Paris Opera Ballet Brings La Dame aux Camélias to Monaco

Monaco Dance Forum, in a co-production with the Grimaldi Forum Monaco, presents the Paris Opera Ballet in John Neumeier’s La Dame aux Camélias.  

This is in keeping with its policy of inviting companies to the Principality which rarely, if ever, come to Monaco.  

An American-born dancer, John Neumeier first studied in the US, before further ballet study in both Copenhagen and at The Royal Ballet School. John Cranko then invited him to join Stuttgart Ballet, where he became a soloist and continued his choreographic development.  He became Director of Ballet Frankfurt and Director and Chief Choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet, as well as founding the School of the Hamburg Ballet, and in 2011 he founded Germany’s National Youth Ballet. As a choreographer, Neumeier has continually focused on the preservation of ballet tradition, while giving his works a modern dramatic framework. His ballets range from new versions of full-length story ballets to musicals and his symphonic ballets – The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet and The Sleeping Beauty, as well as new works such as Hamlet 21, Beethoven Project II and Dona Nobis Pacem. 

John Neumeier has worked as a guest choreographer with many companies around the world including The Royal Ballet, The Vienna, Munich and Dresden State Operas, The Stuttgart Ballet, The Royal Danish Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, The Tokyo Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, The Ballet of the Mariinsky Theater, the Bolshoi and Stanislavsky Ballet and The National Ballet of China

^{Video via Opéra national de Paris on YouTube}

Although La Dame aux Camélias (The Lady of the Camellias) bears a resemblance to Frederick Ashton’s 1963 ballet Marguerite and Armande (in that it’s based on Alexandre Dumas Jr’s story of the same name), it’s an entirely different ballet. It has references to Abbé Prevost’s Manon Lescaut in it since Neumeier believes that the courtesan Marguerite Gautier and Prevost’s Manon Lescaut are so similar – both Marguerite and Manon loved the dazzle of diamonds, the  glittering balls and social scene of Paris – that he has woven a ballet on Manon into his story.   The score is a selection of pieces by Chopin, adapted by Neumeier, and the ballet premiered at the Opéra de Paris on June 20th 2006. 

The set design and costume design by Jürgen Rose and the lighting designer is John Neumeier, assisted by Ralph Merkel.

^{Paul Marque © Svetlana Loboff / OnP}

Michel Lehtinen leads the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra with solo pianists Michal Bialk and Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter in a production of La Dame aux Camélias at the Salle des Princes, Grimaldi Forum, from July 17th to 19th.  For further information visit the website of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo.   

VENUE DETAILS

Grimaldi Forum
Salle des Princes
10 Av. Princesse Grace
98000 Monaco

Tel: +377 99 99 20 00

PHOTO CREDITS

• All photos courtesy Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo / Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris and as credited
• Lead image Amandine Albisson, Étoile du Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris © Svetlana Loboff / OnP
• Video as credited

_{Advertisement}