Offstage, he stays more grounded

Friday, Sept. 8, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

What: "Delirium"

Where: MGM Grand Garden Arena

When: 8 tonight and Saturday

Tickets: $69.50, $99.50 and $135; MGM box office, www.mgmgrand.com, www.ticketmaster.com

In "Delirium," Karl Baumann spends much of the night suspended high above the audience, fastened to a big balloon.

But away from the stage, he prefers to be grounded.

Baumann has been content in Las Vegas since 1993, when he relocated to open "Mystere" at Treasure Island. For several years he performed as the Green Lyzard - "great role" - and liked the city.

"My move to Las Vegas has everything to do with buying a house, which I was able to do in 1996," Baumann says during a phone interview as he prepares for "Delirium's" two-night run at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Cirque cast a proven commodity when Baumann assumed the lead role of Bill in "Delirium," the company's first arena production. Baumann arrived in the U.S. in the mid-1980s to study dance at the Juilliard School in New York. Before that, he had performed with several dance and theater companies in Europe. He had also shown a keen interest in studying classical guitar in his hometown of Salzburg, Austria (which, he is quick to remind, is also the hometown of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), and brings the instrument with him on tour.

After attending Juilliard, Baumann joined Momix - the Moses Pendleton-founded company that helped introduce the blending of dance, theater and acrobatics that Cirque later made famous on a far larger scale. It was through that extensive training that Baumann landed in a Las Vegas resort theater with "Mystere."

And he says "Delirium," while a Cirque production, is unlike any Cirque show visitors to Las Vegas have ever seen.

"We don't use heavy makeup, that's one major difference," Baumann says. "It's much more like a rock show, not a historic Cirque du Soleil show."

The arena will be configured to seat about 8,000. Four IMAX-styled screens are used to blend the performances onstage with video imagery.

"It's a multimedia idea between Michel (Lemieux) and Victor (Pilon)," Baumann says, speaking of the "Delirium" creative team. "One is the stage, and the other is more visual. People who expect to see a regular Cirque show will be surprised."

As Baumann describes, "Delirium" has the "typically vague" story line of other Cirque productions. But the Bill character, who descends on the show from a spiritless, passionless, even mechanical planet, is central to that unspecific plot.

"He is on a quest for a better life, he has left the corporate world and he is flying throughout the show in a dream - Mr. Bill from the corporate world, who breaks out and experiences something more creative," Baumann says. "He is torn between the dream and his old life."

Baumann says he plans to pursue more traditional acting once "Delirium's" national tour ends in November. "I'll go more into acting, Shakespeare," says Baumann, who made his Shakespearean debut in 2003 at Theatre Charlotte (N.C.) in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." He is likely to continue teaching workshops, which he has done for high school and college students.

Baumann is entrenched in Las Vegas for the foreseeable future. His longtime girlfriend, Sophie Sukala, works in costume maintenance for Celine Dion. The couple's daughter, Ingrid, just started first grade at Gilbert Elementary School.

Art appreciation seems to run in the family.

"I took Ingrid to see 'Love' at the Mirage and she kept asking, 'Where are the bugs? I don't see the bugs,' " Baumann says. "It took me a while to realize she meant the Beatles."