moshinsky met Ruth Dyttman in 1967 during a Melbourne Youth Theater production of Brecht’s “The Caucasian Chalk Circle”. He designed the sets; She was in the cast. They married in 1970. Ms. Dyttman, a lawyer, survived him along with their two sons Benjamin and Jonathan and his brothers Sam and Nathan.

Mr. Moshinsky was an active theater director and worked at the National Theater, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and other institutions. He has directed several productions for the BBC television series of Shakespeare’s plays, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with a cast of Helen Mirren, Robert Lindsay and Nigel Davenport.

It was an enchanting production, wrote John O’Connor in a 1982 review for The Times, that “fully captured every important aspect of the play, from royal romp to hilarious comedy, from threatening rumblings in the woods to joyful celebrations.”

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Barbara Shelley, Main Girl of Horror Movies, Dies at 88

Barbara Shelley, Leading Lady of Horror Films, Dies at 88

This obituary is part of a series about people who died from the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

Sometimes Barbara Shelley was the victim. At the end of the film “Blood of the Vampire” (1958), the Victorian character she played was – her brocade top was really torn – in chains in the basement laboratory of a mad scientist.

She was at the mercy of Christopher Lee in “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” (1966), despite having fangs of her own before the end. (In fact, she accidentally swallowed one of them while filming her death scene, which she considered to be one of her best moments.)

Sometimes she was an innocent bystander. In “The Village of the Damned” (1960) she was impregnated by mysterious extraterrestrial rays and had a son – a beautiful, emotionless blond child whose bright eyes could kill.

Sometimes she was the monster, although in “Cat Girl” (1957) it wasn’t her fault that a centuries-old family curse turned her into a man-eating leopard.

Ms. Shelley, the elegant queen of the camp in British horror films for a decade, died in London on January 4th. She was 88 years old.

Her agent, Thomas Bowington, said in a statement that she spent two weeks in December in a hospital where she contracted Covid-19. It was treated successfully, but after she went home she died of what he called “underlying problems”.

Barbara Teresa Kowin was born on February 13, 1932 in Harrow, England, part of the greater London area. After appearing in a high school production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Gondoliers,” she decided to become an actress and began modeling to overcome her shyness.

Her film debut was part of “Man in Hiding” (1953), a crime drama. She enjoyed a vacation in Italy in 1955 so much that she stayed for two years and made films there. When Italians struggled to pronounce Kowin, she renamed herself Shelley.

When she was doing “Cat Girl” at home in England, she called as the lead actress of horror. Most of her best-known pictures were for Hammer Films, the London studio responsible for horror classics like “The Mummy” and “The Curse of Frankenstein”.

But often there weren’t any monsters on the screen. She played nearly a hundred other roles in films and on television. She was Mrs. Gardiner, the wise aunt of the Bennet sisters, in a 1980 miniseries of “Pride and Prejudice”. She appeared in “Doctor Who”, “The Saint”, “The Avengers” and “Eastenders”.

She has made guest appearances on mid-century American series including “Route 66” and “Bachelor Father”. In the 1970s she had a stage career as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her last film role was in “Uncle Silas” (1989), a miniseries starring Peter O’Toole.

But the horror films – her last was “Quatermass and the Pit” (1967), over a five million year old artifact – were her legacy.

“They’ve built a fan base for me and I’m very moved that people come and ask for my autograph,” Ms. Shelley told Express magazine in 2009. “Nobody remembers all the other things I’ve done.”

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Marsha Zazula, ‘Metallic Matriarch’ of Metallica and Others, Dies at 68

Marsha Zazula, ‘Metal Matriarch’ of Metallica and Others, Dies at 68

“Marsha and I went to bars and changed all the leaflets every two to three days,” wrote Mr. Zazula in his book, “and we posted telephone poles as if we were going to vote.”

In 1982 someone brought a demo tape from a West Coast band into the store. Realizing they were hearing something special, the zazulas urged the unknown band Metallica to come east to play some shows. The group crashed at the Zazula’s home for a while, “and things went a little crazy when women followed them home and ran around the house,” Ms. Zazula told Courier Post in Camden, New Jersey, in 2009. The Zazulas started Megaforce to release the band’s “Kill ‘Em All”.

Other bands and albums followed, with the zazulas often giving the musicians a place to stay and feeding them while barely feeding themselves.

“Marsha and I didn’t make any money,” Zazula-san said in Louder Than Hell. “We had just got into our first house and all of this happened when our children were born.”

As Ms. Zazula said in her interview with “Moguls and Madmen”: “Bologna was our filet mignon.”

Mr. Hetfield alluded to this time and Ms. Zazula’s role in his Instagram post.

“She was our mother when I didn’t have one,” he said. “She made great sacrifices to make Metallica grow.”

