Norbert Vesak

Although Vesak worked internationally as a choreographer, he was frequently referred to as "Canada's finest male dancer."{{cite news|last=Hunter|first=Don|title=A new company is born|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=January 9, 1970}} Early in his career, he often choreographed works and then danced in them as well, receiving critical acclaim for both roles.{{cite news|last=Hunter|first=Don|title=Vesak preview exciting event|newspaper=Province Paper|date=December 22, 1969}} He was described as a "Renaissance Man", well known as a lecturer, dancer, set and costume designer, and teacher, as well as for his choreography and work in the theater.{{cite news|last=MacDermid|first=Cassandre|title=Norbert Vesak Wins Friends For Contemporary Dance|newspaper=Trail Daily Times|date=March 26, 1970}} Vesak was born in Port Moody, British Columbia in 1936 to Frank and Nora Vesak, of Czech and Belgian descent.{{cite news|last=Lingg|first=Ann|title=The House|newspaper=The Metropolitan Mirror|date=January 1, 1977}} As a child, he was an opera fan who described listening to Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.{{cite book|last=Robinson|first=Francis|title=The Metropolitan Opera|year=1957|publisher=Doubleday and Company|location=New York|isbn=0-385-12975-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/celebrationmetro00robi/page/189 189]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/celebrationmetro00robi/page/189}} He studied dance in Edmonton, Alberta with Laine Metz and followed that with study under Josephine Slater, whom he described as having the greatest influence on his career at that time, because in addition to teaching and mentoring him, she introduced him to Ted Shawn who was one of the pioneers of modern dance in the United States.{{cite news|last=Wyman|first=Max|title=Canada's Happiness Dancers|newspaper=Dance Canada Danse Norbert Vesak Archives}} Vesak was given a scholarship to train with Shawn at Jacob's Pillow in Lee, Massachusetts, where he trained and eventually joined the teaching staff.{{cite news|title=Dance Collection Danse Archives}} Vesak also studied under Margaret Craske, Merce Cunningham, Geoffrey Holder, Pauline Koner, Madam La Meri, Robert Abramson, Ruth St. Denis, and Vera Volkova, among others.{{cite news|last=Anderson|first=Jack|title=Norbert Vesak, 53, Former Chief of the Met Opera Ballet, Is Dead|newspaper=The New York Times|date=October 5, 1990}} He was classically trained, and was a member of the Royal Academy of Dancing and Ballet in Britain and also studied ethnic dance extensively.{{cite news|last=Hunter|first=Don|title=Dance: A new company is born|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=January 9, 1970}} Although he wanted to be an actor, at the age of 17, he decided on dance and was awarded a scholarship in 1960 to Jacob's Pillow Dance in Massachusetts, where he studied under the direction of Ted Shawn and other well-known teachers.{{cite news|last=Hunter|first=DON|title=A new company is born|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=January 9, 1970}} When Vesak returned to Vancouver, he co-founded the Pacific Dance Theatre in 1964 and later founded the eponymous Norbert Vesak Dancers, which became the Western Dance Theatre in 1970.{{cite web|title=Artists Biography: Norbert Vesak|url=http://www.artsalive.ca/en/dan/meet/bios/artistDetail.asp?artistID=76|work=ArtsAlive.ca|publisher=Dance National Arts Center|accessdate=June 7, 2013}}

In 1964, Norbert Vesak was named resident choreographer for the Vancouver Playhouse Theater.{{cite web|title=Cameron Academy|url=http://www.cameronacademy.ca/about/|accessdate=June 7, 2013|archive-date=August 21, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130821191742/http://www.cameronacademy.ca/about/|url-status=dead}} He went to England to perform with Western Theatre Ballet, and then returned to Canada.{{cite web|title=Meet the Artists: Norbert Vesak|url=http://www.artsalive.ca/en/dan/meet/bios/artistDetail.asp?artistID=76|work=ArtsAlive.co|accessdate=May 12, 2013}} During the 1960s, he served as the resident choreographer for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Theatre Calgary and the Banff Festival Ballet, and several other companies, doing choreography, teaching, and directorial work.{{cite web|title=Meet the Artists: Norbert Vesak|url=http://www.artsalive.ca/en/dan/meet/bios/artistDetail.asp?artistID=76|publisher=ArtsAlive.ca|accessdate=June 7, 2013}}

