The "White" duet in J. Neumeier's ballet “Lady of the Camellias": features of the author's interpretation of the roles of Marguerite and Armand

Khokhlova Dar'ya ORCID: 0000-0003-0426-7469 PhD in Art History Principal Dancer of the Bolshoi Theatre 125009, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Teatral'naya Ploshchad', 1 daria.khokhl@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

     Ballet scholar Natalia Zozulina, who has been researching the choreographic work of John Neumeier for many years, particularly noted "his ability to grasp the vast multi-layered picture of life and move its most essential things concerning the human soul into ballet, which Neumeier can "scan" in his choreographic movements like no one else" ^{[6, p. 248]}. A true master, Neumeier has been fruitfully developing his author's theater in Hamburg for almost half a century (since 1973), emphasizing a psychological approach to the creation of performances. One of the choreographer's stage ballets, staged by him in the early period of his work, is "The Lady with Camellias" to the music of F. Chopin (1978). Despite the fact that the choreographer has already headed the Hamburg troupe, he was invited to Stuttgart to create this performance. It was a kind of return to the "alma mater", because it was at the Stuttgart Ballet (in those years headed by J. Kranko) the future greatest choreographer danced for six years (1963 – 1969) and began to create his own productions. After the death of John Kranko (1973), the leadership of the Stuttgart Ballet passed to Marcia Heide, the choreographer's "muse" and the first performer of the leading female roles in many of his performances (including Juliet in S.S. Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Tatiana in Onegin to the music of P. I. Tchaikovsky, Katarina in The Taming the shrew" to the music of D. Scarlatti). At that time, the troupe, which had lost its ideological inspirer, had a hard time. It was at this time that John Neumeier received an offer to stage a full-length play for her. So The Lady with Camellias was created – a ballet that has already become a classic of the twentieth century and conquered not only the world ballet stages (including the American Ballet Theater, the Paris Opera, the Dutch National Ballet, the Bavarian State Ballet, Milan's La Scala, the Moscow Bolshoi Theater), but also cinema screens, thanks to the creation of the eponymous a ballet film directed by the choreographer himself (1986).

     "The Lady with camellias" by J. Neumayer is a three–act play, the multi-figure and multi-layered fabric of which is built around three expanded duets of Margarita and Armand. These fragments become the choreographic culmination of each of the acts, and it is in them that Neumeier plastically visualizes the story of the main characters of the novel by A. Dumas. The duets of the second and third acts – "white" and "black" - stand out from the general outline of the performance. As a musical basis for them, Neumeier, who himself was the author of a compilation of Chopin's works for the score "Ladies with Camellias", chooses piano compositions – during these duets, the piano soloists (the orchestra falls silent). So, including in the score Sonata No. 3 in B Minor and Ballad No. 1 in G Minor, Neumeier uses the features of Chopin's compositional style to choreograph the relationship between Margarita and Armand, developing in duets outside the general storyline. 

     In the "white" and "black" duets of J. Neumeier focuses the audience's attention as much as possible on the plastic development of the images of Margarita and Armand, making this the main directorial task. The choreographic development of the roles of the main characters is inextricably linked with the coloristic solution of their costumes, the color monochromacy of which is used here as an artistic device. In addition, Margarita's white and black dresses, identical in style (with a full skirt and open shoulders), are perceived in contrast due to the use of different fabrics – transparent-flying white chiffon in the "white" duet of the second act and heavy impenetrable black velvet in the "black" duet of the third act. The work with fabric additionally emphasizes the plastic methods and choreographic solutions developed by Neumeier. And in the ballet film "The Lady with Camellias" (which captured the performance performed by the Hamburg Ballet), the choreographer, who also acted as director, used close-ups of a dark-haired ballerina (Maria Heide) in a white flowing dress with her hair down for the "white" duet as an additional expressive means. 

     A detailed analysis of the choreographic vocabulary of the "black" duet of Margarita and Arman was undertaken by the author in one of his previous works ^[17]. The "white" duet, despite the sufficient study of the performance "The Lady with Camellias" in the works of several scientists, has not yet acted as an independent object of detailed substantive analysis [5-7, 14]. Therefore, in this article it seems important to undertake such an interpretation, which can significantly help in understanding the plastic embodiment of the images of Margarita and Armand, which is an important stage in the evolution of the author's style of J. Neumeier.

     The "white" adagio of Margarita and Armand is staged in the ballet by J. Neumeier in the second part of the second act – after the painting "Guests out of town". At the end of this scene, the main character publicly, despite the anger of her patron Duke, throws a precious necklace presented by the latter on the floor and confesses her love for Armand. When all the other characters leave the stage in confusion, Margarita and Armand are left alone. 

