When I meet John Neumeier in Vienna in the late afternoon, he explains immediately that he is feeling a little discombobulated (my word not his). He is currently choreographing and filming for the New Year’s Day Concert and his working hours are 8pm until 4.30am. His sleep patterns are feeling a tad muddled. In spite of this, he looks supremely elegant and relaxed. He tells me, “I believe it's the second most watched television show in the world after the Superbowl!”
I’m keen to know about his ballet Liliom, which Czech National Ballet will perform for the first time in October. Created in 2011 for Hamburg Ballet, this is the first time he has staged it somewhere other than Hamburg. “I had always been fascinated by Rogers and Hammerstein’s Carousel,” he explains. “Being born in America and interested in musical comedy, somehow this particular story interested me. We had done two musicals at Hamburg Opera House, West Side Story and On the Town, so I had even considered doing a musical version. The music is almost operatic and I think the story is much deeper than the Hollywood movie shows. Then I went back to the original play by Ferenc Molnar and found that the text was so beautiful.”
He goes on to divulge how he came to a decision about the music. “A strange thing happened,” he tells me. “A friend of a friend had a summerhouse near to where the composer Michel Legrand lives and they had spoken to him about ballet.” It seems that Legrand had seen Neumeier’s Lady of the Camellias in Paris, found it extraordinary and wanted to do a project with him. “He telephoned me out of the blue and I immediately thought of Liliom. The idea of this half realistic story with a completely magical element to it, and the fact that it plays out in this carnival milieu, I thought it would be perfect for Michel Legrand.”
There is another reason why this project came together so well. “I had always wanted to create for Alina Cojocaru,” he says. “At least 12 or 15 years before Liliom, a very young Alina had guested with Hamburg Ballet as Giselle in our Nijinsky Gala. She was just so special, so fragile and vulnerable.” He continues, “I said to her, you know, you should work with a choreographer. And of course I meant me!” Of course…
A few years later when Royal Danish Ballet were reviving Neumeier’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cojocaru contacted him directly to ask if she might guest. He agreed. “That started our relationship, which has continued to this very minute with great intensity.” Neumeier recalls the process of creating Liliom. Cojocaru initially felt unsure. “Not as a dancer,” he says, “but she hadn’t worked creatively with a choreographer. To work in a room with a choreographer, to understand that movement and to understand the emotion that motivates that movement – it was an incredible experience with her.”
“Probably the most well-known scene in the play is about two people, Liliom and Julie, who are strongly attracted to each other without the capacity to articulate this. Liliom, for whatever reason, hides his insecurity in a kind of macho flamboyance. When he realises she is having his baby, he’s so overwhelmed with this sense of joy but also responsibility. He tries to commit a robbery which is very naïve and stupid. He’s caught and in his desperation he kills himself.”
Neumeier recounts how Julie speaks to Liliom after his death, telling him how he was a bad person and she could never tell him when he was alive, but that she loves him. “Alina was astounding. There was choreography but it was her interpretation. I actually asked her if she had studied the Stanislavsky method. It was so intuitive.” At this point Neumeier’s eyes are brimming with emotion.
We return to why he has never staged Liliom elsewhere until now. “It was a long time before I could imagine anyone in the role except Alina,” he says. “We are like soul mates, it’s very special and we understand each other so well.”
He knows Czech National Ballet well too, “and I have a good relationship with Prague.” He is familiar with Filip Barankiewicz both as a dancer and artistic director, he knows the dancers – they recently performed Neumeier’s A Streetcar Named Desire. He is confident they understand what is needed to present Liliom.
I ask him what the process is like when he begins to see new interpretations emerging. He tells me he initially speaks to the whole company, to explain what he is looking for. “I’m not necessarily looking for someone who reminds me of someone else. I’m looking for vulnerability. I like to be there at the beginning. I think my works are like complex puzzles. The ballet masters come and teach it how it was set, but the dancers don’t always understand how the pieces fit together. They have to have some knowledge of the language of the piece so that I can come and work with them completely openly.”
“I believe that dance is truly a living art,” he continues. “I don’t believe that the works I’ve done are finished until I die.” It’s necessary to rework pieces, as otherwise they won’t stay alive. “If the choreographer is still alive, he shouldn’t be developing himself, he should be using his life experiences to develop the work and the dancers. It has to be part of it in order to make it relevant.” He smiles as he adds, “I’m a very controlling person, but you cannot control everything!”
Neumeier says the most important thing when working with dancers is to be specific. “It’s no good just saying you want more. You have to analyse. You have to be very careful about how you speak to an individual and what is their associative world so that you can touch on things. I try to be as precise as possible within the framework of who I’m talking to.”
He expands on working with different generations and revisiting, reviving. “It’s important not to admire your own works, but it can be surprising. Some years ago I revived a ballet called The Odyssey. When I saw it again I didn’t think it looked like my choreography. I thought, that’s quite good!” We both laugh at the observation. “An important element in ballet is time. The time it takes to say something, and if dancers are having difficulty articulating an emotion that they know is there and shared. They are looking for the bridge to come across to each other. I physically time everything now. Is it too slow? Is this emotionally honest? I go back to things and look at them as if I’ve never seen them before. Is it relevant to our human situation? Or is it fake?”
“It sounds maybe pretentious,” Neumeier expands, “but I think honesty, not dancing, but reading, studying, evaluating and finding yourself in the source material is what’s important. And from that nucleus build a concept which only you can do. To use source material that allows you to be creative, not just presenting it act by act. In Othello, I created scenes that Shakespeare never wrote but would not exist without what he wrote. The uniqueness of a work is vital, and I can’t do it any other way. The emotional honesty of movement has so many different and unique levels, through theatre, opera... maybe it’s closest to music.”
Neumeier talks openly about leaving Hamburg. “Can you imagine that I was a company director for 54 years, and now I’ve stopped. I didn’t know how I would deal with leaving. Over the years I have worked with about 50 different companies. You always feel a slight guilt, that you’re being untrue and that you should be at home. This last season I have been able to give myself fully to all those other groups of people.”
He makes a surprising statement about choreography, insinuating that he doesn’t really know about creation. “I’ve done approximately 178 ballets, but I don’t know how to make a ballet, I don’t have a formula. This year, because I’ve had no moment to reflect, I don’t even know if I can create anymore. My assistant thinks I’ve got a few more ballets in me. I still feel I’m at a crossroads.”
I ask him the big question: what does he think about international classical ballet companies working with very contemporary choreographers? “I don’t think I can answer that because it wouldn’t be honest. It would be as if I look around and see something that's interesting and think, I’m going to do that or that. It’s fake. I can only be what I am. An original voice is not necessarily a voice that is going with a trend.”
Czech National Ballet perform John Neumeier’s Liliom from 23rd October to 22nd November.
See all upcoming listings of Czech National Ballet.
This article was sponsored by Prague National Theatre.