By the time he founded the Western Dance Theatre, he had already created 60 major works and had been a guest choreographer at several companies.{{cite news|last=Hunter|first=Don|title=A new company is born|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=January 9, 1970}} His work with the Western Dance Theater was, by his description, designed to present stories about human relations, with influences from the monumental geography of British Columbia: "We would hope the rugged beauty of the environment of B.C. was evident in Western Dance Theatre's work, and that it is truly a product of a unique area of Canadian topography."{{cite news|last=Wyman|first=Max|title=City enriched by two dance companies|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=November 7, 1970}} Vesak often undertook large, complex projects that attracted critical admiration for their scope, as for example, in June, 1969, when he choreographed Pierrot Lunaire by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, danced to the central part of Schoenberg's 21-part orchestration of poems by Belgian poet Albert Giraud.{{cite news|last=Wyman|first=Max|title=Virtuosity Amidst Quantity|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=June 25, 1969}} One of Vesak's major objectives was educating the public about contemporary dance, and his companies often presented free educational programs on contemporary dance in public schools and other public venues.{{cite news|title=Vesak's Great Promise: A big dance step|newspaper=Vancouver Express|date=April 30, 1970}}{{cite news|last=Wyman|first=Max|title=Letting the Kids Tell It All|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=November 29, 1968}} His dance school in Vancouver at one time had an enrollment of more than 700 students.

From 1961 to 1962, he published what has been called the "shortest-lived dance magazine in Canadian history".{{cite journal|last=Bowring|first=Amy|title=Marking Time|journal=The Dance Current|date=May 2008|volume=11|issue=1|page=14}} Called "The Canadian Dance World Magazine", Vesak and Slater published a total of six issues of the free 16-page magazine and distributed it to 300 individuals who were interested in dance. Each issue had its own theme including: men in dance, ethnic dance, religion in dance, symbolism, and leaders of the modern dance movement.{{cite journal|last=Bowring|first=Amy|title=Marking Time|journal=The Dance Current|date=May 2008|volume=11|issue=1|page=14}} He described the magazine as being "dedicated to the furtherance of dance" in Canada and he published it without attribution.{{cite journal|last=Vesak|first=Norbert|title=Dear Reader|journal=The Canadian Dance World Magazine|year=1961|volume=1|series=Dance Canada Danse Archives|issue=1|pages=2}} Known for choreographing both classical and contemporary work, in 1963, Vesak debuted his choreographic work entitled Parenthesis, at the first Canadian Modern Dance Festival in Toronto.{{cite news|last=Anderson|first=Jack|title=Norbert Vesak, 53, Former Chief of the Met Opera Ballet, Is Dead|newspaper=The New York Times|date=October 5, 1990}} He also created works, such as From Ecstasy to Despair in 1969, that were described as futuristic and emotionally jarring, that provided an important social message.{{cite news|last=McLeod|first=Brian|title=Vesak dancers mirror social schizophrenia|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=September 17, 1969}} He was director of the San Francisco Opera ballet from 1970 to 1975. He was named official choreographer for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1975.{{cite book|last=Dafoe|first=Christopher|title=Dancing Through Time|year=1990|publisher=Portage and Main|isbn=978-0969426417}} Also in 1975, he was named director of the Metropolitan Opera ballet.{{cite news|last=Anderson|first=Jack|title=Norbert Vesak, 53, Former Chief of the Met Opera Ballet, Is Dead|newspaper=The New York Times|date=October 5, 1990}} He became one of the most internationally renowned choreographers of his time, having the rare distinction of being awarded two international gold medals for choreography in a single year, with his broad range of work performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and South America.{{cite news|title=Into a Fantasy World: A History of Ballet|url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/ballet/|newspaper=Canadian Broadcasting Company|date=September 7, 2004}}

