Neumeier Moving Masterwork Lilliom onstage at Joffrey

Choreographer John Neumeier’s works are known for complex characters unspooling narratives with deep psychological motivations even while utilising a fairly traditional ballet vocabulary for storytelling. The Joffrey Ballet is at a unique point in its history to take on this challenging repertory with Neumeier’s brilliant 2011 ballet Lilliom which requires not only virtuoso level technique, but serious acting chops from the dancers. Joffrey delivers on not only the gorgeous choreography, but also the dramatic evolution of the personalities. No one becomes a caricature, and we clearly see what drives them. It is thrilling to witness. And Joffrey, a mature American company with depth to it’s roster, fields multiple casts that reveal the nuances of this story ballet that left me crying at the end. 

Lilliom was a 1909 Hungarian play that did not become a hit until a translation was staged in 1921 on Broadway. It would then head back across the Atlantic to receive productions in France, England and Spain as well as at least two Broadway revivals.  Ingrid Bergman starred in the 1940 revival and Orson Welles directed and performed in a 1939 radio hour version.  But the plot really took off when Rodgers and Hammerstein adapted the plot into the musical tragedy Carousel in 1945.They changed the names and the gender of the protagonist’s child, but the story stayed the same: a carousel barker falls in love with a local maid and she gets pregnant. He dies in a bungled robbery trying to provide for her and returns from purgatory after 16 years to bestow a gift on the child who does not know him. There isn’t a happy ending, but a deeply emotional finale. There is a lot about class and poverty intimated in this fable.  I think the various iterations of this sad plot try to say that that love is eternal but not necessarily easy. And life in general for the poor can lead to unfortunate choices. Something to think about in our own time. 

I saw the matinee cast with Anais Bueno as Julie, who falls in love with Lilliom at first sight despite more stable suitors. Paolo Randon’s Lilliom is self assured, the very definition of cocky and is irresistible to the ladies including his boss, the fabulous Basia Rhoden as Mrs. Muscat. He is the quintessential bad boy, trouble at the go. The enormous cast is universally excellent including young Louis played by student performer Nate Correa. The Balloon Man, who serves as a visual leitmotif and a symbolic narrator with devilishly sustained movement sequences, is superbly danced by Evan Boersma.

Neumeier himself designed the costumes which are luminous and telling. Use of fabric types and colors delineate class and personality.  Ferdinand Wögerbauer’s set is stunningly beautiful and meaningful– the window between worlds and use of suspended light bulbs for stars is too pretty for surrealism but burns the picture into your eyeballs.

Three time Oscar winner Michel Legrand’s score is recognizably cinematic which gives us a kind of elegiac feeling that this plot exists in a world outside the stage. Sweeping in its conception, it enlarges the experience. Conductor Nicholas Koo is set with the challenge of conducting the Lyric Opera Orchestra in the pit and the Rob Parton Big Band on stage and he meets it and goes beyond. 

This is a singular not to be missed ballet.  But you don’t have a lot of time: it runs Thursday through Sunday next week, closing on September 27, 2026.  So run to the Chicago performing home of the Joffrey, the Civic Opera House 20 N Wacker in Chicago and see this landmark ballet.  For tickets, a little video and lots of info go to https://joffrey.org/performances-and-tickets/26-27-season/liliom/

Photo by Cheryl Mann

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