Egon Madsen

Egon Madsen (born 24 August 1942)

Career In 1957, Madsen moved to Copenhagen. He joined the Pantomime Theatre in Tivoli Gardens, while also attending private ballet classes with Birger Bartholin and Edite Frandsen. In 1959, he joined Elsa-Marianne von Rosen's Scandinavian Ballet, which toured in Denmark and Sweden, as a soloist.

In 1961, when Madsen was 19, he moved to Germany and joined the Stuttgart Ballet, where choreographer John Cranko had recently became the company's artistic director. Madsen was hired as a soloist but was soon promoted to principal dancer. Dance critic Horst Koegler wrote that Madsen "charmed his audiences with his mercurial temperament and high spirits, as he was a "born bouncer" and an irrepressible comedian," but "also had an introspective side."

Madsen also originated roles for other choreographers. For Kenneth MacMillan, he created the role of Messenger of Death in Song of the Earth (1965), Madsen also created a role in Glen Tetley's Daphnis and Chloe (1975), and the role of Armand Duval in John Neumeier's The Lady of the Camellias (1978). In 2015, Madsen conceived and starred in the play Greyhounds, about dancers and aging, at Theaterhaus Stuttgart. The play also featured retired Stuttgart dancers Marianne Kruuse, Julia Krämer and Thomas Lempertz, and choreography by Gauthier, Neumeier, Mauro Bigonzetti, Marco Goecke, and Amos Ben-Tal. In 2018, celebrating his 75th birthday, Madsen appeared in a special programme by Gauthier Dance, performing in Don Q, Greyhounds, Bigonzetti's Cantata and 7557. In 2019, he performed as Franz Joseph I of Austria in MacMillan's Mayerling with the Stuttgart Ballet. In 2020, he performed Bigonzetti's solo Egon King Madsen Lear.

Personal life Madsen is married to Lucia Isenring, also a ballet dancer. As of 2017, they live in Montemontanaro, Italy.