Two notable ballets Vesak created in the 1970s, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe and What To Do 'Till the Messiah Comes, were major successes for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and highlighted important cultural and sociological issues.{{cite journal|last=Terry|first=Walter|title=The Met: A New Ballet Look|journal=Dance Magazine|date=February 5, 1977}} The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, was commissioned by the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood and debuted as a ballet in 1971.{{cite encyclopedia|author=Michael Crabb; Penelope Reed Doob|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/norbert-vesak|title=Norbert Vesak|encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia|accessdate=August 29, 2019}} The ballet was based on a controversial play written by George Ryga about a young Aboriginal girl who leaves the reservation to move to the big city, and about the cultural conflicts, poverty, and violence that she experiences.{{cite news|title=The Ecstasy of Rita Joe: Royal Canadian Ballet revisits Groundbreaking Work|url=http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/scene/other/2011/05/04/the-ecstasy-of-rita-joe/|newspaper=Canadian Broadcasting Company|date=May 4, 2011}} Vesak's ballet was said to surpass the play itself in terms of delivering the intended message to the audience: "Most of the reviews were vehement in their support of the ballet's antiracist message. William Littler in the Toronto Daily Star called it 'perhaps the ballet of 1971, in terms of its social importance to Canadians'. He noted that the ballet is 'less angry, less polemical in tone than Ryga's play, which hammers away at the idea that white justice cannot comprehend the Indian fact.' In 'the abstracting medium of dance,' wrote Littler, the message 'loses some of its soap-box shrillness and gains symbolic power.'"{{cite book|last=Pepper|first=Kaija|title=Renegade Bodies - Canadian Dance in the 1970s|year=2012|publisher=Dance Collection Danse Press|isbn=9780929003702|pages=4–5}} The commissioning of this work by the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood was said to have been a calculated effort by the Brotherhood to bring the message about the effects of racism against indigenous peoples to a larger population through use of a medium, ballet, that was not usually used for inspiring societal understanding.{{cite book|last=Pepper|first=Kaija|title=Renegade Bodies: Canadian Dance in the 1970s|year=2012|publisher=Dance Collection Danse Press|isbn=978-0929003702}} "As a platform for Aboriginal rights, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe was undeniably potent, with people sobbing at the end of the ballet."{{cite book|last=Pepper|first=Kaija|title=Renegade Bodies|year=2012|publisher=Dance Canada Danse|location=Toronto|isbn=978-0929003702|page=14}}

The ballet met with equal success when it was performed internationally: “Themes explored in Norbert Vesak’s the Ecstasy of Rita Joe met with resounding acceptance throughout Australia on the spring tour of 1972. Anna Maria de Gorriz, in the title role, brought down the house with curtain calls in Sidney and Melbourne.”{{cite book|last=Dafoe|first=Christopher|title=Dancing Through Time|year=1990|publisher=Portage and Main|isbn=978-0969426417|page=70}}

In 1973, What to do Till the Messiah Comes became another of Vesak's most acclaimed works, described as a visionary ballet set to rock music,{{cite book|last=Craine|first=Debra|title=Oxford Dictionary of Dance|year=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199563449|page=[https://archive.org/details/oxforddictionary0000crai_a8h2/page/471 471]|url=https://archive.org/details/oxforddictionary0000crai_a8h2/page/471}} and in 1980, he won gold medals for his choreography of Belong Pas de Deux from that work at the International Ballet Concours in both Varna, Bulgaria and Osaka, Japan. In addition, Canadian ballerina Evelyn Hart won a gold medal in Varna, Bulgaria for her performance of Belong with David Peregrine in 1980. Hart rose to international stardom, and Vesak's "Belong" became a signature piece for her.{{cite news|title=Triumphant, in Winnipeg|newspaper=Dance Canada Danse Norbert Vesak Archives}} Belong Pas de Deux remains one of Vesak's most enduring works, and is in the repertoires of ballet companies worldwide.{{cite web|title=Contemporary Dance Videos|url=http://contemporarydancevideos.com/belong-pas-de-deux/|work=Belong Pas de Deux|accessdate=July 27, 2013}} Performances of it were televised in several countries including Canada, the United States, Scotland, England, Germany, and Israel, and it became the title subject of an IMAX film entitled Heart Land, which was released in 1987 and distributed internationally.{{cite web|title=IMAX Is Believing|url=http://www.imax.com/movies/m/heart-land/|accessdate=May 26, 2013|archive-date=June 26, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120626164838/http://www.imax.com/movies/m/heart-land/|url-status=dead}}{{cite book|last=Neufeld|first=James|title=Passion to Dance: National Ballet of Canada|year=2011|publisher=Dundurn|isbn=978-1459701212|pages=155}}{{cite news|last=Albertson|first=Kristi|title=Fresh Legs|url=http://www.dailyinterlake.com/community/lifestyle/article_e78d7d6e-7b6f-5d41-af8e-19e5d98cfe72.html?mode=jqm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130727030200/http://www.dailyinterlake.com/community/lifestyle/article_e78d7d6e-7b6f-5d41-af8e-19e5d98cfe72.html?mode=jqm|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 27, 2013|newspaper=The Daily Inner Lake|date=March 11, 2007}} In 1989, Norbert Vesak collaborated with director Franco Zeffirelli, choreographing La Traviata for the Metropolitan Opera.{{cite news|title=Review/Opera; More Zeffirelli on the Grand Scale In the Met's New 'Traviata'|newspaper=The New York Times|date=October 18, 1989}}

