Anthony Russell-Roberts

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anthony de Villeneuve Russell-Roberts, CBE, MA (Oxon), is the Administrative Director of the Royal Ballet and the executor and residual legatee of the will of the late Sir Frederick Ashton.

Anthony de Villeneuve Russell-Roberts was born on 25 March 1944, the son of Francis Douglas Russell-Roberts and the pianist Edith Margaret Gertrudis Russell-Roberts, née Ashton. He is the nephew of the dancer and choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton and the executor and residual legatee of Ashton's will.

Russell-Roberts was educated at Eton College and, after Voluntary Service Overseas in British Honduras (1961-62), at New College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (BA, MA).

On leaving Oxford, having decided that he was unlikely to succeed in his preferred career as a professional painter, he became a general management trainee at the brewery Watney Mann (1965-68). In 1968 he joined the property developers Lane Fox and Partners, becoming a partner himself in 1971.

In 1976 his career took a change of direction when he became a stage manager for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and in 1977 he was a stage manager for Kent Opera. From 1977 until 1980 he was assistant to the General Director of the Royal Opera House, and from 1981 until 1983 he was Artistic Administrator of Opéra National de Paris. Later in 1983 he returned to the Royal Opera House as Administrative Director of the Royal Ballet.

In the New Year Honours List 2004 HM The Queen appointed him Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire "for services to dance".

Russell-Roberts has been married, and divorced, twice. He has a step son, Ingo Ferruzzi, and a step daughter, Anita Ferruzzi, from his first marriage and two daughters, Tabitha and Juliet, from his second marriage, to Anne, née Dunhill.

He is a member of the Garrick Club.

Since 7 April 2000 he has been a Non-executive director of the pharmaceutical company Amarin.