La Dame aux camélias

La Dame aux camélias ballet. Choreography by John Neumeier. Music by Fyrderyk Chopin. John Neumeier directs the Paris Opera Ballet at Palais Garnier in Paris in 2008. Stars Agnès Letestu, Stéphane Bulllion, Machaël Denard, Dorothée Gilbert, Delphine Moussin, José Martinez, Eve Grinsztajn, Karl Paquette, Laurent Novis, Béatrice Martel, and Simon Valastro. Michael Schmidtsdorff conducts The Orchestra of The Opera national de Paris. Pianists are Emmanuel Strosser and Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter. Set and costume design by Jürgen Rose; lighting by Rolf Warter; directed for TV by Thomas Grimm. There is a valuable documentary in high-definition by Reiner E. Moritz and Stéphane Loison. The show and documentary last more than 4 hours on 2 discs. Released 2009, show has 5.0 PCM sound. Grade: A+

La Dame aux camélias was created by John Neumeier in 1978. It is based on the often-told story (think La Traviata) of Marguerite Gautier and Armand Duval from the novel The Lady of Camellias by Alexandre Dumas (the younger). Neumeier added a "ballet inside the ballet" based on the also often-told story of Manon Lescaut. To help you keep the stories straight, the Manon elements are color-coded in dream-like icy blue, gray, and silver tones. Neumeier drafted Chopin for his music (two soloists and orchestra)---all of which is completely familiar and yet startlingly fresh and pleasing in this context. The new element is Neumeier's choreography and directing. As my real estate broker would say: it's "updated soft contemporary romantic" dancing that is always in exquisite good taste (even the slightly naughty parts). This is the only ballet I've seen that had me drooling over gorgeous costumes. Agnès Letestu is magisterial in the title role for her dancing and mesmerizing acting. Stéphane Bullion, only a Premier danseur at the time, is the perfect choice to play the younger man to cougar Margarite. He's beautiful to see and see dance plus he's strong enough to gracefully handle Letustu (who probably weighs as much as he) through a multitude of complicated lifts, carries, and crashes. The other 9 dancers credited above all turn in brilliant character portrayals. It's unfair to 8 to comment on only 1. But I especially liked Michaël Denard as Armand's father, who comes to chastize Margarite, but leaves a melted man. To sum up: this disc is more evidence that the Paris Opera Ballet is in a class by itself. I gave an "A+" grade here. The L'OperaDou jury only gave it an "A-". In this situation, we give the higher grade to the title.