In addition to his choreography work, Norbert Vesak was highly sought after for his skill as a Master Teacher, particularly regarded for the individual attention he gave to dancers.{{cite news|last=Anderson|first=Jack|title=Norbert Vesak, 53, Former Chief of the Met Opera Ballet, Is Dead|newspaper=The New York Times|date=October 5, 1990}} He often co-taught master classes with Joffrey Ballet founder Robert Joffrey.{{cite news|last=Lingg|first=Ann|title=The House|newspaper=The Metropolitan Mirror|date=January 1, 1977}} Vesak's commitment to mentoring and providing dance opportunities to young dancers, as well as raising interest in dance, was clear throughout his life.

Vesak was regularly chosen to create new works for international companies, receiving commissions from such institutions as the Metropolitan Opera, the Berlin Ballet, the North Carolina Dance Theatre, the Los Angeles Ballet, the Miami Ballet, the Scottish Ballet, the Joffrey II Dancers, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the National Ballet of Canada, the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, The Alberta Ballet, Ballet Florida in Palm Beach, National Association for Regional Ballet, the Marin Ballet in San Rafael, California, and the Deutsche Opera Ballet in Berlin, in addition to many others.{{cite news|last=Anderson|first=Jack|title=Norbert Vesak, 53, Former Chief Of the Met Opera Ballet, Is Dead|newspaper=The New York Times|date=October 5, 1990}}

Norbert Vesak's long-time partner and creative collaborator was Robert de La Rose, a costume and set designer who worked on Vesak's productions and was involved in the concept development of many of Vesak's works.{{cite news|last=Montee|first=Kristy|title=This Ballet Premiere is Saga in Itself|newspaper=Sun Sentinel|date=February 20, 1994}}{{cite news|last=Wyman|first=Max|title=Canada's Happiness Dancers|newspaper=Dance Canada Danse Norbert Vesak Archives|year=1970}}

Lady of the Camellias was conceived by Norbert Vesak and Robert de La Rose to be a full-length ballet based on the novel of the same name by Alexander Dumas.{{cite news|last=Montee|first=Kristy|title=This Ballet Premiere is Saga in Itself|newspaper=Sun Sentinel|date=February 20, 1994}} Although Vesak worked on the concept, the libretto, selected the music, and even had the costumes designed by de La Rose, Lady of the Camellias was ultimately choreographed by another international choreographer, Val Caniparoli.{{cite news|last=Montee|first=Kristy|title=This Ballet Premiere is Saga in Itself|url=http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1994-02-20/entertainment/9402160688_1_san-francisco-ballet-norbert-vesak-val-caniparoli|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130722163032/http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1994-02-20/entertainment/9402160688_1_san-francisco-ballet-norbert-vesak-val-caniparoli|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 22, 2013|newspaper=Sun Sentinel|date=February 20, 1994}} Vesak died suddenly of a brain aneurysm while on his way to attend the 20th anniversary celebration of North Carolina Dance Theater, where a work that he had designed for that company in 1975, The Gray Goose of Silence, was being performed to commemorate the occasion.{{cite news|last=Anderson|first=Jack|title=Norbert Vesak, 53, Former Chief Of the Met Opera Ballet, Is Dead|newspaper=The New York Times|date=October 5, 1990}} After his death, Lady of the Camellias remained in limbo for three years until de La Rose approached Caniparoli about taking it on.{{cite news|last=Keane|first=Erin|title=Doomed Love Affair Opens Ballet Season|url=http://wfpl.org/post/doomed-love-affair-opens-ballet-season|newspaper=WFPL News|date=October 1, 2012}} Caniparoli had known Vesak well, since Vesak had given Caniparoli his first professional job and was also one of Caniparoli's teachers.{{cite news|last=Morris|first=Bradley|title=Bringing New Life to An Old Story|url=http://www.urbantulsa.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A56446|newspaper=Urban Tulsa Weekly|date=January 30, 2013}} Caniparoli agreed to do the project, adapting Vesak's concept and music to his own choreography, with de La Rose providing the costume and partial set design.{{cite news|last=Montee|first=Kristy|title=This Ballet Premiere Is Saga In Itself|url=http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1994-02-20/entertainment/9402160688_1_san-francisco-ballet-norbert-vesak-val-caniparoli|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130722163032/http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1994-02-20/entertainment/9402160688_1_san-francisco-ballet-norbert-vesak-val-caniparoli|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 22, 2013|newspaper=Sun Sentinel|year=1994}} It was Caniparoli's first full-length work, and debuted by Ballet Florida in 1994.{{cite news|last=Montee|first=Kristy|title=This Ballet: Premiere Is a Saga in Itself|newspaper=Sun Sentinel|date=February 20, 1994}} It has since been performed by many companies including: Ballet West, Ballet Florida, Boston Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, Alberta Ballet, Diablo Ballet, and Royal Winnipeg Ballet.{{cite web|last=Keane|first=Erin|title=Doomed Love Affair Opens Ballet Season|date=2 October 2012 |url=http://wfpl.org/post/doomed-love-affair-opens-ballet-season|publisher=WFPL News}}{{cite news|title=Tulsa Ballet Stages Lady of the Camellias this February|work=January 17, 2013|publisher=Tulsa Ballet News}}

