La Bayadère
Encyclopedia
La Bayadère (; translates to English as Bayaderka) is a ballet
, originally staged in four acts and seven tableaux by French choreographer Marius Petipa
to the music of Ludwig Minkus
. La Bayadère was first performed by the Imperial Ballet
at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia
, on . A scene from the ballet, known as The Kingdom of the Shades, is one of the most celebrated excerpts in all of classical ballet, and is considered to be one of the first examples of abstract ballet.
La Bayadère has been restaged and revived many times throughout its long performance history, most notably by Marius Petipa in 1900, for the Imperial Ballet; Alexander Gorsky and Vasily Tikhomirov
in 1904 for the Bolshoi Theatre
; Agrippina Vaganova
in 1932 for the Kirov Ballet; Vakhtang Chabukiani
and Vladimir Ponomaryov in 1941 for the Kirov Ballet; Rudolf Nureyev
in 1963 (the scene The Kingdom of the Shades) for the Royal Ballet; Natalia Makarova
in 1974 (the scene The Kingdom of the Shades) and the full-length work in 1980, both for American Ballet Theatre
; Rudolf Nureyev in 1992 for the Paris Opéra Ballet; and Sergei Vikharev in 2001, in a reconstruction of Petipa's 1900 staging.
Today, La Bayadère is presented primarily in two different versions—those productions derived from Vakhtang Chabukiani and Vladimir Ponomaryov's 1941 revival for the Kirov Ballet, and those productions derived from Natalia Makarova's 1980 version for American Ballet Theatre
, which is itself derived from Chabukiani and Ponomaryov's version.
La Bayadère is a typical production of the period in which it was produced: extravagant tableaux interspersed with episodes on an active, melodramatic scenario which takes place in an exotic and ancient locale—the ideal vehicle for dances and mimed scenes, all set in an atmosphere consisting of lavish décor and sumptuous costumes. During the 1860s until the mid-1880s Petipa favored the subjects of his ballets to be of the romantic ballet
tradition, i.e. ballets which were typically melodramas involving a love triangle of some sort, and usually consisting of a supernatural female creature who would embody the feminine ideal. The rather tragic scenario of La Bayadère is certainly a work that conforms to these elements.
The true origins of La Bayadère are rather obscured, and the identity of the person or persons responsible for creating the ballet's scenario is open to debate. Typically before a new ballet was to have its premiere on the Imperial stage, the libretto and a list of dances were published in the newspaper, along with an article discussing its creation. In the case of La Bayadère, no author was credited when the libretto was first published in the St. Petersburg Gazette in late 1876. When Petipa revived La Bayadère in 1900, the Gazette again published the libretto, this time naming the writer/dramatist and ballet historian Sergei Khudekov as author. Petipa soon wrote a letter of correction to the newspaper's editor, stating that he alone bore responsibility for the libretto, but that Khudekov only contributed eight lines of stage direction. The Gazette subsequently published an apology to the Ballet Master, and named him as sole author. There is no evidence to dispute Petipa's claim of authorship, either by Khudekov or any of Petipa's contemporaries.
s visited Paris, and the celebrated dramatist Théophile Gautier
wrote some of his most inspired pages in describing the troupe's principal dancer Amani. Years later in 1855 Gautier recorded the tragic fact that the dancer had hanged herself in a fit of depression in fog-bound London while longing for her beloved India. To pay homage to the Bayadère, Gautier wrote the libretto for the ballet Sacountalâ, derived in part from a play by the Indian poet Kalidasa
. The work was first presented in Paris on 14 July 1858 at the Paris Opéra in a staging by Marius Petipa's brother Lucien Petipa
to the music of Ernest Reyer
. This is the work that many ballet historians have cited as the true inspiration for Petipa's La Bayadère.
Another work that may have inspired Petipa was Filippo Taglioni
's two-act opera-ballet Le Dieu et la Bayadère, ou La Courtisane amoureuse , set to the music of Daniel Auber
, also presented in Paris at the Opéra. This ballet was first presented on 13 October 1830, and was attended by a young Marius Petipa. The action of this work was fashioned by Eugène Scribe
from Johann Goethe's
Der Gott und die Bajadere (The God and the Bayadere). The work was an enormous success, and included the vocal talents of the celebrated tenor and dramatist Adolphe Nourrit
, with the legendary Ballerina Marie Taglioni
in the principal role of Zöloe.
The jealous High Brahmin—in an effort to have Solor killed and have Nikiya for himself—tells the Rajah that the warrior has already vowed love to the Bayadère over a sacred fire. But the High Brahmin's plan backfires when, rather than becoming angry with Solor, the Rajah vows that it is Nikiya who must die. Gamzatti, who has eavesdropped on this exchange, summons Nikiya to the palace in an attempt to bribe the Bayadère into giving up her beloved. As their rivalry intensifies, Nikiya picks up a dagger in a fit of rage and attempts to kill Gamzatti, only to be stopped in the nick of time by Gamzatti's nurse. Nikiya flees in horror at what she has almost done. As did her father, Gamzatti vows that the Bayadère must die.
At the betrothal celebrations Nikiya performs a somber dance while playing her veena
. She is then given a basket of flowers which she believes are from Solor, and begins a frenzied and joyous dance. Little does she know that the basket is from the Rajah and Gamzatti, who have concealed beneath the flowers a venomous snake. The Bayadère then holds the basket too close and the serpent charges forth and bites her on the neck. The High Brahmin offers Nikiya an antidote to the poison, but she chooses death rather than life without her beloved Solor.
In the next scene the depressed Solor smokes opium
. In his dream-like euphoria he has a vision of Nikiya's shade (or spirit) in a nirvana
among the star-lit mountain peaks of the Himalayas
called The Kingdom of the Shades. Here, the lovers reconcile among the supreme opulence and order of the shades of other Bayadères (in the original production of 1877 this scene took place in an illuminated enchanted palace in the sky). When Solor awakes, preparations are underway for his wedding to Gamzatti.
In the temple where the wedding is to take place the shade of Nikiya haunts Solor during his dances with Gamzatti. When the High Brahmin joins the couple's hands in marriage, the gods take revenge for Nikiya's murder by destroying the temple and all of its occupants.
In an apotheosis
the shades of both Nikiya and Solor are reunited and spirited off toward the Himalayas.
, Prima ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. During the mid to late 19th century Russian ballet was dominated by foreign artists, though during the late 1860s through the early 1880s the theatre administration encouraged the promotion of native talent. The Russian ballerina Vazem—a terre-à-terre virtuosa—had climbed the ranks of the Imperial Ballet to become one of the company's most celebrated dancers.
The role of Solor—being almost exclusively a mimed role with no classical dances—was created by Lev Ivanov
, Premier danseur of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. Ivanov would go on to become régisseur and Deuxieme Maître de Ballet of the Imperial Theatres, as well as a noted choreographer.
Petipa opened La Bayadère with the scene The Festival of Fire (Act I-Scene 1)—a scene in which the delicate dances of the Bayadères alternated with wild and frenzied dancing of the fakir
s, who while in a state of religious intoxication jumped through a sacred fire and taunted their bodies with daggers and knives. The second act opened with the Grand Procession in honor of the Idol Badrinata, set to Minkus's march
reminiscent of a scene from Verdi's Aida
. The procession from Act II of La Bayadère consisted of thirty six entrances for 216 participants, which included the hero Solor making his entrance atop a fifteen-foot-high bejewelled prop elephant. This was followed by the Grand divertissement which consisted of dances for the slaves and the corps de ballet, as well as character dances. Among these pieces was the Danse manu, in which a Ballerina attempts to balance a water pitcher on her head, all the while attempting to keep its contents from two thirsty little girls. Following the Danse manu was the Danse infernale, a character number set to Minkus's rousing drums which one critic found to be "...more of the Indians of America than those of India". After a Coda générale for all participants, the celebrated Scène dansée of the heroine Nikiya was performed, where in the original production the Ballerina began her somber dance with a prop veena
to Minkus' mournful cello
solo. This was followed by a frenzied coda, and the death of the heroine by the bite of a serpent.
Typically a ballet of the period had one major Pièce de résistance
in the course of an evening-length production. For La Bayadère, Petipa gave his audience two: the appearance of the heroine Nikiya's shade at the wedding of Solor and Gamzatti in the final act, and the vision scene known as The Kingdom of the Shades in the third act. Petipa's staged the appearance of Nikiya's shade at the wedding of Solor and Gamzatti in the context of a Grand Pas d'action, very much reminiscent of the Grand Pas de trois from Act I of Filippo Taglioni
's original 1832 La Sylphide
—the shade of the bayadère Nikiya is only visible to her beloved Solor during his dances with Gamzatti.
The most celebrated and enduring passage of La Bayadère was Petipa's grand vision scene known as The Kingdom of the Shades. Petipa staged this scene as a Grand pas classique, completely devoid of any dramatic action. His simple and academic choreography was to become one of his most celebrated compositions, with the Sortie des bayadères of the thirty-two member Corps de ballet of shades arguably becoming his most celebrated composition of all. The Sortie des bayadères was inspired by Doré's illustrations for Dante
's Paradiso from The Divine Comedy
, with each dancer of the thirty two strong Corps de ballet clad in white tutus with veils stretched about their arms. Each of the dancers made her entrance, one by one, down a long winding ramp from upstage right, with a simple Arabesque cambré
, followed by an arching of the torso with arms in fifth position
, followed by two steps forward. With the last two steps she made room for her sister shade, and the combination would continue thus in a serpentine pattern until the entire corps de ballet had filled the stage in eight rows of four. Then followed simple movements en adage to the end, where the Ballerinas split into two rows and lined opposite sides of the stage in preparation for the following dances. Petipa left the Sortie des bayadères free of technical complexity—the unison of the whole and the effect of the descending Ballerinas was the challenge, as a mistake from one dancer would spoil it. When Petipa first staged the scene The Kingdom of the Shades it was set in an enchanted palace in the sky on a fully lighted stage.
Despite the ballet's setting in ancient India, Ludwig Minkus's music, even in the character numbers, made barely any gesture to traditional forms of Indian dance
and music
. The ballet was essentially a vision of the southern orient through 19th century European eyes. Although some sections of Minkus's score contained melodies that were reminiscent of the southern orient, his score was a definitive example of the musique dansante in vogue at that time, and did not stray at all from the usual string of lightly orchestrated melodious polkas, adagios, Viennese-style waltzes, and the like.
In that same regard Petipa's choreography contained various elements that reminded the spectator of the ballet's setting, but never once did the ballet master stray from the classical ballet canon. Petipa was not at all interested in ethnographic accuracy in any part of the ballet with regards to choreography. This was the fashion of the time, for whether a ballet was set in China, India, the Middle East, or even Russia, the ballet master rarely, if ever, considered including traditional native dance forms.
The well-traveled and learned ballet historian Konstantin Skalkovsky commented in his review of the 1877 premiere La Bayadère on the work's ethnographic inaccuracies:
The cast consisted of many of the Imperial Ballet's most esteemed artists. Aside from Vazem and Ivanov in the roles of Nikiya and Solor, the celebrated Ballerina Maria Gorshenkova performed Gamzatti, the High Brahmin by Nikolai Golts, and Dugmanta, the Rajah of Gulconda was performed by Christian Johansson
. The lavish décor was designed by Mikhail Bocharov for Act I-scene 1; Matvei Shishkov for Act I-scene 2 and Act II; Ivan Andreyev for Act III-scene 1 and Act IV-scene 1; Heinrich Wagner for Act III-scene 2 The Kingdom of the Shades; and Piotr Lambin for the Act IV-scene 2 Apotheosis.