And the band or their popularity grew so much that after the release of the second Megaforce album “Ride the Lightning” in 1984 Metallica switched to a bigger label, Elektra. Other bands, including Anthrax, followed a similar path, breaking on the Megaforce label (Anthrax with the 1984 album “Fistful of Metal”) and then switching to a bigger one.

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Hong Kong Elvis Impersonator Dies at 68

Hong Kong Elvis Impersonator Dies at 68

“I cried for a long time,” he told The Times, remembering the first time he saw the film. “Elvis: That’s it.”

Mr. Kwok won two Elvis impersonation competitions in the early 1980s, the South China Morning Post reported, but local Chinese fans often mistook him for an imitator of other famous musicians – such as a Beatle or Michael Jackson.

By 1992, Mr. Kwok had quit his job and branded himself the “Cat King,” the Chinese nickname for Elvis. He also had his sights set on an easier quarry: Western expatriates and tourists.

His guitar was sometimes out of tune, his self-taught English a bit rough. (Presley’s first name was misspelled on his business card.)

Still, he made a living saying Elvis was the factory job. Some night owls got to know him as Melvis – no relationship with Relvis, an impersonator in the USA – or as “Lan Kwai Fong Elvis”, a reference to a nightlife in which he often appeared.

Mr Kwok died at the end of a year when coronavirus infections in live music venues caused the government to shut them down for months and empty the sidewalks of its potential customers. Ms. Ma said he spent much of his pandemic downtime watching Elvis videos and playing guitar in his apartment.

Mr. Kwok is survived by his wife Anna and their son and daughter.

His wife, who was also his manager, told the Times in 2010 that she initially did not support his campaign as Elvis. “But then I was moved by his persistence and dedication to the job,” she said.

It’s hard to find a job that you love, she added. “Now that he’s found it, I’m happy to support him.”

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Health

Harold N. Bornstein, Trump’s Former Private Doctor, Dies at 73

Harold N. Bornstein, Trump’s Former Personal Physician, Dies at 73

“He dictated this whole letter,” he told CNN. “I did not write this letter.”

Harold Nelson Bornstein was born on March 3, 1947 in New York City, the son of Dr. Jacob and Maida (Seltzer) Bornstein were born. Like his father, he wanted to become a doctor from an early age. A photo in his office showed him as a smiling boy with a stethoscope on a teddy bear in his hand. This is evident from a 2016 profile on the medical news website STAT. In high school he played in a band called Doc Bornstein and the Interns.

Dr. Bornstein moved to Tufts outside of Boston in 1968 and graduated in medicine there in 1975. He was very attached to the university, which 19 members of his extended family had attended over the years. He made an extravagant figure on campus; was a good student, if disrespectful; and wrote poetry under the pseudonym Count Harold.

Dr. Bornstein eventually joined his father in his Manhattan practice and had privileges at Lenox Hill Hospital, also on the Upper East Side. His father had once lived in Jamaica, Queens, near Mr. Trump’s youth home, and a patient of Jacob Bornstein is said to have introduced her. The older Dr. Bornstein died in 2010 at the age of 93.

Dr. Bornstein was proud of the concierge practice that he ran with his father for more than 50 years. “My greatest accomplishments,” he said in a 2017 interview with a Tufts Medical School alumni magazine, “have been avoiding managed care medicine and refusing to have the conservative beard and haircut that my parents used considered necessary for success. “

Dr. Bornstein, who lived north of New York City in Scarsdale, NY, was married three times, most recently to Melissa Brown, who survived him. He is also survived by a daughter, Alix; two sons who are also doctors, Robyn and Joseph; and two other sons, Jeremee and Jackson, according to the published obituary.

Dr. Bornstein was initially pleased with the attention he received as Mr. Trump’s personal physician, although his notoriety later molested him and his family.

On the back of his business cards, reported STAT, was his name and underneath it in Italian the phrase “dottore molto famoso” – “very famous doctor”.

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Barbara Weisberger, a Power in American Ballet, Dies at 94

Barbara Weisberger, a Force in American Ballet, Dies at 94

Barbara Weisberger, who founded the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia with a steadfast vision that would turn the troupe into a nationally recognized company, died on December 23rd at her home in Kingston, Pennsylvania. She was 94 years old.

Her family reported her death.

Originally trained in ballet in New York and Philadelphia, the young Barbara enjoyed studying dance like many children, but never had a career as a dancer in a professional company. Instead, she became an influential ballet teacher who played an important role in the development of regional ballet in America.

She was also the first child George Balanchine admitted to the school he opened in Manhattan in 1934. That connection was renewed after her family moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where she opened a ballet school in 1953 and attended seminars that Balanchine organized for teachers affiliated with small community troops.

Ms. Weisberger founded another school in Philadelphia in 1962 and the Pennsylvania Ballet the following year. By 1974, as Clive Barnes wrote in the New York Times that year, the company was “absolutely one of the best troops in the country”.