"A trained artist can extemporize, but training comes first. You have to be a master of your physical inadequacies, and the only way to do so is to study. No one is born with a dancer's body."{{cite news|last=Sunter|first=Robert|title=Vesak Seeks Craft First|newspaper=Vancouver Sun}}

• Gold Medal for Choreography, Tokyo World Ballet Concours (1980){{cite journal|title=Vesak wins top honors twice.|journal=Dance Magazine|date=September 1980|pages=5–6}}
• Gold Medal for Choreography, International Ballet Festival, Varna, Bulgaria (1980){{cite web|title=Danse Collection Danse|url=http://www.dcd.ca/general/Resources/70DCDTheMagazine.pdf|work=More Past Made Present|access-date=2013-06-24|archive-date=2016-03-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303232628/http://www.dcd.ca/general/Resources/70DCDTheMagazine.pdf|url-status=dead}}

• Family Portrait (Pacific Dance Theatre)
• Springhill '58 (Pacific Dance Theatre)
• Cainsmorning (Western Dance Theatre)
• The Land Before Time (Playhouse Theatre)
• Chichester Psalms (Western Dance Theatre)
• Concierto (Western Dance Theatre)
• Pearl White Moments (Western Dance Theatre)
• Home Sweet Home (Western Dance Theatre)
• Turangalila (Western Dance Theatre){{cite news|last=Barber|first=James|title=Why Lynn Seymour is back in town|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=May 16, 1970}}
• Pierrot Lunaire (Norbert Vesak Dance Studio){{cite news|last=Wyman|first=Max|title=Virtuosity Amidst Quantity|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=June 25, 1969}}
• The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (Royal Winnipeg Ballet)
• What To Do Till the Messiah Comes (Royal Winnipeg Ballet)
• Belong Pas de Deux (Royal Winnipeg Ballet)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (North Carolina Dance Theater)
• Carmen (Santa Barbara Ballet)
• Nutcracker (Marin Civic Ballet)
• Grass and Wild Strawberries (Playhouse Theatre)
• When We Are Kings (Banff Festival Ballet){{cite news|last=Wyman|first=Max|title=Banff's festival ballet excels Itself|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=August 20, 1971}}
• Don Giovanni (Directed by Franco Zeffirelli) Metropolitan Opera
• Blue Is the Color of My True Love's Bag (Playhouse Theatre)
• Once for the Birth Of... (Playhouse Theatre)
• Esclarmonde Performed at San Francisco Opera, Metropolitan Opera
• First Century Garden Performed at Canada's Contemporary Dancers
• Fruhlingstimmen (Music: Johann Strauss Sr. and Jr.) (Commissioned for the International Garden Festival, Munich)
• Mass (Directed and Choreographed) West Coast Premiere, Music by Leonard Bernstein Set design: Ming Cho Lee Performed at: University of California, Berkeley
• The Gift to Be Simple (Western Dance Theatre, Vancouver)
• Pas de Deux (Nice Opera, France)
• Pas de Deux (L'Opera Paris)
• Die Fledermaus Variations (Metropolitan Opera Ensemble)
• Stravinsky Dances (Music: Igor Stravinsky) (International Ballet Competition, Helsinki)
• Table Manners (Joanna Berman, San Francisco Ballet)
• Tchaikowsky Dances (Dancers: Cynthia Gregory and Fernando Bujones) (New World Ballet)
• The Rite of Spring (New World Ballet) Debut: Galena Panoff & Anthony Dowel
• Meadow Dances (Dancers: Evelyn Hart and David Peregrine) (Royal Winnipeg Ballet)
• Threepenny Dances (Music: Kurt Weill) (New Jersey Ballet)
• The Gershwin Song Book, Music: George Gershwin, Costumes and sets: Robert de La Rose, Performed at Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal
• In Quest of the Sun (Greg Martindale Debut: Royal Winnipeg Ballet, 1975)
• Babar, Music: Francis Poulenc, Debut: The Breakers, Newport, RI (1978) and played at the White House (1979)