Of course the audiences of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres adored melodramatic ballets, and the plot of La Bayadère ensured a number of powerful encounters: the scene of jealousy between Nikiya and Gamzatti, as well as the scene of Nikiya's rejection of the High Brahmin's declaration of love, were all praised by critics. A critic from the St. Petersburg newspaper The Theatre Echo commented positively: One critic hailed the work humorously as ""Giselle", east of the Suez", while another went on to comment on the mistakes made by the stage hands when presenting the "special effects" of the ballet, which apparently worked effectively only when timed correctly:
Ekaterina Vazem's portrayal of the Bayadère Nikiya became the rage of St. Petersburg society, as she was considered by the balletomanes and critics to be the supreme ballerina of her generation. After the performance the ballerina received a diamond studded ruby brooch, along with large bouquets of flowers, one of which was from Adelina Patti
, the celebrated Prima donna who at that time was engaged as guest artist with the St. Petersburg Imperial Italian Opera. A critic from The Voice had nothing but praise for Vazem's portrayal of the heroine Nikiya:
The ballet historian Vera Krosovskaya would later give an assessment of Petipa's original production of La Bayadère:
When Anna Johansson retired in 1886, she chose the second act for her farewell benefit performance. This was the last time any part of La Bayadère was performed before the work was taken out of the Imperial Ballet's repertory.
In late 1899, it was announced that the Imperial Ballet's Premier danseur Pavel Gerdt
was to be given a benefit performance in honor of his fortieth year of artistic activity on the St. Petersburg ballet stage. Also that year, the Imperial Ballet's newly appointed Prima ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya showed interest in having Petipa revive La Bayadère. It was agreed that the work would be a perfect vehicle for both Gerdt and Kschessinskaya, and soon Petipa began mounting a complete revival of the work for the 1900-1901 season.
Among Petipa's most striking changes for this revival was the change of setting for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades from an enchanted castle in the sky on a fully lighted stage, to a dark rocky landscape at the peaks of the Himalayas
. Petipa swelled the number of dancers in the Corps de ballet from thirty-two to forty-eight, making the illusion of descending spirits all the more effective in the famous Sortie des bayadères.
Petipa also created difficult choreography for the Ballerina's variations. Kschessinskaya commented on the revival many years later:
Another important change was the interpolation of "new" variations into the final Grand Pas d'action for the principal characters. As was the custom at the time, Minkus did not compose variations for the final Grand pas d'action of La Bayadère, which were always performed ad libitum, i.e. at the dancers choice (in his original score, Minkus wrote in the margin "followed by Solor and Gamzatti's variations" after the adage of the Grand Pas d'action). Typically such variations were taken from already existing ballets.
Since the fifty six year old Pavel Gerdt
was unable to dance Solor's variations, the Danseur Nikolai Legat performed them in his place. For his variation in the Grand pas d'action Legat chose a Variation added by Minkus to Petipa's 1874 revival of the Taglioni
/Offenbach
Le Papillon. In 1941 Vakhtang Chabukiani re-choreographed this variation for himself, which is still performed today by all male dancers who perform the role of Solor in La Bayadère.
The Prima Ballerina Olga Preobrajenskaya danced the role of Gamzatti in Petipa's 1900 revival of La Bayadère, and no record exists of what variation she performed during the final Grand pas d'action. By the time La Bayadère was revived by Vakhtang Chabukiani and Vladimir Ponomaryov at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1941, the variation traditionally danced by the character Gamzatti in the Grand pas d'action was a Variation taken from the celebrated Pas de Vénus from Petipa's 1868 ballet Le Roi Candaule to music by Riccardo Drigo
. In 1947 the Balletmaster Pyotr Gusev
revised Petipa's choreography for this variation, which is still performed today.
In the original production of La Bayadère Nikiya did not dance a variation during the ballet's final Grand pas d'action. However, Mathilde Kschessinskaya commissioned the Imperial Theatre's kappelmiester Riccardo Drigo
to compose a new variation for her performance. This variation became the Ballerina's legal property, as was the custom of the time, and was never again performed by anyone else.
Petipa's second revival of La Bayadère was presented on at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, receiving a rather mixed reaction from the critics and balletomanes. One critic of the St. Petersburg Gazette stated that the ballet was "" ... perhaps more boring than long and uninteresting ... ". Nevertheless, the ballet soon became one of the great vehicles for the ballerinas of the Tsarist stage, and earned a permanent place in the repertory. La Bayadère was soon considered to be one of the supreme challenges for the danseuse to demonstrate both her technical and dramatic skills. Olga Preobrajenskaya, Vera Trefilova
, Anna Pavlova (who made her last appearance with the Imperial Ballet in the role of Nikiya in 1914), Ekaterina Geltzer, Lubov Egorova, and Olga Spessivtseva, to name but a distinguished few, all triumphed in the role of Nikiya. The scene The Kingdom of the Shades became one of the ultimate tests for the corps de ballet, and many young Ballerinas made their débuts in the variations from this scene.
In March 1903, the scene The Kingdom of the Shades was performed independently for the first time during a gala performance at Peterhof Palace
in honor of a state visit from Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Petipa's 1900 production was changed very little over the course of its performance history. One of the major changes made to the work came in 1914 when Nikolai Legat extended the Pas de deux of Nikiya and Solor from the first scene, adding in more athletic lifts and modern partnering elements. Legat's version of this Pas is still performed today, and has widely been accepted as Petipa's choreography.
As with many of the works in the repertory of the Imperial Ballet at the turn of the 20th century, Petipa's choreography for the 1900 revival of La Bayadère was documented in the method of Stepanov Choreographic Notation
at some point between 1900 and 1903 by the Imperial Ballet's régisseur Nicholas Sergeyev and his team of notators. Aside from La Bayadère, the ballets which were notated included Petipa's original The Sleeping Beauty
, Raymonda
, and his definitive version of Giselle
, as well as the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov Swan Lake
, and the Petipa/Ivanov/Cecchetti
Coppélia
.
It was with these notations that such works as The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Swan Lake, and Coppelia were staged for the first time in the west by Sergeyev. Today these notations—which include many of Petipa's ballets which are no longer performed—are preserved in a collection known as the Sergeyev Collection
, which is today contained in the Harvard University Library Theatre Collection
.
by the Danseur Vasily Tikhomirov
and the Balletmaster Alexander Gorsky, premiering , with the Ballerina Adelaide Giuri as Nikiya, Tikhomirov as Solor, and Ekaterina Geltzer as Gamzatti. For this production Gorsky chose to include more ethnographically accurate costumes and choreographic elements. In the scene The Kingdom of the Shades Gorsky had clad the Ballerinas in Indian dress, rather than the traditional white tutus with veils for the arms. Gorsky's production was revived by Vasily Geltzer in 1907 and in a new production in 1917 with the ballerina Alexandra Balashova and the danseur Mikhail Mordkin
in the principal roles. In 1923 La Bayadère was again revived at the Bolshoi Theatre with Vasily Tikhomirov creating a new fourth act. Ivan Smoltsov and Valentina Kudryatseva revived the work in 1940 for Marina Semyonova, being the last full-length production the Bolshoi Ballet would perform until Yuri Grigorovich mounted his production for the company in 1991.
, many of the works from the repertory of the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet left the stage forever, and those that survived were soon severely altered. La Bayadère was performed for the last time in Petipa's 1900 production in August 1916. The ballet was revived in 1920 at the former Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in a production staged by Fyodor Lopukhov especially for the Ballerina Olga Spessivtseva, with Minkus' score adapted by Boris Afanasiev.
Although the reasons have become lost to history, Lopukhov's 1920 production of La Bayadère was the first revival of the full-length work to omit the final act (Act IV; known in the original libretto as The Wrath of the Gods). Historians have cited many possible reasons for this omission: when Petrograd was flooded in 1924 many of the sets and costumes of the works performed at the Mariinsky Theatre were destroyed, among them, the décor for Act IV of La Bayadère, and it is likely that the post-revolution St. Petersburg/Petrograd ballet did not have the funding to produce new décor. Another explanation is that the Mariinsky Theatre lacked the technical staff needed to produce the effect of the temple's destruction. A third explanation sites the fact that the Soviet regime would not have allowed the performance of a theatrical presentation that included themes of Hindu gods destroying a temple. It may very well be that all of this factored into the loss of Act IV, which would not be performed again in Petipa's design for another seventy-four years.
With the loss of Act IV, the ballet's scenario had to be modified, and so Lopukhov fashioned a short epilogue with which to end the ballet. In thi scene, the hero Solor awakes from his dream and is reunited with the Bayadère Nikiya. Lopukhov still retained its final Grand Pas d'action from Act IV, which the Ballet Master moved into the Act II Betrothal Celebrations. Since it was now taken out of its original context, Lopukhov revised Petipa's choreography and edited Minkus' music in order for it to fit with the new scenario. Petipa's Danse des fleurs de lotus from Act IV—a dance for twenty-four female students—was completely omitted.
presented her version of La Bayadère for the Kirov Ballet (the former Imperial Ballet). Owing much of her production to Lopukhov's 1920 redaction (including his "new" ending), and never straying to far from Petipa's original design for the dances, Vaganova nevertheless revised the Ballerina's dances for her star pupil Marina Semenova, who danced Nikiya. This included triple pirouettes
sur le pointe (on the toes), and fast pique turns en dehors
. Although Vaganova's revival did not find a permanent place in the repertory, her modifications to the Ballerina's dances would become the standard.
In 1940 the Kirov Ballet once again made plans to revive La Bayadère, this time in a staging by the Balletmaster Vladimir Ponomaryov and the Premier danseur Vakhtang Chabukiani
. This version would be the definitive staging of La Bayadère from which nearly every subsequent production would be based.
Ponomarev and Chabukiani trimmed much of the ballet's incidental scenes in order to speed up the action, and either edited or completely omitted Petipa's original mime sequences, which by the early to mid 20th century were considered old fashioned. Most of the changes were to be found in the Act II Betrothal Celebrations: Ponomarev and Chabukiani revised the choreography completely for the original Grand Pas d'action from the last act, which was transferred by Lopukhov to Act II, transforming the piece into a Grand pas classique for Solor, Gamzatti, four Ballerinas and two Suitors. The Grand divertissement of Act II went through changes as well: the Danse des esclaves was omitted, and the two part Danse pour quatre bayadères was modified so that the second dance could be performed after the central Adage of the Grand pas classique. Another important change was made to Nikiya's final dance at the end of Act II, which Petipa had originally choreographed to be performed with a prop veena
. Although the choreography was retained without change the prop veena was taken out.
Originally before the Pas de deux for the characters Nikiya and Solor in Act I, an elaborate harp cadenza would herald the beginning of a scene in which Solor watched Nikiya from afar while she played a veena in a window of the temple. For the 1941 production this number was re-choreographed so that Nikiya would instead perform a solo to the same music while holding a water pitcher on her shoulder, a revision retained in nearly all modern productions.
Vladimir Ponomarev completely re-choreographed the Danse sacrée, a waltz performed by eight coryphées during the first scene of La Bayadère. Petipa originally staged this number as a simple piece performed in character shoes, but for the 1941 version Ponomarev had the ballerinas performing en pointe and gave the steps greater complexity. Another change made to the first scene of the ballet was the omission of an entire sequence which took place after the High Brahmin spies on the exchange of vows between Nikiya and Solor. In the original production, this passage included a scene where Bayadères return from the temple to gather water, followed by an extended scene of Nikiya and Solor saying goodbye to one another before the High Brahmin returns to swear vengeance over the sacred fire.
