John Neumeier has had a life-long interest in Vaslav Nijinsky and is an avid collector of Nijinsky images and memorabilia. In fact his apartment is said to be a living (or live-in) museum, overflowing with Nijinskyana. It is planned that his collections, including a wide range of other ballet-related material, and the archive of his own oeuvre, should eventually be placed in a ballet museum in Hamburg.

Neumeier created a short ballet about Nijinsky, called Vaslaw in 1979. To create a ballet about an individual, he says, is extremely difficult, and the more you know about a person, the more difficult it becomes. So it was not until 2000, 50 years after Nijinsky's death, that he finally made a full length ballet about Nijinsky, not a biography, not even a documentary, but rather an impression, perhaps a biography of the soul.

When the audience enter the auditorium they see on stage a set which is an almost complete replica of the ballroom of the Suvretta Haus in St. Moritz where Nijinsky danced for the last time on January 19th 1919 in front of an invited audience. The floor of the ballroom is clear, apart from a single chair in the centre and a grand piano to one side. Other chairs line the room, below a low balcony. In the ceiling, around a circular plasterwork decoration, is a large circle from which are suspended multiple lights in cubic shades. Shortly before the audience is settled the invited guests begin to arrive, talking amongst themselves. This is a technique Neumeier has used elsewhere, and David Bintley uses it in Cyrano, where the ballet also begins with a theatrical performance. There is no barrier between the audience in the auditorium and the audience on stage. The audience are part of the action. Silence falls and after a few moments Nijinsky enters. He is wearing a voluminous white robe, soon discarded to reveal a black pyjama-like costume. Presently the pianist begins to play and Nijinsky dances. He dances until he falls to the ground exhausted. Nijinsky is Alexandre Riabko, but as he muses on his past life various roles are danced by some seven other dancers, and by now the orchestra has taken up the accompaniment. We see Yohan Stegli, masked and in costume, dancing as Harlequin, a role reprised later by Anton Alexandrov. Stegli is also the Spectre de la Rose, but in the chair sits Ivan Urban as Diaghilev. Otto Bubenicek does the Golden Slave from Scheherazade and also the Faun, a role reprised by Carsten Jung. Lloyd Rigins is a very weary looking Petrushka, the spitting image of the photo of Nijinsky in this role. Stegli and Konstantin Tselikov dance Nijinsky's shadows.

The music consists of a couple of pieces by Chopin and Schumann, part of Rimskij-Korsakow's 'Scheherazade' and Schostakowitsch's Viola and Piano Sonata and 'The Year 1905' symphony, opus 11. Apart from 'Carnaval' and 'Scheherazade', most of the ballets illustrated are not set to their original music. In fact, they are not reconstructions of the originals, but rather characters and actions wandering through Nijinsky's mind. Recalling the Ballets Russes we see Laura Cazzaniga as Karsavina in 'Les Sylphides', 'Jeux', the nymph in 'L'Apres-midi d'un Faune' and the ballerina in 'Petruschka'. Niurka Moredo is Bronislava Nijinska in 'Jeux' and 'Le Sacre'. We see the marriage to Romola (Heather Jurgensen), the choreographic creations of 'L'Apres-midi d'un Faune' and 'Jeux', the mental breakdown, the relationships with various members of his family, the wandering round Europe, all bound up with the horrors of war and Nijinsky's obsession with circles.

Neumeier makes some interesting comments on Nijinsky as a choreographer: unlike some other dancer/choreographers he didn't create ballets to display his own talents as a dancer, but produced ground-breaking new ideas, with a new language for each work, and was one of the originators of 'contemporary dance'. In this ballet we see the Faun, with its angularity and slow movements, the head in profile, the body turned to face the audience and the hands shaped to represent the front feet, as the dancer moves across the front of the stage, appearing two-dimensional like a Picasso image. 'Jeux', the first modern dress ballet, uses sport as a metaphor for human emotions. Nijinsky said that he had taken particular notice of polo, golf and tennis and concluded that sport possessed a special kind of plastic beauty. All three employ artefacts wielded in powerful circular movements, and so would specially appeal to him. He was a competent graphic artist and became obsessed with circles, making numerous drawings based on circles. We can understand from this why Neumeier often uses circles in his stage design, he seems to be making an acknowledgement to Nijinsky. The logo of Hamburg Ballet consists of two broken circles looped together. In this ballet light rope circles accompany the circles scene, and at the conclusion the ballrom, having been deconstructed, moves back to some extent, while the circular ceiling light is lowered, with an additional circle angled to it.

To see the various allusions and representations of Nijinsky dancing, along with some of his partners and colleagues, in costumes based on the originals, is quite exciting, while the profoundly emotional treatment of so many aspects of Nijinsky's turbulent life is very moving. The piece was very well received in complete silence except at the interval and the final curtain. This is quite usual for Hamburg. Many, but not all, of Neumeier's works have a spiritual quality and are received in this way. They are not written with sets of variations or pas de deux and variations calling for applause.
There are pas de deux, but these form part of the general flow. Also, as pre-existing orchestral music is often used by Neumeier, the music is not written with built-in cues for applause. Occasionally a dancer will finish a tour de force solo, where you might expect applause, but then, as it were, stands and offers it up in silence - the audience's reverential silence shows just as much acknowledgment and appreciation as would applause. I now recall that there is some applause in the early part of Nijinsky. When he finishes one of his dances the invited audience applause, but even here the theatre audience remain silent. However, at the final curtain there is a standing ovation lasting at least 15 minutes. Alexandre Riabko, usually a happy-looking 'cheeky chappie' looked quite overwhelmed.

For some reason the description of the opening to this ballet makes me think of the first act of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos.