Seven years after it last appearance on the La Scala stage, one of the milestones in John Neumeier’s choreographic work returns to it. La Dame aux camélias is representative of his predilection for narrative full-evening ballets and his conception of contemporary dramatic ballet. Neumeier turns to the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, written in one go in 1848, a few months after the death of Marie Duplessis, whose story inspired Verdi’s Violetta in La Traviata. Set to the ardent notes of Chopin—with an intense and refined choreography, a splendidly crafted, almost Viscontian scenery,and a neoclassical vocabulary—it leads to its dramatic climax through a series of stunning pas-de-deux, grand ball scenes, and powerful numbers for the soloists.