Ponomarev and Chabukiani chose to include the 1900 décor for the scenes used in their production, which were restored by the designer Mikhail Shishliannikov. However an entirely new set was created for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades in Shishliannikov's design. Minkus's original music was also restored from his original hand-written manuscript, though it was properly edited and re-ordered in accordance with the new scenario and order of dances.
Unlike Fyodor Lopukhov's revival of 1920 that included a short scene in which to end the ballet, Ponomarev and Chabukiani chose to end La Bayadère with the scene The Kingdom of the Shades. Minkus's original ending for the Grand coda of the scene The Kingdom of the Shades was altered, and the epilogue from the original apotheosis
of Act IV was tacked on to the music in order to bring the ballet to a close.
The Ponomarev/Chabukiani revival of La Bayadère premiered on February 10, 1941 to a resounding success, with Natalia Dudinskaya
as Nikiya and Vakhtang Chabukiani
as Solor.
The choreography for the dances of Nikiya went through yet another renaissance in the hands of the great virtuosa Ballerina Dudinskaya, whose revisions to the choreography are today the standard. Although her interpretation of the tragic Nikiya was looked on as unsuitable for the stellar Ballerina, she nevertheless excelled in The Kingdom of the Shades, where Petipa's strict academic patterns prevailed. In the Variation de Nikiya (a.k.a. the Scarf Duet) she studded the choreography with multiple tours en arabesque
, and included, for the first time, airy splits in her Grand jetés
during the Entrée de Nikiya, as well as adding fast piqué turns
in the Grand coda.
The choreography for Solor went through a renaissance as well with the great Premier danseur Chabukiani in the role. Although the dances for the role of Solor had become far more prominent since La Bayadère had been performed in Imperial Russia, Chabukiani's "new" choreography would become the standard for all proceeding male dancers. For the 1941 revival he rechoreographed Nikolai Legat's variation for Solor from the original Grand Pas d'action, and also added another variation: he arranged for Minkus's music for the second passage of the Grand coda in the scene The Kingdom of the Shades to be repeated as a solo for Solor, a tradition which is still preserved today.
In 1977, the Kirov Ballet's 1941 Ponomarev/Chabukiani production of La Bayadère was filmed and later released onto DVD/video with Gabriella Komleva as Nikiya, Tatiana Terekhova as Gamzatti, and Rejen Abdeyev as Solor.
's production the role is known as The Bronze Idol).
Zubkovsky created an athletic male variation in which the dancer represents a golden statue, or idol, reminiscent of the Hindu
god Shiva
, thereby requiring the Danseur to be completely covered from head to toe in brazen makeup of either a bronze or gold color, with the hands at all times held in the "lotus blossom" position from traditional Indian dancing.
The music used by Zubkovsky for this variation was fashioned from the Marche persane (Persian March) composed by Ludwig Minkus for Petipa's 1874 revival of the Taglioni
/Offenbach
ballet Le Papillon. Though titled as a march
, the piece is actually a waltz
in the 5/4 time signature. Today this variation is among the most popular passages of La Bayadère with audiences.
In Makarova's version of La Bayadère this solo opens the last Act, and follows John Lanchbery
's introduction. The Minkus music is presented in Lanchbery's reorchesreated version. Choreographically Makarova slightly revised Zubkovsky's original steps, but remained faithful to the basic shape of the original.
The music used by Sergeyev for this Pas de deux is by Cesare Pugni
, being an adage taken from the Act II Pas des fleurs from Jules Perrot
's 1844 ballet La Esmeralda
.
Anna Pavlova had intended to include an abridged version of The Kingdom of the Shades for her touring company in the 1910s, for which an adaptation of Minkus' music was prepared (whoever was responsible for this has become lost to history). But for reasons unknown the production never came to fruition (the conductor Richard Bonynge
included this version of Minkus' music on his 1962 recording The Art of the Prima Ballerina).
Nicholas Sergeyev, the former régisseur of the Imperial Ballet, staged his own version of Petipa's The Kingdom of the Shades, under the title Songe du Rajah, for the Riga Opera Ballet of Riga
, Latvia
, premiering September 24, 1923. He also staged Songe du Rajah for the short-lived Russian Ballet Company in London, which premiered to great success at the Bournemouth Pavilion on March 5, 1934. Sergeyev had made plans to stage Songe du Rajah for Serge Diaghilev's original Ballets Russes
in Paris for the 1929-1930 season, but the production was never realized (possibly due to Diaghilev's death in August 1929). In spite of Sergeyev's many stagings of Songe du Rajah for various European companies the work never found a permanent place in the ballet repertory, and by the 1940s was no longer performed. Today choreographic documentation of Songe du Rajah is included among the notations in the famous Sergeyev Collection
.
Although La Bayadère was considered a classic in Russia, the work was almost completely unknown in the west. The first western productionof the scene The Kingdom of the Shades was mounted by Eugenia Feodorova at the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It premiered on April 12, 1961 with Bertha Rosanova as Nikiya and Aldo Lotufo as Solor. But it was to be the Kirov Ballet's performance of The Kingdom of the Shades at the Palais Garnier
in Paris on July 4, 1961 that roused widespread interest in this almost totally unknown ballet from the Imperial/Petipa repertory. Two years later, Rudolf Nureyev
staged the scene for the Royal Ballet, with Margot Fonteyn
as Nikiya. Since the original Minkus orchestral parts were only available at that time in Soviet Russia, Nureyev called upon the Royal Opera House composer/conductor John Lanchbery
to orchestrate the music from a piano reduction. The premiere was a resounding success, and is considered to be among the most important moments in the history of ballet.
The dance critic Arlene Croce
commented on Petipa's The Kingdom of the Shades in her review of Makarova's staging of the scene in The New Yorker
:
Nureyev's version of The Kingdom of the Shades was also staged by Eugen Valukin for the National Ballet of Canada
, premiering on March 27, 1967. The first full-length production of La Bayadère was staged by the Balletmistress Natalie Conus for the Iranian National Ballet Company
in 1972, in a production based almost entirely on the 1941 Ponomarev/Chabukiani production for the Kirov Ballet. For this production Minkus' score was orchestrated from a piano reduction by Robin Barker.
mounted The Kingdom of the Shades for American Ballet Theatre
in New York City, being the first staging of any part of La Bayadère in the United States. In 1980 Makarova staged her own version of the full-length work for the company, based largely on the Ponomarev/Chabukiani version she danced during her career with the Kirov Ballet. Since only about 3/4 of Minkus' original, full-length score was available outside of Soviet Russia, John Lanchbery was called upon to compose the missing sections himself, all the while re-scoring the Minkus music.
Makarova made many changes in her version of La Bayadère. Aside from the musical changes made to the first two scenes, Makarova did not deviate at all from the traditional choreography as performed at the Mariinsky Theatre, though she did omit Konstantin Sergeyev's Pas de Deux for Nikiya and the Slave and used Pugni's music for a dance for the Corps de Ballet in her new version of the last act. She shortened Act II by omitting the entire Grand divertissement (possibly because the music was not available outside of Russia at that time), with the exception of the Valse des perroquets, which John Lanchbery re-scored in the style of a grand Viennese-style waltz, and which Makarova rechoreographed as an elaborate dance for the Corps de Ballet. In light of the now shortened Act II, Makarova renamed the scene Act I-scene 3. Makarova chose to retain Zubkovsky's 1948 Dance of the Golden Idol, which she renamed The Bronze Idol, and transferred to the opening of her newly staged last act.
Due to the smaller stage of the Metropolitan Opera House
in relation to that of the Mariinsky Theatre
, Makarova was forced to reduce the number of the Corps de Ballet in the scene The Kingdom of the Shades from thirty-two to twenty-four. She was also obliged to modify the poses' held by the Ballerinas while they stood on the sides of the stage during the variations, due to the differences in physique of western Ballerinas to that of Russian ones (Makarova changed the original position of tendu derrière effacé
, with the leg held in tendu slightly bent - for which Russian Ballerinas are famous, with their arched back, torqued hyper-extended supporting legs, and severely arched feet - to tendu derrière croisé
, while still holding the leg in tendu in a slightly bent position).
In her attempt to honor the original scenario of La Bayadère, Makarova's chose to stage her own version of the ballet's final act. Since Minkus's original music was still believed to be lost, John Lanchbery composed the music. Following Makarova's example, many subsequent stagings of La Bayadère would include a version of the lost last act, among them, Pyotr Gusev
's version staged for the Sverdlovsk Ballet in 1984.
Makarova's production premiered on May 21, 1980 at the Metropolitan Opera House, and was shown live on PBS during the Live from Lincoln Center broadcast. Makarova danced the role of Nikiya herself, but was replaced by Marianna Tcherkassky due to an injury during the first act. The principal roles included Anthony Dowell
as Solor, Cynthia Harvey as Gamzatti, Alexander Minz as the High Brahmin and Victor Barbee as the Rajah. The décor was designed by Pier Luigi Samaritani, with costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge
. Though the reaction to her choreography for the last act was rather mixed by critics, the premiere was a colossal triumph for American Ballet Theatre, and the company has performed it consistently ever since.
In 1989, Makarova staged her version of La Bayadère for the Royal Ballet in a totally un-changed production, including copies of Samaritani's designs for the décor, and new costumes by Yolanda Sonnabend. In 1990 her production was filmed, and later shown on PBS in 1994 and later released onto DVD/Video. The cast included Altynai Asylmuratova
as Nikiya, Darcey Bussell
as Gamzatti and Irek Mukhamedov
as Solor. Makarova has since staged her production for many companies throughout the world, including the Ballet of La Scala (who have recently filmed their production and released it onto to DVD), the Australian Ballet and the Royal Swedish Ballet
. Makarova's productions of La Bayadère always include the Samaritani designs for the décor and the Lanchbery revised music.
In 1983 Lanchbery conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
in a recording of his orchestration of Minkus's music for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades. The recording also included extracts taken from the Paquita Grand Pas Classique and the Paquita Pas de Trois. The recording was released by the label EMI
onto LP and cassette.
In 1994 the conductor Richard Bonynge
recorded Lanchbery's orchestration of Minkus' score for La Bayadère as prepared for American Ballet Theatre's 1980 production. The recording included an arrangement of the music for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades as utilized by Anna Pavlova's company in the 1910s. The recording was released on the label Decca Records
.
, artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet, began making plans for a revival of the full-length La Bayadère, to be derived from the traditional Ponomarev/Chabukiani version he danced during his career with the Kirov Ballet. Nureyev enlisted the assistance of his friend and colleague Ninel Kurgapkina
, former Prima Ballerina of the Kirov Ballet, to assist in staging the work.
The administration of the Paris Opéra knew that this production of La Bayadère would be Nureyev's last offering to the world, as his health was deteriorating more and more from advanced AIDS
disease. Because of this, the cultural administration of the Paris Opéra gave the production an enormous budget, with even more funding coming from various private donations.
