It’s an odd coincidence that two of the luminaries of world ballet both have two works premiering in Australia in as many weeks. Boris Eifman has personally brought his St Petersburg-based company here (to Sydney and Melbourne) for the first time. Meanwhile, in Brisbane, the ballets of legendary American choreographer John Neumeier are being performed by his own company, the Hamburg Ballet.

Even odder is the fact that each choreographer has chosen to regale the Australian public with a ballet-biography of their artistic hero. For Eifman, this is Tchaikovsky; for Neumeier, it is Vaslav Nijinsky. This primo of the Ballets Russes danced the leads in Stravinsky’s Petrushka, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Ravel’s Jeux, but, most famously, sparked a riot at the Théatre des Champs-Élysées in 1913 performing his own shockingly savage choreography for The Rite of Spring.

With its modest beginnings, years spent at the heights of creative brilliance and tragic descent into lunacy, the life of Nijinsky is begging for dramatic treatment. Neumeier’s ballet opens in a studio in Paris, where various dancers and admirers await the arrival of the great Nijinsky (Alexandre Riabko). He appears, dishevelled and manic, and leaves the visitors more disturbed than impressed by his anguished, spasmodic movements. Suddenly, the walls of the...