Lady of the Camelias with the Bayerisches Staatsballett

Nationaltheater, Munich
September 20, 2026

When you watch a ballet you have seen many times, the story does not bring any surprises. But every time you see a dancer you have not seen before in a role, you discover different aspects of the tale, through a different phrasing of a movement, an unexpected glance, or the chemistry developing between two dancers, who have not been paired before.

This was exactly what happened when the Bayerisches Staatsballett opened this season with John Neumeier’s Lady of the Camelias (Die Kameliendame). The story is well known. The famous courtesan, Marguerite gives up her true love, Armand, at the urging of his father, who is worried about her tarnished reputation ruining his family’s good name and social standing, before dying alone consumption and grief.

The performance was a feast of heartbreak with excellent dancing and drama at its best. Each act concluded with roaring applause, a rare thing in Munich. At the end, the corps de ballet was also cheered vociferously.

Elisabeth Tonev and Osiel Gouneo first appeared together as Marguerite Gauthier and Armand Duval in May last season; for her a first, for him a first with her. In act one, Tonev lends Marguerite a regal bearing. She is elegant, self-conscious and, although surrounded by her admirers, keeps up a dignified inapproachability. In her bedroom, she at first takes in Armand’s unrestrained expressions of his love for her with incredulity, as if she cannot believe it. Until the point, when she gives in to him, and you see how her body literally turns soft and yielding.

In the following pas de deux, Tonev and Gouneo seemed to melt into each other, their movement an unbroken current of perfect harmony. She soared in the lifts and they turned as one body. No small feat in Neumeier’s choreography, where the flow of a movement or a lift is often abruptly halted by an unmotivated shift of direction. Later, a soft landing in fifth position seemed like her unreserved declaration of her deep love for Armand. In Act Three, Marguerite is a mere shadow eaten up by her heart break and consumption. The way Tonev gave physical expression to all her emotions and states of mind was mind-boggling.

Gouneo is a dancer usually bubbling with energy. He often he lends his roles the feeling that he just the boy next door, which makes him so sympathetic, so easy to identify with. In this performance, he toned down his exuberance considerably, which gave his Armand unexpected, new depth. In other roles, he cried out his agony to the world. In this, he turned it inward and you felt how his heart-break was nipping at his whole being. This was even so in the scenes with Olympia, the courtesan he has a relationship with in order to demonstrate to Marguerite that he has recovered from the pain she inflicted on him.

Violetta Keller is an extremely strong and expressive dancer, who joined the company last season at the same time as Tonev. She turned Manon’s part, from being a mere entertainment, a play in the play, into an equal to Marguerite, pulling it off in spite of her partner Des Grieux, Jinhao Zhang, not having one of his best evenings. Keller gave a character in full control not only of her life and lovers, but also her every movement, all without losing the seeming spontaneity it takes to make a role come alive. In a dream scene, she compassionately demonstrated to Marguerite what her former life with the cohorts of lovers was like, and when Marguerite sees her in another dream scene at the end, Keller is carried out by three men who lift her above their heads. From this position she drops her arm, and you know she has taken her last breath. It was a painful but very beautiful.

Elvina Ibraimova was a vivacious Prudence Duvernoy and Zhanna Gubanova equaled her as Olympia, two courtesans orbiting around Marguerite. Clark Eselgroth, was the gallant Gaston Rieux, who introduced Armand to Margurite and partnered Prudence. But the whole company did not only dance well, they gave life to the illustrious society. In the garden scene in second act, they were such happy summer guests playing their little games of flirting and pretend riding, that you for a moment forgot that Marguerite and Armand were sitting quietly in the background at the peak of their happiness.

Jürgen Rose’s period costumes and sets added to the festive atmosphere, and Markus Lehtinen conducted the Bayerisches Staatsorchester through the mix of Chopin’s music with great empathy and thus underscored the painful emotions. It was one of those evenings during which you forgot yourself and slipped into the tragic life of the figures on stage.

One of the reasons why artistic director Laurent Hilaire has made the Bayerisches Staatsballett so successful is because he dares to give dancers a chance to develop. On that theme, Zhanna Gubanova, a soloist, and Severin Brunhuber, a demi-soloist, appear as Marguerite and Armand on October 10. The evening before, Ksenia Shevtsova and Jacobo Bellussi, a former principal with Hamburg ballet, dance the roles.