Nureyev wanted to use Minkus' score in its original orchestration, which was only available at that time in Russia. In spite of his poor health Nureyev made a speedy trip to St. Petersburg to make photocopies at the Kirov/Mariinsky Library of the original orchestral parts for La Bayadère, though in his haste he accidentally copied only the bottom half of each page, which fortunately included the page numbers. He did not realize his mistake until he returned to Paris, and with the help of John Lanchbery, the score was reassembled and orchestrated as close to the original as possible. Because certain sections were not copied at all, Lanchbery was forced to compose a few transitional passages, but in the end, nearly all of the music was scored by Lanchbery in Minkus' style.
Nureyev called upon the Italian film designer Enzio Frigerio to create the décor, and broadway designer Franca Squarciapino
to create the ballet's costumes. Frigerio took inspiration from the Taj Mahal
and the architecture of the Ottoman Empire
, as well as drawings of the original décor used for Petipa's 1877 production - Frigerio called his designs "a dream of the Orient through Eastern-European Eyes". Squarciapino's costume designs were inspired by ancient Persian and Indian paintings, with elaborate head-dresses and hats, colorful shimmering fabrics, and traditional Indian garb, with much of the materials coming from Parisian boutiques that imported directly from India.
Regarding the choreography, Nureyev left nearly all of the traditional Ponomarev/Chabukiani revisions intact, all the while retaining Zubkovsky's Dance of the Golden Idol in the Act II Grand Divertissement and Sergeyev's Pas de Deux for Nikiya and the Slave in Act I-Scene 2. Among Nureyev's revisions was a passage for the male corps de ballet in the opening of Act I-scene 2, as well as another passage in the Valse évantails from Act II. He re-ordered the variations of the Shades in Act III, putting the final variation first, and revised the choreography of the Variation de Nikiya (a.k.a. the Scarf Duet) so that Solor also performs Nikiya's movements, a change he had originally included in his 1962 staging of the The Kingdom of the Shades for the Royal Ballet. In the documentary "Dancer's Dream: La Bayadere" it is said that Nureyev considered recreating the lost fourth act, à la Makarova's production, but ultimately decided to follow the Soviet tradition and end the ballet with the scene The Kingdom of the Shades, saying that he preferred the "gentler" ending compared to the original ballet's rather violent conclusion.
Nureyev's production of La Bayadère was presented for the first time at the Palais Garnier
(or the Paris Opéra) on October 8, 1992 with Isabelle Guérin as Nikiya, Laurent Hilaire as Solor, and Élisabeth Platel
as Gamzatti (and was later filmed in 1994 and released onto DVD/video with the same cast). The theatre was filled with many of the most prominent people of the ballet world, along with throngs of newspaper and television reporters from around the world. The production was a resounding success, with Nureyev being honored with the prestigious Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
from the French Minister of Culture. The premiere of Nureyev's production was a special occasion for many in the world of ballet, as only three months later he died.
The Danseur Laurent Hilaire later commented on Nureyev's revival:
In order to restore Petipa's original choreography, Sergei Vikharev, the Balletmaster of the company in charge of staging the production, made use of the Stepanov Choreographic Notation
from the Sergeyev Collection
. The most anticipated passage of the work to be restored was the long deleted last act. This scene included the lost Danse des fleurs de lotus (Dance of the Lotus Blossoms) and Petipa's original Grand Pas d'action, which up to that point had been performed during the second act in the revised Ponomarev/Chabukiani choreography.
Among other restored passages were the Danse des esclaves from Act II, all of the original mime sequences, and Petipa's original choreography for the Danse sacrée from Act I-Scene 1. Although Natalia Dudinskaya's 1954 Pas de deux of Nikiya and the Slave was deleted, Vikharev chose to retain Nikolai Zubkovsky's 1948 character dance Bazhok (or Dance of the Golden Idol), and though it was only included for the premiere, it was later reinstated due to popular demand.
For the majority of the 20th century Minkus's original score for La Bayadère was thought to have been lost. Unbeknownst to the company, the Mariinsky Theatre
Music Library had in their possession two volumes of Minkus's complete, hand-written score of 1877, as well as three manuscript rehearsal répétiteurs in arrangement for two violins, which included many notes for ballet masters and performers. Sergei Vikharev commented on the restoration of Minkus's score:
The Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet's traditional 1941 Ponomareyev/Chabukiani production of La Bayadère utilized the 1900 set designs for Act I, Act II, and Act III-scene 1, designed by Orest Allegri, Adolf Kvapp and Konstantin Ivanov respectively. However the 1941 production did not utilize the Pyotr Lambin's 1900 designs for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades, and instead used a design by Mikhail Shishliannikov. For the reconstruction the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet restored Lambin's designs, as well as his designs for the last act from miniature models which had been preserved in the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music. The scene of the destruction of the temple was restored using assemblage blueprints kept in the Russian State History Archives.
The 1900 costumes designed by Yevgeni Ponomaryov were restored from the original sketches, which were kept in the St. Petersburg State Theatre Library. Technical descriptions of the costumes of La Bayadère, housed in the Russian State History Archives, were used in the reconstruction of the costumes from the 1900 production. Where possible when selecting fabrics, the costume restoration team used those described in the archive documents. Since some of these fabrics are no longer produced today the Mariinsky Theatre's costume technicians, supervised by Tatiana Noginova, used similar materials, and strictly observed the principle of sewing by hand.
The Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet opened the 10th International Stars of the White Nights Festival with their reconstruction of La Bayadère at the Mariinsky Theatre on May 30, 2001, with Daria Pavlenko as Nikiya, Elvira Tarasova as Gamzatti, and Igor Kolb
as Solor. The reconstruction received a rather mixed reaction from the St. Petersburg audience, which was largely comprised with the most prominent persons of the Russian ballet. The celebrated Ballerina of the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet Altynai Asylmuratova
was seen weeping after the performance, allegedly because of her shock at seeing the ballet presented in its original form. When the company included the production on their 2003 tour, it caused a sensation around the world, particularly in New York and London. To date the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet only perform the reconstruction on special occasions.
, Soloist of His Imperial Majesty and Prima Ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, on the first production of La Bayadère.
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
, originally staged in four acts and seven tableaux by French choreographer Marius Petipa
Marius Petipa
Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa was a French ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. Petipa is considered to be the most influential ballet master and choreographer of ballet that has ever lived....
to the music of Ludwig Minkus
Ludwig Minkus
Ludwig Minkus a.k.a. Léon Fyodorovich Minkus was an Austrian composer of ballet music, a violin virtuoso and teacher.Minkus is most noted for the music he composed while serving as Ballet Composer of the St...
. La Bayadère was first performed by the Imperial Ballet
Mariinsky Ballet
The Mariinsky Ballet is a classical ballet company based at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in the 18th century and originally known as the Imperial Russian Ballet, the Mariinsky Ballet is one of the world's leading ballet companies...
at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, on . A scene from the ballet, known as The Kingdom of the Shades, is one of the most celebrated excerpts in all of classical ballet, and is considered to be one of the first examples of abstract ballet.
La Bayadère has been restaged and revived many times throughout its long performance history, most notably by Marius Petipa in 1900, for the Imperial Ballet; Alexander Gorsky and Vasily Tikhomirov
Vasily Tikhomirov
Vasiliy Dmitriyevich Tikhomirov was a dancer and a choreographer with the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow, Russia. His most distinguished production was The Red Poppy , with his wife Yekaterina Geltzer in the main role. He and Geltzer were buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery....
in 1904 for the Bolshoi Theatre
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
; Agrippina Vaganova
Agrippina Vaganova
Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova was an outstanding Russian ballet teacher who developed the Vaganova method - the technique which derived from the teaching methods of the old Imperial Ballet School under the Premier Maître de Ballet Marius Petipa throughout the mid to late 19th century, though...
in 1932 for the Kirov Ballet; Vakhtang Chabukiani
Vakhtang Chabukiani
Vakhtang Chabukiani was a Georgian ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher highly regarded in his native country as well as abroad. He is considered to be one of the most influential male ballet dancers in history, and is noted for creating the majority of the choreography of the male variations...
and Vladimir Ponomaryov in 1941 for the Kirov Ballet; Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev was a Russian dancer, considered one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of the 20th century. Nureyev's artistic skills explored expressive areas of the dance, providing a new role to the male ballet dancer who once served only as support to the women.In 1961 he...
in 1963 (the scene The Kingdom of the Shades) for the Royal Ballet; Natalia Makarova
Natalia Makarova
Nataliya Romanovna Makarova is the legendary Soviet-Russian-born prima ballerina. The History of Dance, published in 1981, notes that “Her performances set standards of artistry and aristocracy of dance which mark her as the finest ballerina of her generation.” She has also won awards as an...
in 1974 (the scene The Kingdom of the Shades) and the full-length work in 1980, both for American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
; Rudolf Nureyev in 1992 for the Paris Opéra Ballet; and Sergei Vikharev in 2001, in a reconstruction of Petipa's 1900 staging.
Today, La Bayadère is presented primarily in two different versions—those productions derived from Vakhtang Chabukiani and Vladimir Ponomaryov's 1941 revival for the Kirov Ballet, and those productions derived from Natalia Makarova's 1980 version for American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
, which is itself derived from Chabukiani and Ponomaryov's version.
Origins
La Bayadère was the creation of the choreographer Marius Petipa, the renowned Premier Maître de Ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The music was written by the composer Ludwig Minkus, Petipa's chief collaborator, who from 1871 until 1886 held the official post of Ballet Composer to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres.Romantic ballet
The Romantic ballet is defined primarily by an era in ballet in which the ideas of Romanticism in art and literature influenced the creation of ballets. The era occurred during the early to mid 19th century primarily at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique of the Paris Opera Ballet and Her...
tradition, i.e. ballets which were typically melodramas involving a love triangle of some sort, and usually consisting of a supernatural female creature who would embody the feminine ideal. The rather tragic scenario of La Bayadère is certainly a work that conforms to these elements.
The true origins of La Bayadère are rather obscured, and the identity of the person or persons responsible for creating the ballet's scenario is open to debate. Typically before a new ballet was to have its premiere on the Imperial stage, the libretto and a list of dances were published in the newspaper, along with an article discussing its creation. In the case of La Bayadère, no author was credited when the libretto was first published in the St. Petersburg Gazette in late 1876. When Petipa revived La Bayadère in 1900, the Gazette again published the libretto, this time naming the writer/dramatist and ballet historian Sergei Khudekov as author. Petipa soon wrote a letter of correction to the newspaper's editor, stating that he alone bore responsibility for the libretto, but that Khudekov only contributed eight lines of stage direction. The Gazette subsequently published an apology to the Ballet Master, and named him as sole author. There is no evidence to dispute Petipa's claim of authorship, either by Khudekov or any of Petipa's contemporaries.
Possible influences
In 1839 a touring company of authentic Indian BayadèreDevadasi
In Hinduism, the devadasi tradition is a religious tradition in which girls are "married" and dedicated to a deity or to a temple and includes performance aspects such as those that take place in the temple as well as in the courtly and mujuvani [telegu] or home context. Dance and music were...
s visited Paris, and the celebrated dramatist Théophile Gautier
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
wrote some of his most inspired pages in describing the troupe's principal dancer Amani. Years later in 1855 Gautier recorded the tragic fact that the dancer had hanged herself in a fit of depression in fog-bound London while longing for her beloved India. To pay homage to the Bayadère, Gautier wrote the libretto for the ballet Sacountalâ, derived in part from a play by the Indian poet Kalidasa
Kalidasa
Kālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language...