Ms. Weisberger’s time as artistic director, which ended in 1982, was a tour de force. She combined a focus on works by Balanchine, the official advisor to the Pennsylvania Ballet, with an openness to works by a variety of other choreographers.

A major early hit was the version of Carl Orff’s rough cantata “Carmina Burana,” performed by the Pennsylvania dancers with the New York City Opera.

During the same period Antony Tudor, the king of psychological ballet, staged his passionate dance drama “Jardin aux Lilas” for the Pennsylvania Company. In a 1967 performance, Barnes praised the “sensitivity” of Tudor’s production, adding that “the dancers repay the compliment with an almost touching sense of devotion.”

Ms. Weisberger started her company in Philadelphia with only a few students from Wilkes Barre School. These included Rose Marie Wright, who later became the lead dancer with Twyla Tharp’s modern dance troupe Roseanne Caruso and Robert Rodham, who after her dance in the New York Ballet also acted as the choreographer and then as the company’s ballet master.

Barbara Sandonato and Patricia Turko were highly recommended by Balanchine’s school, and Ms. Weisberger later recruited a world-class dancer, Lawrence Rhodes, while developing newcomers.

The troupe performed frequently in New York during the 1960s and 1970s, usually at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and at City Center in Manhattan. Public television made it known nationwide with its series “Dance in America”.

It also performed with missionary zeal in the United States, touring for one-night stands with one bus for the dancers and one for the orchestra. As Ms. Sandonato recalled in a telephone interview, some viewers had never seen live ballet performances.

Once, she said, there was no applause after the performance of “Concerto Barocco”, a Balanchine signature piece, and none for the second and third works in the program. But, she said after the troupe closed with Balanchine’s “Scotch Symphony”, “the audience screamed and roared.”

“The audience later told us at reception that they wanted to be very respectful until the end,” said Ms. Sandonato.

For Gretchen Warren, who joined the company in 1965, the first few years were fraught with small dangers. During an outdoor performance, she said, the dancers danced over small frogs on a makeshift stage in a cow pasture.

But there were also great joys. She was delighted, she said, that Ms. Weisberger had retained the choreography that Balanchine later modified in his own company, the New York Ballet, to the regret of some fans. One example was the Arabic dance from his “Nutcracker”. “I did a sluggish solo and danced at half the pace as it was originally done,” said Ms. Warren.

However, Ms. Weisberger didn’t want the Pennsylvania Ballet to be a copy of the New York Ballet, Ms. Sandonato said. “Balanchine talked about where to put an accent and how to do a plié,” she said. “But we had individual qualities, and he allowed that.”

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Barbara Linshes was born in Brooklyn on October 28, 1926, the daughter of Herman and Sally (Goldstein) Linshes, who worked in the clothing business. The family moved to Wilkes-Barre in 1940 and Mr. Linshes ran a well-known business there, the Paris Dress Shop.

When Barbara was 5 years old and still living in Brooklyn, her mother enrolled her in a local ballet school run by Marian Harwick, who had danced with the Metropolitan Opera. Thanks to Mrs. Harwick, Balanchine, newly arrived from Europe and little known in America, accepted 8-year-old Barbara as the first child in his School of American Ballet. Three years later she moved to the Metropolitan Opera ballet school.

Coincidentally, this was the time when Balanchine was tasked with choreographing new ballets and opera productions for the Metropolitan Opera. Barbara noticed him again. “I’ve been to the Met in all of his ballets – anything kids could use,” she told an interviewer.

On the way, she studied at the pioneering Littlefield Ballet School in Philadelphia as a teenager, attended the University of Delaware, and graduated from Penn State. While running her school and student company in Wilkes-Barre, she became a leading figure in the National Regional Ballet Association.

Ms. Weisberger founded the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia because she thought the city could better support a professional company. Nevertheless, she remained connected to the Wilkes-Barre region and spent every weekend there with her children.

She married Ernest Weisberger in 1949. He and his younger brother started a company that made bespoke kitchens. He died in 2013 at the age of 94.

Mrs. Weisberger is survived by a daughter, Wendy Kranson; one son, Steven; three grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

In 1972, Ms. Weisberger invited the American choreographer Benjamin Harkarvy, who worked in Holland, to become her deputy director and then artistic director alongside her as executive artistic director. But after years of struggling financially, they faced a hostile board of directors. Ms. Weisberger and Mr. Harkarvy submitted their forced resignation in 1982.

Rather than starting another business, in 1984 she started the Carlisle Project, an innovative program in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to develop choreographers. she ran it until 1996.

When asked over the years about her enduring loyalty to Balanchine at the Pennsylvania Ballet, she replied that it was “an aspired, unimposed influence”.

“He’s the best,” she would say.