Władysław Milon was born on January 1, 1923 in Kaunas. He completed his training at the local Ballet Studio of the Opera and Ballet Theatre, where he performed as a dancer, and later a soloist, from 1938 to 1945. Then, from 1946 to 1947, he performed with Parnell’s Polish Ballet, among others in Cracow. Between 1947 and 1950, he danced in the Polish House Song and Dance Ensemble. In 1951, he made a guest appearance at the Silesian Opera in Bytom in a production of Asafyev’s The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.
From the 1951/1952 season onwards, he worked as the first soloist and assistant choreographer at the Poznań Opera; in the 1962/1963 season, he was named director of the Poznań Opera ballet company, with which he toured Europe, performing in Genoa, Liège, Zagreb, Belgrade, Moscow, among others. From 1953 onwards, he taught classical dance at the State Ballet School in Poznań.
Milon’s debut at the Poznań Opera was his rendition of Francis in Léo Delibes’s Coppélia. Some of his other major parts included:
Hilarion in Adolphe Adam’s Giselle, Twardowski in Ludomir Różycki’s Mr Twardowski, Carmelo in Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo, Romeo and Tybalt in Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Desire in Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, Veloslav in Adam Swierzyński’s The Amber Maiden, Siegfried in Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, as well as the title roles in Ludwig Minkus’ Don Quixote and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.
Milon choreographed Apolinary Szeluta’s opera Kalina and co-choreographed a number of other pieces, including Benjamin Britten’s Spring Symphony and Robert Schumann’s Carnaval.
He retired in 1979, and passed away on March 4, 1985 in Poznań.
