the O'Keefe Centre. The O'Keefe Centre opened on October 1, 1960, with a red-carpet gala. The first production was Alexander H. Cohen's production of the pre-Broadway premiere of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot, starring Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet. Camelot was followed by musical productions featuring such artists as Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Angela Lansbury, Alfred Drake, Yul Brynner, Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey, Katharine Hepburn and Rudolf Nureyev. Popular music artists including Bob Dylan, Janet Jackson, Elton John, Steve Earle, Leonard Cohen, Elvis Costello (November 1978), David Bowie (June 1974), Lou Reed (June 2000), and bands such as The Grateful Dead, The Who, Jefferson Airplane (August 1967), Led Zeppelin (November 1969), Radiohead (June 2006), The Carpenters, The Clash (September 1979) and Beastie Boys (September 2007) played concerts at the performing arts venue. Other artists who have performed on the arts venue's stage in a range of solo shows, revues and jazz spectaculars include: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Marlene Dietrich, Diana Ross, Anne Murray, Tom Jones, Danny Kaye, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis Jr., Bill Cosby, Jack Benny, Liza Minnelli and Liberace. The venue has also played host to several large-scale ballet and dance performances: the National Ballet of Canada held seasonal performances at the venue from 1964 to 2006, and the venue has also seen frequent visits by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. The venue has also welcomed a wide range of international dance companies such as Les Ballets Africains, Britain's Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Dutch National Ballet, the National Ballet of Cuba, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Folklorico of Mexico, as well as the Kirov and Bolshoi Ballet companies from the then-Soviet Union. It was during a 1974 Bolshoi visit that a young Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union by escaping the venue into a waiting getaway car, aided by later Jim Peterson and businessman Tim Stewart. Like The National Ballet, The Canadian Opera Company made the Centre its home stage, from as early as 1961 to 2006. Many of Canada's greatest singers, as well as many international opera stars, have performed for Centre audiences in COC productions. In addition, although touring opera is now rare, in earlier days the performing arts venue played host to The Met and to such well-known performers as Birgit Nilsson, Plácido Domingo and Renata Scotto. In early February 1996, the