Ballet production. Choreography, staging and light - John Neumeier. Sets and costumes - Jurgen Rose. Music Director - Pavel Sorokin. John Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias, a big, narrative ballet set to original concert music by Chopin is based on the novel of the same name by Alexandre Dumas junior, written in 1848. The story is based on true events in the author's life when, at the age of 20, he fell in love with Marie Duplessis who was to die at the age of 23. Like the George Cukor film starring Greta Garbo and Verdi's La Traviata with Maria Callas before it, it is a masterpiece. Marguerite Gautier is a famous Parisian courtesan who falls in love with Duval when they are introduced at a performance of Manon Lescaut. Stricken by tuberculosis, she goes to live in the country where her young lover comes to join her. But their idyll is broken by his father who comes to plead with Marguerite that her liaison with his son is compromising the family honour.