Chopin - La Dame aux camélias

La Dame aux Camélias, written by Alexandre Dumas fils, was first published in 1848 and was apparently based on the author’s own liaison with the famous courtesan Marie Duplessis. The novel is undoubtedly one of the greatest romances ever written and it has inspired many other artistic works, of which the most famous are possibly Verdi’s opera La Traviata and, more recently, Baz Luhrmann’s movie Moulin Rouge. It follows almost naturally that a choreographer like John Neumeier would have been drawn to create a ballet based on this famous literary masterpiece.

Neumeier, though born in 1942 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States, has worked for most of his life in Germany where he presently holds the post of “Ballettintendant” of the Hamburg Ballet. After his early dance training in Milwaukee, Neumeier studied ballet both in Copenhagen and at the Royal Ballet School, in London. Interested in other subjects he also obtained a BA in English Literature and Theatre Studies from the Marquette University in Wisconsin. In 1963, the great ballerina Marcia Haydée met him in London; a meeting that eventually led to John Cranko engaging Neumeier to dance at the Stuttgart Ballet. It was here that, under the inspiring hand of Cranko, Neumeier created his first choreographies, with such success that, in 1969, he was appointed director of ballet in Frankfurt where he soon became a sensation. His fame comes not only from his very own interpretations of such celebrated ballets as The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet or Daphnis and Chloe but also from his very original creations such as choreographing “non-balletic” pieces, like Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion or some of Mahler’s symphonies. He also invented a variety of wonderful narrative ballets, of which the most famous are probably La Dame aux Camélias, his adaptations of works by Shakespeare and Sylvia. In 1973, he became chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet and in 1996 its “Intendant” (director), a post he...