Bayerisches Staatsballett in Neumeier’s Illusionen – wie Schwanensee

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich
January 16, 2026

John Neumeier’s Illusionen – wie Schwanensee (Illusions – Like Swan Lake) from 1976 has been in the Bayerisches Staatsballet’s repertoire since 2011. It is a crowd pleaser invoking standing ovations, which soared on this evening when Neumeier appeared at the curtain call.

To Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake music, Neumeier mixes that ballet with the world of the ill-fated King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-1886). Ludwig was a troubled dreamer renowned for the four castles he built and his homosexuality, which during his time was an absolute taboo, even more so for a King. It is a clever blend, because Siegfried and Ludwig II have much in common. Neither wants to be a king or marry, and each retreats into their own dream-world: Siegfried to the bewitched realm of the swans, while Ludwig II builds castles full of swan symbols.

The dramaturgy also works very well. In three acts, each bringing a flash-back, we learn how the King increasingly loses his grip on reality. It starts when he is locked into a room in his castle, because he has insulted his mother. Here, he is occasionally visited by the Man in the Shadow, a figure he is attracted to, but rejects until he finally succumbs to him at the end.

Times of lonely agonizing are juxtaposed in the flash-backs by mass scenes where common people or nobles celebrate. Nevertheless, it feels like attending an opera where the orchestra is playing full blast but the singers are on mute, because the two protagonists, the King and his fiancée, Princess Natalia, hardly dance.

Jacob Feyferlik is brilliant as the King as is Ksenia Shevtsova as Natalia. In the first act, a glance at a model of one of his castles brings the King back to the topping out ceremony at one of them. He is accompanied by Count Alexander (Clark Eselgroth) and his fiancée Princess Claire (Carollina Bastos), both excelling in their pas de deux during the festivities.

Princess Natalia joins them. But she and the King never participate in the swirling gaiety of the workmen, their women and children, but walk around looking troubled, which they both do extremely effectively. You feel his mental absence and her worrying about it viscerally. But except for one short duet, they never dance. Neumeier does not even grant Princess Natalia a solo to enlighten the king’s mood.

In Act II, the King stumbles across a model of the stage set of Swan Lake. It catapults him back to the second act of a performance based on Ivanov and Petipa’s ballet that he once saw. If the duets in first act seemed slow, the swans looked as if on speed, but they did dance very well. For no apparent reason the four cygnets made the audience laugh. Making her debut as Odette, Elisabeth Tonev was magnificent. Her lines were crystal clear, and she was very expressive and musical.

In this act Feyferlik mostly sits downstage on a chair with his head buried in a programme or watches the action. Occasionally, he gets up walks around, lifts or promenades Odette, then sits down again. Shevtsova, for a while sitting downstage at the other side, watches his infatuation with Odette.

Act III has us in the immediate present. A painting of his coronation brings the King back to the masked ball from which he was taken into custody. He is dressed as Siegfried, Princess Natalia as Odette. The evening is full of divertissements. Clowns entertain the guests led by one dressed in black, Severin Brunhuber, another incarnation of the Man in the Shadow. Brunhuber was convincing in his acting, but at times seemed to struggle with Neumeier’s movement vocabulary. The Queen, a dignified Elvina Ibraimova, leads a Hungarian dance.

For most of this the King and Princess Natalia are absent. When they appear at the end, he sees that she is dressed as Odette, and finally they get to dance. In a pas de deux and solos Feyferlik demonstrates his high jumps and soft landings and Shevtsova her precise footwork and musicality.

Back in his room, the King is visited by Princess Natalia. They dance, tossing and tearing at each other like two mad people before she leaves. After the Man in the Shadows reappears, he and the King entangle in a duet where their bodies slide over and across each other until the King drowns, like Ludwig II, under a blue cloth suggesting a lake.

It was an excellent evening with the dancers overall on very good form. Jürgen Rose’s lavish period costumes and Romantic sets are everything you would expect from the master designer. Tchaikovsky’s music, reordered and played by the Bayerisches Staatsorchester conducted by Nathan Brock, filled every scene with an extra layer of emotion. But it would have been so much better, if the protagonists had had a chance to do rather more of what they are best at: dancing.