     Under the first sounds of Largo, the rhythm reminiscent of a polonaise, the performers of Margarita and Armand slowly converge, stopping in the middle of the stage back to back. The ballerina took off the straw hat she was wearing in the previous picture and was left with her hair down. The first musical theme of the adagio bears a folklore coloring. The characters slowly take hands, then the performer Armand raises his other hand up, and the ballerina reaches out to her. Marguerite and Armand walk side by side, interlacing their hands, which clearly expresses their tender unity with each other. The subsequent flight run of the ballerina turns into circling on the partner's outstretched arm. The performer of Margarita falls to the floor, and the dancer lies down perpendicular to her. The characters enjoy the pacification of their surroundings, but suddenly they kneel opposite each other and turn around, probably fearing that their privacy will be violated. The performer of Margarita understands that they are not in danger, and gently calms the hero by touching his hair. This gesture flows smoothly into support: the ballerina lies on the shoulders and arms of the partner (widely apart). The performer Armana, holding the dancer in this way, rises from his knees, and then transfers her to one shoulder, complementing the support with a wide advance on the stage. This is how Neumeier embodies a bass musical theme. In this part of the duet, both in music and in choreography, calm, light-dreamy lyrics are developed. The heroes move at a leisurely pace, their pas sparse and natural.

     Next, the performers of the main characters perform a series of cyclical ascents resembling a pendulum: pas are complemented by forward and backward movement, d ? velopp ? s, envelo pp ? s and the undulating port de bras of the partner. After them, the ballerina falls to the floor and drags the dancer with her: now the heroes are sitting next to each other. Synchronous movements of their hands, as if lowered into a nearby stream, end with a gesture associated with a splash of water. With one hand pulling the partner to himself and lifting, the dancer rises, holding himself in a position almost parallel to the floor (leaning on his free hand). The ballerina's hands are free at this time and emphasize the apparent lightness of this support. After it, the performers of the main characters fall back to the floor. Margarita bends in a pose that plastically quotes Armand's adoration of her in the first duet of the first act. Having lifted the ballerina from this position immediately to the pointe, the dancer performs an amplitude tour lent with her with an axis offset, turning into a small lift. Freed from the partner's hands, the dancer runs to another part of the stage. The performer of Armand overtakes her and suddenly stops in front of her – Neumeier uses the most artless movements to create a feeling of graceful play of the characters. 

     The chorality of the middle musical section enhances the romantic dreaminess of the duet. Neumeier transforms the overflows of melodized musical harmonies into a long stroke in the attitude pose with a strong displacement of the ballerina's axis, turning into a "somersault" of the partner on the dancer's shoulder. After an amplitude advance in this pose, the performer Armand intercepts the dancer in the position already encountered at the beginning of the duet: the performer Margarita lies on the shoulders and arms of the partner. Only here the change of the partner's poses develops into a choreographic climax – high support on the dancer's outstretched arms. In it, the ballerina's legs are stretched out and slightly apart, her arms are wide and freely open, and her gaze is directed upwards. It is worth emphasizing that in the "white" duet, the approach and descent from each support occurs without additional training, there is no distance between the partners and the dancer almost constantly does not remove the weight of the ballerina from his hands, controlling her movements and stability. This technique of duet dance makes choreographic fragments very physically labor-intensive for the male performer. 

     After the described upper support, Margarita's performer gently descends onto her partner's back, hugging him by the shoulders, and then, without letting go of her hands, sits on the floor. The hero stands next to her and, without looking up, looks at his beloved, as if afraid to move. After such a pause, he gives the ballerina his hands and pulls her towards him (Margarita's performer immediately turns out to be on pointe shoes). Now the heroine strives not to look away from the performer Armand, even at the moment when the dancer turns her up and puts her on his shoulder facing him (an unusual angle in such support). After carrying the ballerina to the center of the stage and gently lowering her (the descent is accompanied by an additional turn), the hero leans towards her chest. Stopping at the wide IV position of the legs, the performer of Margarita bends strongly, and then the partner sort of shifts her (without taking her off the floor) from one of his hands to the other. In the last of these transitions, the ballerina is lifted into the air by the dancer (without additional preparatory movements) – smoothly turning, the characters do not look away from each other. 

     The second part of the middle musical period begins, with its sound resembling a measured search of strings. Here the duet dance of the performers Margarita and Arman begins to alternate with small solo fragments. Neumeier gives the first solo to Armand. At the beginning of it, the hero hurries to approach his beloved every few pas, as if afraid to leave her alone. The dancer performs multiple renvers, then complements them with pirouettes temps relev?, gradually increasing the number and tempo of rotations. During this combination, which the Armand performer performs in the center of the stage, the ballerina describes a wide circle, first moving freely, and then pas couru. Finishing the rotation, the hero falls to the floor with abandon and continues to roll on it until he finds himself in the arms of the performer Margarita. Obviously, with these movements, the choreographer seeks to express the all-consuming and slightly boyish delight of the hero. The ballerina playfully pushes the dancer away, and he rolls around the stage again in the opposite direction. Having run around the circle and ahead of the partner, the dancer stops his movement again with her hugs. Sitting side by side back to back, the characters turn several times on the floor, trying not to take their eyes off each other for a second. Having risen, the performer of Armand picks up the dancer twice in sissonne, gradually increasing the height of the lift to support on outstretched arms. After that, he sits on his knees, watching the solo dance of the performer Margarita. 

     The first part of Margarita's solo fragment in the "white" duet fascinates with the smoothness of the movements of the ballerina's arms and body, in which there is no fracture and syncopation typical of other monologues of the heroine. Cantilevered transitions in arabesque, fluttering pas de bourr ? e suivis, a slight fading in the position ? la seconde and creeping steps on demi pli? performed by the performer Margarita, give rise to associations with the measured and sparkling flow of water jets. Frozen on pointe after fouett? in arabesque, the heroine just stops and looks at her lover. After a long pause, Margarita and Armand converge on the center of the stage in an embrace, followed by a solo female fragment. In the second part of Margarita's solo, dissonant (but not sharp) consonances appear in the music. Here the heroine dances in front of Armand with spontaneity and even with childish mischief. This is probably how Neumeier develops this paint that originated in Armand's solo. Margarita's pas performers resemble improvisation: performing a repetitive tour en l'air followed by a transition to arabesque, the ballerina freely varies the tempo of movements. Standing on pointe shoes, the dancer shifts from one foot to the other and, again frozen, rushes to the performer of Armand. He picks up his partner in support and gently lowers her to the floor. She again bows to the hero, which is a plastic reminder of his worship of her in the first duet. So, in the context of the development of the image of the main character throughout the performance, in this solo Neumeier develops the plastic of his Margarita in a completely different way. 

     The final part of the "white" duet begins, corresponding to the musical reprise (varied relative to the first theme) and returning the audience to an enlightened, lyric-contemplative mood. Gently pushing back the hair from the face of the performer Margarita, the hero gently lifts her and, bending down, walks around in this position (as if admiring her from all sides). During the partner's next turn, the ballerina performs the grand rond de jambe, pressing her cheek against his shoulder, and moves into support. In it, Margarita's performer performs d ? velopp ? s and envelo pp ? s, and the dancer, holding her partner by the shoulders at arm's length, turns several times.Then the ballerina is on his back, and already in this position the performer Armand carries her across the stage. Having lowered the heroine to the floor, the dancer sits down next to her, putting her head on his lap. After a strong deflection, the characters sit with their backs to each other and turn around, quoting the end of the male solo (only this time they are at the opposite end of the scene). Taking the ballerina by the hand, the performer Armand rises and rushes deep into the stage, pointing to something in the distance (probably this is how the hero suggests Margarita to leave the village in which their solitude takes place). But Margarita's performer stops him by hugging him and leaning over his shoulder. Then the performer of Armand, again grabbing the heroine by the hand, moves in a circle, dragging her along with him and periodically picking up in low supports (which the ballerina again complements with d ? velopp ? s and envelo pp ? s). The last of them turns into an ascent on the back of the partner (holding the ballerina by only one hand), from which the dancer, bending strongly, gently slides to the floor. The duet ends with a kiss of the heroes and the final pose, in which Armand touchingly hugs Margarita, crouching behind her. 

     So, the "white" duet is a choreographic fragment, noticeably different from the other two duets of Margarita and Armand. From the point of view of developing the images of the main characters, this is the only episode of the play in which Neumeier allows the audience to see the light lyrics in the relationship between Margarita and Armand. To do this , the choreographer uses the following staging means: due to the sparsity of movements, transparency is achieved, due to the numerous amplitude transfers in the supports – airiness and flight, due to the smoothness of the undulating port de bras – harmony and cantilena. 

     Thus, in the "white" duet of Margarita and Armand, the choreographic innovations of the choreographer in the field of technically saturated duet dance, replete with upper supports, with the lack of preparation for them and constant control by the partner of the ballerina's movements, are especially justified. They are the main means of plastic expressiveness, creating the effect of flight, an unbroken flow of movements, as well as the visualization of musical legato. It is this duet technique (later actively used by the choreographer) that can be called a distinctive feature of the choreographic style of J. Neumeier.