. The work was first presented in Paris on 14 July 1858 at the Paris Opéra in a staging by Marius Petipa's brother Lucien Petipa
Lucien Petipa
Lucien Petipa was a French ballet dancer in the early 19th century and was the brother of the famous balletmaster of the Russian Imperial Ballet , Marius Petipa...
to the music of Ernest Reyer
Ernest Reyer
Ernest Reyer, the adopted name of Louis Étienne Ernest Rey, was a French opera composer and music critic .- Biography :...
. This is the work that many ballet historians have cited as the true inspiration for Petipa's La Bayadère.
Another work that may have inspired Petipa was Filippo Taglioni
Filippo Taglioni
Filippo Taglioni was an Italian dancer and choreographer and personal teacher to his own daughter, the famous Romantic ballerina Marie Taglioni. He is the son of Carlo and father of both Marie and Paul...
's two-act opera-ballet Le Dieu et la Bayadère, ou La Courtisane amoureuse , set to the music of Daniel Auber
Daniel Auber
Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
, also presented in Paris at the Opéra. This ballet was first presented on 13 October 1830, and was attended by a young Marius Petipa. The action of this work was fashioned by Eugène Scribe
Eugène Scribe
Augustin Eugène Scribe , was a French dramatist and librettist. He is best known for the perfection of the so-called "well-made play" . This dramatic formula was a mainstay of popular theater for over 100 years.-Biography:...
from Johann Goethe's
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
Der Gott und die Bajadere (The God and the Bayadere). The work was an enormous success, and included the vocal talents of the celebrated tenor and dramatist Adolphe Nourrit
Adolphe Nourrit
Adolphe Nourrit was a French operatic tenor, librettist, and composer. One of the most esteemed opera singers of the 1820s and 1830s, he was particularly associated with the works of Gioachino Rossini....
, with the legendary Ballerina Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni was a famous Italian/Swedish ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.-Biography:...
in the principal role of Zöloe.
Plot outline
Petipa's La Bayadère (meaning The Temple Dancer or The Temple Maiden) tells the story of the Bayadère Nikiya and the warrior Solor, who have sworn eternal fidelity to one another. The High Brahmin, however, is also in love with Nikiya and learns of her relationship with Solor. Moreover, the Rajah Dugmanta of Golconda has selected Solor to be the fiancé of his daughter Gamzatti (or Hamsatti, as she is known in the original production), and Nikiya, unaware of the arrangement, agrees to dance at the couple's betrothal celebrations.The jealous High Brahmin—in an effort to have Solor killed and have Nikiya for himself—tells the Rajah that the warrior has already vowed love to the Bayadère over a sacred fire. But the High Brahmin's plan backfires when, rather than becoming angry with Solor, the Rajah vows that it is Nikiya who must die. Gamzatti, who has eavesdropped on this exchange, summons Nikiya to the palace in an attempt to bribe the Bayadère into giving up her beloved. As their rivalry intensifies, Nikiya picks up a dagger in a fit of rage and attempts to kill Gamzatti, only to be stopped in the nick of time by Gamzatti's nurse. Nikiya flees in horror at what she has almost done. As did her father, Gamzatti vows that the Bayadère must die.
At the betrothal celebrations Nikiya performs a somber dance while playing her veena
Veena
Veena may refer to one of several Indian plucked instruments:With frets*Rudra veena, plucked string instrument used in Hindustani music*Saraswati veena, plucked string instrument used in Carnatic musicFretless...
. She is then given a basket of flowers which she believes are from Solor, and begins a frenzied and joyous dance. Little does she know that the basket is from the Rajah and Gamzatti, who have concealed beneath the flowers a venomous snake. The Bayadère then holds the basket too close and the serpent charges forth and bites her on the neck. The High Brahmin offers Nikiya an antidote to the poison, but she chooses death rather than life without her beloved Solor.
In the next scene the depressed Solor smokes opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
. In his dream-like euphoria he has a vision of Nikiya's shade (or spirit) in a nirvana
Nirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
among the star-lit mountain peaks of the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
called The Kingdom of the Shades. Here, the lovers reconcile among the supreme opulence and order of the shades of other Bayadères (in the original production of 1877 this scene took place in an illuminated enchanted palace in the sky). When Solor awakes, preparations are underway for his wedding to Gamzatti.
In the temple where the wedding is to take place the shade of Nikiya haunts Solor during his dances with Gamzatti. When the High Brahmin joins the couple's hands in marriage, the gods take revenge for Nikiya's murder by destroying the temple and all of its occupants.
In an apotheosis
Apotheosis
Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature...
the shades of both Nikiya and Solor are reunited and spirited off toward the Himalayas.
Original production
La Bayadère was created especially for the benefit performance of Ekaterina VazemEkaterina Vazem
Ekaterina Vazem was a Russian prima ballerina. She was made famous for first dancing the role of Nikiya in 1877 Marius Petipa's ballet, La Bayadère...
, Prima ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. During the mid to late 19th century Russian ballet was dominated by foreign artists, though during the late 1860s through the early 1880s the theatre administration encouraged the promotion of native talent. The Russian ballerina Vazem—a terre-à-terre virtuosa—had climbed the ranks of the Imperial Ballet to become one of the company's most celebrated dancers.
Lev Ivanov
Lev Ivanovich Ivanov was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer and later, Second Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet....
, Premier danseur of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. Ivanov would go on to become régisseur and Deuxieme Maître de Ballet of the Imperial Theatres, as well as a noted choreographer.
Petipa's work on La Bayadère
Petipa spent almost six months staging La Bayadère, all the while mounting the work in the midst of difficult circumstances. The Director of the Imperial Theatres was Baron Karl Karlovich Kister, an aristocrat who enforced stringent budget limitations whenever possible due to his dislike of ballet. At that time in Tsarist St. Petersburg the Imperial Italian Opera was in fashion far more than ballet, and as a result of enjoying the favor of the public, the troupe monopolized on rehearsal space and performance time on the stage of the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre (principle venue of the Imperial Ballet and Opera until 1886). This left the ballet company only two days a week in which to perform, while the Italian Opera performed six, and sometimes seven times per week. Because of this, Petipa was given only one dress rehearsal for La Bayadère, being the only time before the premiere that all of the scenes and dances were brought together on stage. During the rehearsal, Petipa clashed with the Prima ballerina Vazem over the matter of her entrance in the ballet's final Grand Pas d'action, while also experiencing many problems with the set designers who constructed the ballet's elaborate stage effects. Petipa was also worried that his new work would play to an empty house, as the Director Kister increased the ticket prices to be higher than that of the Italian Opera, which at that time were rather expensive. It is significant to note that the 1877 premiere of Swan Lake was being prepared in Moscow the same year as La Bayadère in St. Petersburg.Petipa opened La Bayadère with the scene The Festival of Fire (Act I-Scene 1)—a scene in which the delicate dances of the Bayadères alternated with wild and frenzied dancing of the fakir
Fakir
The fakir or faqir ; ) Derived from faqr is a Muslim Sufi ascetic in Middle East and South Asia. The Faqirs were wandering Dervishes teaching Islam and living on alms....
s, who while in a state of religious intoxication jumped through a sacred fire and taunted their bodies with daggers and knives. The second act opened with the Grand Procession in honor of the Idol Badrinata, set to Minkus's march
March (music)
A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...
reminiscent of a scene from Verdi's Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
. The procession from Act II of La Bayadère consisted of thirty six entrances for 216 participants, which included the hero Solor making his entrance atop a fifteen-foot-high bejewelled prop elephant. This was followed by the Grand divertissement which consisted of dances for the slaves and the corps de ballet, as well as character dances. Among these pieces was the Danse manu, in which a Ballerina attempts to balance a water pitcher on her head, all the while attempting to keep its contents from two thirsty little girls. Following the Danse manu was the Danse infernale, a character number set to Minkus's rousing drums which one critic found to be "...more of the Indians of America than those of India". After a Coda générale for all participants, the celebrated Scène dansée of the heroine Nikiya was performed, where in the original production the Ballerina began her somber dance with a prop veena
Veena
Veena may refer to one of several Indian plucked instruments:With frets*Rudra veena, plucked string instrument used in Hindustani music*Saraswati veena, plucked string instrument used in Carnatic musicFretless...
to Minkus' mournful cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
solo. This was followed by a frenzied coda, and the death of the heroine by the bite of a serpent.
Pièce de résistance
Pièce de résistance is a French term , translated into English literally as "piece of resistance," referring to the best part or feature of something , a showpiece, or highlight. It can be thought of as the portion of a creation which defies Pièce de résistance is a French term (circa 1839),...
in the course of an evening-length production. For La Bayadère, Petipa gave his audience two: the appearance of the heroine Nikiya's shade at the wedding of Solor and Gamzatti in the final act, and the vision scene known as The Kingdom of the Shades in the third act. Petipa's staged the appearance of Nikiya's shade at the wedding of Solor and Gamzatti in the context of a Grand Pas d'action, very much reminiscent of the Grand Pas de trois from Act I of Filippo Taglioni
Filippo Taglioni
Filippo Taglioni was an Italian dancer and choreographer and personal teacher to his own daughter, the famous Romantic ballerina Marie Taglioni. He is the son of Carlo and father of both Marie and Paul...
's original 1832 La Sylphide
La Sylphide
La Sylphide is one of the world's oldest surviving romantic ballets. There were two versions of the ballet; the version choreographed by the Danish balletmaster August Bournonville is the only version known to have survived....
—the shade of the bayadère Nikiya is only visible to her beloved Solor during his dances with Gamzatti.
The most celebrated and enduring passage of La Bayadère was Petipa's grand vision scene known as The Kingdom of the Shades. Petipa staged this scene as a Grand pas classique, completely devoid of any dramatic action. His simple and academic choreography was to become one of his most celebrated compositions, with the Sortie des bayadères of the thirty-two member Corps de ballet of shades arguably becoming his most celebrated composition of all. The Sortie des bayadères was inspired by Doré's illustrations for Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
's Paradiso from The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature...
, with each dancer of the thirty two strong Corps de ballet clad in white tutus with veils stretched about their arms. Each of the dancers made her entrance, one by one, down a long winding ramp from upstage right, with a simple Arabesque cambré
Glossary of ballet
Ballet is a formalized type of dance; ballet dance is usually performed on stage as part of a ballet dance work which includes mime, acting, and is set to music...
, followed by an arching of the torso with arms in fifth position
Glossary of ballet
Ballet is a formalized type of dance; ballet dance is usually performed on stage as part of a ballet dance work which includes mime, acting, and is set to music...
, followed by two steps forward. With the last two steps she made room for her sister shade, and the combination would continue thus in a serpentine pattern until the entire corps de ballet had filled the stage in eight rows of four. Then followed simple movements en adage to the end, where the Ballerinas split into two rows and lined opposite sides of the stage in preparation for the following dances. Petipa left the Sortie des bayadères free of technical complexity—the unison of the whole and the effect of the descending Ballerinas was the challenge, as a mistake from one dancer would spoil it. When Petipa first staged the scene The Kingdom of the Shades it was set in an enchanted palace in the sky on a fully lighted stage.
Indian dance
Dance in India covers a wide range of dance and dance theatre forms, from the ancient classical or temple dance to folk and modern styles.Three best-known Hindu deities, Shiva, Kali and Krishna, are typically represented dancing. There are hundreds of Indian folk dances such as Bhangra, Bihu,...
and music
Music of India
The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...