• The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (CBC series Musicamera) (1974)
• The Metropolitan Opera Presents: 'Rigoletto' (1977)
• The Metropolitan Opera Presents: 'Rigoletto' (1981)
• Heart Land IMAX Film featuring Belong Pas de Deux
• Collaboration with Industrial Light and Magic to produce special effects for Clara's Dream (1987)
• Evelyn Hart's Moscow Gala, Produced by Triune Films for Canadian Broadcasting System (1987)
• "To Be A Dancer" (Film Project with Bruce Nicholson, Lucasfilm)

• 1969 Faust (Vancouver Opera Association){{cite news|title=VESAK--A man bringing new concepts to acting|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=February 14, 2013}}
• 1972 L'Africaine (San Francisco Opera)
• 1972 Le Nozze di Figaro (San Francisco Opera)
• 1973 Boris Godunov (San Francisco Opera)
• 1973 Die Fledermaus (San Francisco Opera)
• 1973 La Favorita (San Francisco Opera)
• 1973 Rigoletto (San Francisco Opera)
• 1973 Tannhäuser (San Francisco Opera)
• 1973 La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein (San Francisco Opera)
• 1974 Esclarmonde (San Francisco Opera)
• 1977 Tannhauser (Metropolitan Opera) (Also performed in 1978, 1982, 1984, 1987)
• 1979 La Gioconda (Metropolitan Opera)
• 1980 La Traviata (San Francisco Opera)
• 1982 Sagracao Do Primavera (Music: Igor Stravinsky) (Ballet Teatro Municipal Do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
• 1982 Mephistofeles (Greater Miami Opera)
• 1983 Lied Des Windes (Bavarian State Opera House, Munich)
• 1983 Tango Finale (Bavarian State Opera House, Munich)
• 1984 Sacre du Printemps (Bavarian State Opera House, Munich)
• 1984 Samson & Delilah (Florentine Opera)
• 1984 Graduation Ball (Bavarian State Opera, Munich)
• 1984 Silent Promises (Bavarian State Opera, Munich)
• 1985 Elegie Fur Eine Tote Liebe (Birgit Keil, Stuttgart Ballet)
• 1985 Pieces of Glass (Music: Philip Glass) (Stuttgart Ballet)
• 1986 Der Tod in Venedig (Bavarian State Opera Ballet, Munich)
• 1986 The Dance Alphabet (Bavarian State Opera House, Munich)
• 1986 Kinder Sinfonie (Bavarian State Opera House, Munich)
• 1990 Don Giovanni (Metropolitan Opera) (Also performed in 1991, 1994, 1995, 1997)

• Carmen (Greater Miami Opera)
• Trouble in Tahiti (Leonard Bernstein)
• Mass (Leonard Bernstein)
• Samson & Dalila (Camille Saint-Saëns)
• The Medium (Gian Carlo Menotti)
• Carmen (Georges Bizet) (New Orleans Grand Opera)
• Babar: The Little Elephant (Francis Poulenc)
• The Merry Widow (Greater Miami Opera, 1981){{cite news|last=Hanahan|first=Donal|title=Music View: The Rise of the Greater Miami Opera|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/01/arts/music-view-the-rise-of-the-greater-miami-opera.html|accessdate=June 27, 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=February 1, 1981}}

• [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/norbert-vesak Norbert Vesak] at The Canadian Encyclopedia
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120706031901/http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/index.aspx Metropolitan Opera]

{{reflist}}

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Category:1936 births

Category:1990 deaths

Category:Deaths from intracranial aneurysm

Category:Canadian male ballet dancers

Category:Canadian theatre directors

Category:Ballet choreographers

Category:Ballet teachers

Category:Dance writers

Category:Modern dance

Category:Metropolitan Opera people

Category:Royal Winnipeg Ballet