In 1978, John Neumeier created a ballet that today has immense popularity in all companies around the world: The Lady of the Camellias. Made for Márcia Haydée, the production that debuted 45 years ago, on November 4, 1978, was an immediate success, immortalized in a feature film (which can be found on YouTube) and brings an interesting proposal of uniting two tragic stories and love in one only.

The story of courtesan Marguerite Gautier (Marcia Haydée), created by Alexandre Dumas Jr., is a classic and has led to films, operas (La Traviatta), soap operas, and series. In ballet, there is also Frederick Ashton‘s version, Marguerite and Armand, initially starring Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. In Neumeier’s view, the fact that there is a book about the story of Manon Lescaut among Marguerite’s auctioned objects is the perfect opportunity to merge both stories.

Just like in the book, the ballet begins after Marguerite’s death, when all of her objects are auctioned off. Armand and his father are reunited and make peace, but in flashbacks they remember how the courtier caused a rift between them. Marguerite and Armand meet during a production of Manon, where the tragic love of the young courtesan and her lover, Des Grieux, impacts the couple. With music by Frédéric Chopin (excerpts from his 1st and 2nd piano concertos, the Grande Fantaisie op. 13, the Grande Polonaise brilliant op. 22, among others), it is another great performance by the great Márcia Haydée immortalized in screens.

Divided into three acts, The Lady of the Camellias tells the drama of Marguerite Gautier, a courtesan who secretly suffers from an illness and with whom the young student Armand Duval falls in love. Initially, she resists but ends up responding. Armand’s father opposes the romance and tries to separate them because it compromises the future of his son and daughter. Out of love, Marguerite agrees to move away from her lover, but upon seeing her with another man, Armand begins an affair with another courtesan, Olympia. Hurt, with her health even more weakened, Marguerite tries to dissuade him from showing off with his new lover, resuming the relationship only to end it a second time under pressure from Armand’s father. Humiliated, the young man publicly humiliates her by throwing money in her face for “services rendered in the past”. Alone, Marguerite languishes, suffering from the secret of having sacrificed her last chance at happiness so as not to get in Armand’s way. After she dies, Armand discovers the truth when he reads her diary, suffering for having been insensitive to the suffering of her great love.

I saw the film when I was still young, but I will never forget the beautiful production by the American Ballet Theater with Marcelo Gomes and Diana Vishneva, wonderful in the role. But nothing beats the original, with the brilliant Márcia Haydée. Check out the 1986 film and sigh at the perfection.

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