. The ballet was essentially a vision of the southern orient through 19th century European eyes. Although some sections of Minkus's score contained melodies that were reminiscent of the southern orient, his score was a definitive example of the musique dansante in vogue at that time, and did not stray at all from the usual string of lightly orchestrated melodious polkas, adagios, Viennese-style waltzes, and the like.
In that same regard Petipa's choreography contained various elements that reminded the spectator of the ballet's setting, but never once did the ballet master stray from the classical ballet canon. Petipa was not at all interested in ethnographic accuracy in any part of the ballet with regards to choreography. This was the fashion of the time, for whether a ballet was set in China, India, the Middle East, or even Russia, the ballet master rarely, if ever, considered including traditional native dance forms.
The well-traveled and learned ballet historian Konstantin Skalkovsky commented in his review of the 1877 premiere La Bayadère on the work's ethnographic inaccuracies:
The cast consisted of many of the Imperial Ballet's most esteemed artists. Aside from Vazem and Ivanov in the roles of Nikiya and Solor, the celebrated Ballerina Maria Gorshenkova performed Gamzatti, the High Brahmin by Nikolai Golts, and Dugmanta, the Rajah of Gulconda was performed by Christian Johansson
Christian Johansson
Christian Johansson was a teacher, choreographer and coaching balletmaster for the Russian Imperial Ballet. Born Pehr Christian Johansson in Stockholm, Sweden, he moved to Russia as a dancer and stayed on as one of the most important teachers in Russian history...
. The lavish décor was designed by Mikhail Bocharov for Act I-scene 1; Matvei Shishkov for Act I-scene 2 and Act II; Ivan Andreyev for Act III-scene 1 and Act IV-scene 1; Heinrich Wagner for Act III-scene 2 The Kingdom of the Shades; and Piotr Lambin for the Act IV-scene 2 Apotheosis.
Critical response
The premiere of La Bayadère on , played to a full house at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, and was a resounding success. At the end of the performance the choreographer Petipa, the Ballerina Vazem, and the composer Minkus were called for several times. Not since Petipa had mounted his last oriental extravaganza, Tsar Kandavl (or Le Roi Candaule) in 1868 had there been such unanimous praise from the critics and balletomanes.Ekaterina Vazem's portrayal of the Bayadère Nikiya became the rage of St. Petersburg society, as she was considered by the balletomanes and critics to be the supreme ballerina of her generation. After the performance the ballerina received a diamond studded ruby brooch, along with large bouquets of flowers, one of which was from Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914...
, the celebrated Prima donna who at that time was engaged as guest artist with the St. Petersburg Imperial Italian Opera. A critic from The Voice had nothing but praise for Vazem's portrayal of the heroine Nikiya:
The ballet historian Vera Krosovskaya would later give an assessment of Petipa's original production of La Bayadère:
Petipa's revivals
Between the premiere and Ekaterina Vazem's farewell retirement benefit performance on , La Bayadère was performed seventy times. The ballet was not performed again until when it was given a minor revival by Petipa for the Ballerina Anna Johansson. Petipa left much of the ballet as it was staged originally, limiting his alterations to only the Ballerina's dances.When Anna Johansson retired in 1886, she chose the second act for her farewell benefit performance. This was the last time any part of La Bayadère was performed before the work was taken out of the Imperial Ballet's repertory.
In late 1899, it was announced that the Imperial Ballet's Premier danseur Pavel Gerdt
Pavel Gerdt
Pavel Andreyevich Gerdt, also known as Paul Gerdt , was the Premier Danseur Noble of the Imperial Ballet, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, and the Mariinsky Theatre for 56 years, making his debut in 1860, and retiring in 1916...
was to be given a benefit performance in honor of his fortieth year of artistic activity on the St. Petersburg ballet stage. Also that year, the Imperial Ballet's newly appointed Prima ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya showed interest in having Petipa revive La Bayadère. It was agreed that the work would be a perfect vehicle for both Gerdt and Kschessinskaya, and soon Petipa began mounting a complete revival of the work for the 1900-1901 season.
Among Petipa's most striking changes for this revival was the change of setting for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades from an enchanted castle in the sky on a fully lighted stage, to a dark rocky landscape at the peaks of the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
. Petipa swelled the number of dancers in the Corps de ballet from thirty-two to forty-eight, making the illusion of descending spirits all the more effective in the famous Sortie des bayadères.
Petipa also created difficult choreography for the Ballerina's variations. Kschessinskaya commented on the revival many years later:
Another important change was the interpolation of "new" variations into the final Grand Pas d'action for the principal characters. As was the custom at the time, Minkus did not compose variations for the final Grand pas d'action of La Bayadère, which were always performed ad libitum, i.e. at the dancers choice (in his original score, Minkus wrote in the margin "followed by Solor and Gamzatti's variations" after the adage of the Grand Pas d'action). Typically such variations were taken from already existing ballets.
Since the fifty six year old Pavel Gerdt
Pavel Gerdt
Pavel Andreyevich Gerdt, also known as Paul Gerdt , was the Premier Danseur Noble of the Imperial Ballet, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, and the Mariinsky Theatre for 56 years, making his debut in 1860, and retiring in 1916...
was unable to dance Solor's variations, the Danseur Nikolai Legat performed them in his place. For his variation in the Grand pas d'action Legat chose a Variation added by Minkus to Petipa's 1874 revival of the Taglioni
Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni was a famous Italian/Swedish ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.-Biography:...
/Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
Le Papillon. In 1941 Vakhtang Chabukiani re-choreographed this variation for himself, which is still performed today by all male dancers who perform the role of Solor in La Bayadère.
The Prima Ballerina Olga Preobrajenskaya danced the role of Gamzatti in Petipa's 1900 revival of La Bayadère, and no record exists of what variation she performed during the final Grand pas d'action. By the time La Bayadère was revived by Vakhtang Chabukiani and Vladimir Ponomaryov at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1941, the variation traditionally danced by the character Gamzatti in the Grand pas d'action was a Variation taken from the celebrated Pas de Vénus from Petipa's 1868 ballet Le Roi Candaule to music by Riccardo Drigo
Riccardo Drigo
Riccardo Eugenio Drigo , a.k.a. Richard Drigo was an Italian composer of ballet music and Italian Opera, a theatrical conductor, and a pianist....
. In 1947 the Balletmaster Pyotr Gusev
Pyotr Gusev
Pyotr Andreyevich Gusev was a ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. He was born on 29. December, 1904 in St. Petersburg. He studied at the St. Petersburg School of Choreography under Alexandr Shiryayev. He was a friend of George Balanchine and joined his Young Ballet group. He graduated in...
revised Petipa's choreography for this variation, which is still performed today.
Riccardo Drigo
Riccardo Eugenio Drigo , a.k.a. Richard Drigo was an Italian composer of ballet music and Italian Opera, a theatrical conductor, and a pianist....
to compose a new variation for her performance. This variation became the Ballerina's legal property, as was the custom of the time, and was never again performed by anyone else.
Petipa's second revival of La Bayadère was presented on at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, receiving a rather mixed reaction from the critics and balletomanes. One critic of the St. Petersburg Gazette stated that the ballet was "" ... perhaps more boring than long and uninteresting ... ". Nevertheless, the ballet soon became one of the great vehicles for the ballerinas of the Tsarist stage, and earned a permanent place in the repertory. La Bayadère was soon considered to be one of the supreme challenges for the danseuse to demonstrate both her technical and dramatic skills. Olga Preobrajenskaya, Vera Trefilova
Vera Trefilova
Vera Trefilova was a Russian dancer and teacher.She studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg with Ekaterina Vazem and graduated in 1894. She later studied with Evgenia Sokolova, Nikolai Legat, Catarina Beretta and Enrico Cecchetti...
, Anna Pavlova (who made her last appearance with the Imperial Ballet in the role of Nikiya in 1914), Ekaterina Geltzer, Lubov Egorova, and Olga Spessivtseva, to name but a distinguished few, all triumphed in the role of Nikiya. The scene The Kingdom of the Shades became one of the ultimate tests for the corps de ballet, and many young Ballerinas made their débuts in the variations from this scene.
In March 1903, the scene The Kingdom of the Shades was performed independently for the first time during a gala performance at Peterhof Palace
Peterhof Palace
The Peterhof Palace in Russian, so German is transliterated as "Петергoф" Petergof into Russian) for "Peter's Court") is actually a series of palaces and gardens located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, laid out on the orders of Peter the Great. These Palaces and gardens are sometimes referred as the...
in honor of a state visit from Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Petipa's 1900 production was changed very little over the course of its performance history. One of the major changes made to the work came in 1914 when Nikolai Legat extended the Pas de deux of Nikiya and Solor from the first scene, adding in more athletic lifts and modern partnering elements. Legat's version of this Pas is still performed today, and has widely been accepted as Petipa's choreography.
The notation of Petipa's 1900 production
Vladimir Ivanovich Stepanov
Vladimir Ivanovich Stepanov , dancer at the Imperial Ballet in Saint Petersburg. In 1892 he published a dance notation with the title L'Alphabet des Mouvements du Corps Humain. This Alphabet of Movements of the Human Body is a notation that encodes dance movements with musical notes and not with...
at some point between 1900 and 1903 by the Imperial Ballet's régisseur Nicholas Sergeyev and his team of notators. Aside from La Bayadère, the ballets which were notated included Petipa's original The Sleeping Beauty
The Sleeping Beauty Ballet
The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet in a prologue and three acts, first performed in 1890. The music was by Pyotr Tchaikovsky . The score was completed in 1889, and is the second of his three ballets. The original scenario was conceived by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, and is based on Charles Perrault's La...
, Raymonda
Raymonda
Raymonda is a ballet in three acts, four scenes with an apotheosis, choreographed by Marius Petipa, with music by Alexander Glazunov, his opus 57. First presented by the Imperial Ballet at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre on in St. Petersburg, Russia...
, and his definitive version of Giselle
Giselle
Giselle is a ballet in two acts with a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier, music by Adolphe Adam, and choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. The librettist took his inspiration from a poem by Heinrich Heine...
, as well as the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
, and the Petipa/Ivanov/Cecchetti
Enrico Cecchetti
Enrico Cecchetti was an Italian ballet dancer, mime, and founder of the Cecchetti method. The son of two dancers from Civitanova Marche, he was born in the costuming room of the Teatro Tordinona in Rome. After an illustrious career as a dancer in Europe, he went to dance for the Imperial Ballet in...
Coppélia
Coppélia
Coppélia is a sentimental comic ballet with original choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon to a ballet libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter and music by Léo Delibes. It was based upon two macabre stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann , and Die Puppe...
.
It was with these notations that such works as The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Swan Lake, and Coppelia were staged for the first time in the west by Sergeyev. Today these notations—which include many of Petipa's ballets which are no longer performed—are preserved in a collection known as the Sergeyev Collection
Sergeyev Collection
The Sergeyev Collection is a collection of choreographic notation, music, photos, décor and costume designs, theatre programs and various other materials relating to the repertory of the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia at the turn of the 20th century...
, which is today contained in the Harvard University Library Theatre Collection
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
.
The Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow
The first "after Petipa" production of La Bayadère was staged for the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi TheatreBolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies, however it only achieved worldwide acclaim by the early 20th century, when Moscow became the...
by the Danseur Vasily Tikhomirov
Vasily Tikhomirov
Vasiliy Dmitriyevich Tikhomirov was a dancer and a choreographer with the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow, Russia. His most distinguished production was The Red Poppy , with his wife Yekaterina Geltzer in the main role. He and Geltzer were buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery....
and the Balletmaster Alexander Gorsky, premiering , with the Ballerina Adelaide Giuri as Nikiya, Tikhomirov as Solor, and Ekaterina Geltzer as Gamzatti. For this production Gorsky chose to include more ethnographically accurate costumes and choreographic elements. In the scene The Kingdom of the Shades Gorsky had clad the Ballerinas in Indian dress, rather than the traditional white tutus with veils for the arms. Gorsky's production was revived by Vasily Geltzer in 1907 and in a new production in 1917 with the ballerina Alexandra Balashova and the danseur Mikhail Mordkin
Mikhail Mordkin
Mikhail Mordkin graduated from the Bolshoi Ballet School in 1899, and in the same year was appointed ballet master.He joined Diaghilev's ballet in 1909 as a leading dancer. After the first season he remained in Paris to dance with Pavlova...
in the principal roles. In 1923 La Bayadère was again revived at the Bolshoi Theatre with Vasily Tikhomirov creating a new fourth act. Ivan Smoltsov and Valentina Kudryatseva revived the work in 1940 for Marina Semyonova, being the last full-length production the Bolshoi Ballet would perform until Yuri Grigorovich mounted his production for the company in 1991.
Lopukhov's production and the loss of Act IV
With the hardships brought upon the Russian Ballet by the Russian revolutionRussian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, many of the works from the repertory of the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet left the stage forever, and those that survived were soon severely altered. La Bayadère was performed for the last time in Petipa's 1900 production in August 1916. The ballet was revived in 1920 at the former Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in a production staged by Fyodor Lopukhov especially for the Ballerina Olga Spessivtseva, with Minkus' score adapted by Boris Afanasiev.
With the loss of Act IV, the ballet's scenario had to be modified, and so Lopukhov fashioned a short epilogue with which to end the ballet. In thi scene, the hero Solor awakes from his dream and is reunited with the Bayadère Nikiya. Lopukhov still retained its final Grand Pas d'action from Act IV, which the Ballet Master moved into the Act II Betrothal Celebrations. Since it was now taken out of its original context, Lopukhov revised Petipa's choreography and edited Minkus' music in order for it to fit with the new scenario. Petipa's Danse des fleurs de lotus from Act IV—a dance for twenty-four female students—was completely omitted.
Vaganova's revival
On December 13, 1932 the great pedagogue of the Soviet Ballet Agrippina VaganovaAgrippina Vaganova
Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova was an outstanding Russian ballet teacher who developed the Vaganova method - the technique which derived from the teaching methods of the old Imperial Ballet School under the Premier Maître de Ballet Marius Petipa throughout the mid to late 19th century, though...
presented her version of La Bayadère for the Kirov Ballet (the former Imperial Ballet). Owing much of her production to Lopukhov's 1920 redaction (including his "new" ending), and never straying to far from Petipa's original design for the dances, Vaganova nevertheless revised the Ballerina's dances for her star pupil Marina Semenova, who danced Nikiya. This included triple pirouettes
Glossary of ballet
Ballet is a formalized type of dance; ballet dance is usually performed on stage as part of a ballet dance work which includes mime, acting, and is set to music...
sur le pointe (on the toes), and fast pique turns en dehors
Glossary of ballet
Ballet is a formalized type of dance; ballet dance is usually performed on stage as part of a ballet dance work which includes mime, acting, and is set to music...
. Although Vaganova's revival did not find a permanent place in the repertory, her modifications to the Ballerina's dances would become the standard.
The Kirov Ballet's revival of 1941
In 1940 the Kirov Ballet once again made plans to revive La Bayadère, this time in a staging by the Balletmaster Vladimir Ponomaryov and the Premier danseur Vakhtang Chabukiani
Vakhtang Chabukiani
Vakhtang Chabukiani was a Georgian ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher highly regarded in his native country as well as abroad. He is considered to be one of the most influential male ballet dancers in history, and is noted for creating the majority of the choreography of the male variations...
. This version would be the definitive staging of La Bayadère from which nearly every subsequent production would be based.
Ponomarev and Chabukiani trimmed much of the ballet's incidental scenes in order to speed up the action, and either edited or completely omitted Petipa's original mime sequences, which by the early to mid 20th century were considered old fashioned. Most of the changes were to be found in the Act II Betrothal Celebrations: Ponomarev and Chabukiani revised the choreography completely for the original Grand Pas d'action from the last act, which was transferred by Lopukhov to Act II, transforming the piece into a Grand pas classique for Solor, Gamzatti, four Ballerinas and two Suitors. The Grand divertissement of Act II went through changes as well: the Danse des esclaves was omitted, and the two part Danse pour quatre bayadères was modified so that the second dance could be performed after the central Adage of the Grand pas classique. Another important change was made to Nikiya's final dance at the end of Act II, which Petipa had originally choreographed to be performed with a prop veena
Veena
Veena may refer to one of several Indian plucked instruments:With frets*Rudra veena, plucked string instrument used in Hindustani music*Saraswati veena, plucked string instrument used in Carnatic musicFretless...
. Although the choreography was retained without change the prop veena was taken out.
Vladimir Ponomarev completely re-choreographed the Danse sacrée, a waltz performed by eight coryphées during the first scene of La Bayadère. Petipa originally staged this number as a simple piece performed in character shoes, but for the 1941 version Ponomarev had the ballerinas performing en pointe and gave the steps greater complexity. Another change made to the first scene of the ballet was the omission of an entire sequence which took place after the High Brahmin spies on the exchange of vows between Nikiya and Solor. In the original production, this passage included a scene where Bayadères return from the temple to gather water, followed by an extended scene of Nikiya and Solor saying goodbye to one another before the High Brahmin returns to swear vengeance over the sacred fire.
Ponomarev and Chabukiani chose to include the 1900 décor for the scenes used in their production, which were restored by the designer Mikhail Shishliannikov. However an entirely new set was created for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades in Shishliannikov's design. Minkus's original music was also restored from his original hand-written manuscript, though it was properly edited and re-ordered in accordance with the new scenario and order of dances.
Unlike Fyodor Lopukhov's revival of 1920 that included a short scene in which to end the ballet, Ponomarev and Chabukiani chose to end La Bayadère with the scene The Kingdom of the Shades. Minkus's original ending for the Grand coda of the scene The Kingdom of the Shades was altered, and the epilogue from the original apotheosis
Apotheosis
Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature...
of Act IV was tacked on to the music in order to bring the ballet to a close.
The Ponomarev/Chabukiani revival of La Bayadère premiered on February 10, 1941 to a resounding success, with Natalia Dudinskaya
Natalia Dudinskaya
Natalia Mikhailovna Dudinskaya was a Russian prima ballerina who dominated the Kirov Ballet in the 1930s and 1940s.Dudinskaya's mother was Natalia Tagliori, a ballerina coached by Enrico Cecchetti. Trained by Agrippina Vaganova, Dudinskaya matriculated from her school in 1931. She danced all the...
as Nikiya and Vakhtang Chabukiani
Vakhtang Chabukiani
Vakhtang Chabukiani was a Georgian ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher highly regarded in his native country as well as abroad. He is considered to be one of the most influential male ballet dancers in history, and is noted for creating the majority of the choreography of the male variations...
as Solor.
The choreography for the dances of Nikiya went through yet another renaissance in the hands of the great virtuosa Ballerina Dudinskaya, whose revisions to the choreography are today the standard. Although her interpretation of the tragic Nikiya was looked on as unsuitable for the stellar Ballerina, she nevertheless excelled in The Kingdom of the Shades, where Petipa's strict academic patterns prevailed. In the Variation de Nikiya (a.k.a. the Scarf Duet) she studded the choreography with multiple tours en arabesque
Glossary of ballet
Ballet is a formalized type of dance; ballet dance is usually performed on stage as part of a ballet dance work which includes mime, acting, and is set to music...
, and included, for the first time, airy splits in her Grand jetés
Glossary of ballet
Ballet is a formalized type of dance; ballet dance is usually performed on stage as part of a ballet dance work which includes mime, acting, and is set to music...
during the Entrée de Nikiya, as well as adding fast piqué turns
Glossary of ballet
Ballet is a formalized type of dance; ballet dance is usually performed on stage as part of a ballet dance work which includes mime, acting, and is set to music...
in the Grand coda.
The choreography for Solor went through a renaissance as well with the great Premier danseur Chabukiani in the role. Although the dances for the role of Solor had become far more prominent since La Bayadère had been performed in Imperial Russia, Chabukiani's "new" choreography would become the standard for all proceeding male dancers. For the 1941 revival he rechoreographed Nikolai Legat's variation for Solor from the original Grand Pas d'action, and also added another variation: he arranged for Minkus's music for the second passage of the Grand coda in the scene The Kingdom of the Shades to be repeated as a solo for Solor, a tradition which is still preserved today.
In 1977, the Kirov Ballet's 1941 Ponomarev/Chabukiani production of La Bayadère was filmed and later released onto DVD/video with Gabriella Komleva as Nikiya, Tatiana Terekhova as Gamzatti, and Rejen Abdeyev as Solor.
The Golden Idol
In 1948 the Kirov Ballet Danseur Nikolai Zubkovsky added an exotic character variation to the Grand divertissement of Act II of La Bayadère known in Russia as Bazhok or as the Little God, or as it would later be called in the west, The Dance of the Golden Idol (in Natalia MakarovaNatalia Makarova
Nataliya Romanovna Makarova is the legendary Soviet-Russian-born prima ballerina. The History of Dance, published in 1981, notes that “Her performances set standards of artistry and aristocracy of dance which mark her as the finest ballerina of her generation.” She has also won awards as an...
's production the role is known as The Bronze Idol).
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
god Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
, thereby requiring the Danseur to be completely covered from head to toe in brazen makeup of either a bronze or gold color, with the hands at all times held in the "lotus blossom" position from traditional Indian dancing.
The music used by Zubkovsky for this variation was fashioned from the Marche persane (Persian March) composed by Ludwig Minkus for Petipa's 1874 revival of the Taglioni
Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni was a famous Italian/Swedish ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.-Biography:...
/Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
ballet Le Papillon. Though titled as a march
March (music)
A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...
, the piece is actually a waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
in the 5/4 time signature. Today this variation is among the most popular passages of La Bayadère with audiences.
In Makarova's version of La Bayadère this solo opens the last Act, and follows John Lanchbery
John Lanchbery
John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English, later Australian, composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.-Life:...
's introduction. The Minkus music is presented in Lanchbery's reorchesreated version. Choreographically Makarova slightly revised Zubkovsky's original steps, but remained faithful to the basic shape of the original.
Pas de Deux of Nikiya and the Slave
In 1954 the Ballet Master and Premier danseur of the Kirov Ballet (and soon to be director of the troupe) Konstantin Sergeyev interpolated a new Pas de Deux into Act I-scene 2 of La Bayadère especially for his wife, Natalia Dudinskaya. The Pas was choreographed by Sergeyev as an exotic duet with spectacular lifts and elaborate partnering for the Bayadère Nikiya and a slave partner, with Nikiya making her entrance wrapped in a long veil.The music used by Sergeyev for this Pas de deux is by Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre...
, being an adage taken from the Act II Pas des fleurs from Jules Perrot
Jules Perrot
Jules-Joseph Perrot was a dancer and choreographer who later became Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia...
's 1844 ballet La Esmeralda
La Esmeralda (ballet)
La Esmeralda is a ballet in 3 acts, 5 scenes, inspired by Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, originally choreographed by Jules Perrot; with music by Cesare Pugni and design by William Grieve , D. Sloman , Mme...
.
Early productions in the West
Richard Bonynge
Richard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...
included this version of Minkus' music on his 1962 recording The Art of the Prima Ballerina).
Nicholas Sergeyev, the former régisseur of the Imperial Ballet, staged his own version of Petipa's The Kingdom of the Shades, under the title Songe du Rajah, for the Riga Opera Ballet of Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, premiering September 24, 1923. He also staged Songe du Rajah for the short-lived Russian Ballet Company in London, which premiered to great success at the Bournemouth Pavilion on March 5, 1934. Sergeyev had made plans to stage Songe du Rajah for Serge Diaghilev's original Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
in Paris for the 1929-1930 season, but the production was never realized (possibly due to Diaghilev's death in August 1929). In spite of Sergeyev's many stagings of Songe du Rajah for various European companies the work never found a permanent place in the ballet repertory, and by the 1940s was no longer performed. Today choreographic documentation of Songe du Rajah is included among the notations in the famous Sergeyev Collection
Sergeyev Collection
The Sergeyev Collection is a collection of choreographic notation, music, photos, décor and costume designs, theatre programs and various other materials relating to the repertory of the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia at the turn of the 20th century...
.
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
in Paris on July 4, 1961 that roused widespread interest in this almost totally unknown ballet from the Imperial/Petipa repertory. Two years later, Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev was a Russian dancer, considered one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of the 20th century. Nureyev's artistic skills explored expressive areas of the dance, providing a new role to the male ballet dancer who once served only as support to the women.In 1961 he...
staged the scene for the Royal Ballet, with Margot Fonteyn
Margot Fonteyn
Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias, DBE , was an English ballerina of the 20th century. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of all time...
as Nikiya. Since the original Minkus orchestral parts were only available at that time in Soviet Russia, Nureyev called upon the Royal Opera House composer/conductor John Lanchbery
John Lanchbery
John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English, later Australian, composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.-Life:...
to orchestrate the music from a piano reduction. The premiere was a resounding success, and is considered to be among the most important moments in the history of ballet.
The dance critic Arlene Croce
Arlene Croce
Arlene Croce founded Ballet Review magazine in 1965. She was a dance critic for The New Yorker magazine from 1973 to 1998. Prior to her long career as a dance writer, she also wrote film criticism for Film Culture and other magazines. The keynote of her criticism can be grasped from her ability to...
commented on Petipa's The Kingdom of the Shades in her review of Makarova's staging of the scene in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
:
Nureyev's version of The Kingdom of the Shades was also staged by Eugen Valukin for the National Ballet of Canada
National Ballet of Canada
The National Ballet of Canada is Canada's largest ballet troupe. It was founded by Celia Franca in 1951 and is based in Toronto, Ontario. Based upon the unity of Canadian trained dancers in the tradition and style of England's Royal Ballet, The National is regarded as one of the premier classical...
, premiering on March 27, 1967. The first full-length production of La Bayadère was staged by the Balletmistress Natalie Conus for the Iranian National Ballet Company
Iranian National Ballet Company
The Iranian National Ballet Company also known as Ballet Melli Iran was founded in 1968 by the Iranian Ministry of Culture. The company maintained approximately 50 dancers - many from Iran, Europe and the United States...
in 1972, in a production based almost entirely on the 1941 Ponomarev/Chabukiani production for the Kirov Ballet. For this production Minkus' score was orchestrated from a piano reduction by Robin Barker.
Natalia Makarova's production
In 1974 Natalia MakarovaNatalia Makarova
Nataliya Romanovna Makarova is the legendary Soviet-Russian-born prima ballerina. The History of Dance, published in 1981, notes that “Her performances set standards of artistry and aristocracy of dance which mark her as the finest ballerina of her generation.” She has also won awards as an...
mounted The Kingdom of the Shades for American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
in New York City, being the first staging of any part of La Bayadère in the United States. In 1980 Makarova staged her own version of the full-length work for the company, based largely on the Ponomarev/Chabukiani version she danced during her career with the Kirov Ballet. Since only about 3/4 of Minkus' original, full-length score was available outside of Soviet Russia, John Lanchbery was called upon to compose the missing sections himself, all the while re-scoring the Minkus music.
Makarova made many changes in her version of La Bayadère. Aside from the musical changes made to the first two scenes, Makarova did not deviate at all from the traditional choreography as performed at the Mariinsky Theatre, though she did omit Konstantin Sergeyev's Pas de Deux for Nikiya and the Slave and used Pugni's music for a dance for the Corps de Ballet in her new version of the last act. She shortened Act II by omitting the entire Grand divertissement (possibly because the music was not available outside of Russia at that time), with the exception of the Valse des perroquets, which John Lanchbery re-scored in the style of a grand Viennese-style waltz, and which Makarova rechoreographed as an elaborate dance for the Corps de Ballet. In light of the now shortened Act II, Makarova renamed the scene Act I-scene 3. Makarova chose to retain Zubkovsky's 1948 Dance of the Golden Idol, which she renamed The Bronze Idol, and transferred to the opening of her newly staged last act.
Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center)
The Metropolitan Opera House is an opera house located on Broadway at Lincoln Square in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the theater opened in 1966. It replaced the former Metropolitan Opera House at Broadway and 39th St...
in relation to that of the Mariinsky Theatre
Mariinsky Theatre
The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. The...
, Makarova was forced to reduce the number of the Corps de Ballet in the scene The Kingdom of the Shades from thirty-two to twenty-four. She was also obliged to modify the poses' held by the Ballerinas while they stood on the sides of the stage during the variations, due to the differences in physique of western Ballerinas to that of Russian ones (Makarova changed the original position of tendu derrière effacé
Glossary of ballet
Ballet is a formalized type of dance; ballet dance is usually performed on stage as part of a ballet dance work which includes mime, acting, and is set to music...
, with the leg held in tendu slightly bent - for which Russian Ballerinas are famous, with their arched back, torqued hyper-extended supporting legs, and severely arched feet - to tendu derrière croisé
Glossary of ballet
Ballet is a formalized type of dance; ballet dance is usually performed on stage as part of a ballet dance work which includes mime, acting, and is set to music...
, while still holding the leg in tendu in a slightly bent position).
In her attempt to honor the original scenario of La Bayadère, Makarova's chose to stage her own version of the ballet's final act. Since Minkus's original music was still believed to be lost, John Lanchbery composed the music. Following Makarova's example, many subsequent stagings of La Bayadère would include a version of the lost last act, among them, Pyotr Gusev
Pyotr Gusev
Pyotr Andreyevich Gusev was a ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. He was born on 29. December, 1904 in St. Petersburg. He studied at the St. Petersburg School of Choreography under Alexandr Shiryayev. He was a friend of George Balanchine and joined his Young Ballet group. He graduated in...
's version staged for the Sverdlovsk Ballet in 1984.
Makarova's production premiered on May 21, 1980 at the Metropolitan Opera House, and was shown live on PBS during the Live from Lincoln Center broadcast. Makarova danced the role of Nikiya herself, but was replaced by Marianna Tcherkassky due to an injury during the first act. The principal roles included Anthony Dowell
Anthony Dowell
Sir Anthony James Dowell, CBE is a retired English ballet dancer and former Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet. He studied at the Hampshire School and The Royal Ballet Schools, before joining the Royal Ballet in 1961...
as Solor, Cynthia Harvey as Gamzatti, Alexander Minz as the High Brahmin and Victor Barbee as the Rajah. The décor was designed by Pier Luigi Samaritani, with costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge
Theoni V. Aldredge
Theoni V. Aldredge was a Greek-American stage and screen costume designer.Born Theoni Athanasiou Vachlioti in Thessaloniki in 1922, Aldredge received her training at the American School in Athens. She emigrated to the United States in 1949 and attended the Goodman Theatre at DePaul University,...
. Though the reaction to her choreography for the last act was rather mixed by critics, the premiere was a colossal triumph for American Ballet Theatre, and the company has performed it consistently ever since.
In 1989, Makarova staged her version of La Bayadère for the Royal Ballet in a totally un-changed production, including copies of Samaritani's designs for the décor, and new costumes by Yolanda Sonnabend. In 1990 her production was filmed, and later shown on PBS in 1994 and later released onto DVD/Video. The cast included Altynai Asylmuratova
Altynai Asylmuratova
Altynai Asylmuratova is a former Soviet and Kazakhstaniprima ballerina with the Kirov Ballet/Mariinsky Theatre and a guest artist all over the world. Asylmuratova was born in Alma-Ata, Kazakstan, and after graduation from the Vaganova Choreographic Institute she joined the Kirov Ballet in 1978...
as Nikiya, Darcey Bussell
Darcey Bussell
Darcey Andrea Bussell CBE is a retired English ballerina. Trained at the Arts Educational School and the Royal Ballet School, she was later employed by the Royal Ballet, where she was promoted to the rank of Principal Dancer and would become recognised as one of the greatest English ballerinas of...
as Gamzatti and Irek Mukhamedov
Irek Mukhamedov
Irek Mukhamedov OBE is a Soviet-born ballet dancer of Tatar origin who has danced with the Bolshoi Ballet & the Royal Ballet He trained at the Moscow Choreographic Institute under the guidance of Alexander Prokofiev between 1970 and 1978. Upon graduation he joined the Classical Ballet Company, ...
as Solor. Makarova has since staged her production for many companies throughout the world, including the Ballet of La Scala (who have recently filmed their production and released it onto to DVD), the Australian Ballet and the Royal Swedish Ballet
Royal Swedish Ballet
The Royal Swedish Ballet is one of the oldest ballet companies in Europe. Based in Stockholm, Sweden, King Gustav III founded the ballet in 1773 as a part of his national cultural project in response to the French and Italian dominance in this field; he also founded the Royal Swedish Opera and the...
. Makarova's productions of La Bayadère always include the Samaritani designs for the décor and the Lanchbery revised music.
In 1983 Lanchbery conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
in a recording of his orchestration of Minkus's music for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades. The recording also included extracts taken from the Paquita Grand Pas Classique and the Paquita Pas de Trois. The recording was released by the label EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
onto LP and cassette.
In 1994 the conductor Richard Bonynge
Richard Bonynge
Richard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...
recorded Lanchbery's orchestration of Minkus' score for La Bayadère as prepared for American Ballet Theatre's 1980 production. The recording included an arrangement of the music for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades as utilized by Anna Pavlova's company in the 1910s. The recording was released on the label Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
.
Rudolf Nureyev's production
In late 1991, Rudolf NureyevRudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev was a Russian dancer, considered one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of the 20th century. Nureyev's artistic skills explored expressive areas of the dance, providing a new role to the male ballet dancer who once served only as support to the women.In 1961 he...
, artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet, began making plans for a revival of the full-length La Bayadère, to be derived from the traditional Ponomarev/Chabukiani version he danced during his career with the Kirov Ballet. Nureyev enlisted the assistance of his friend and colleague Ninel Kurgapkina
Ninel Kurgapkina
Ninel Alexandrovna Kurgapkina was a Russian dance teacher and former prima ballerina for the Kirov Ballet with over 50 years stage experience. She was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1974....
, former Prima Ballerina of the Kirov Ballet, to assist in staging the work.
The administration of the Paris Opéra knew that this production of La Bayadère would be Nureyev's last offering to the world, as his health was deteriorating more and more from advanced AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
disease. Because of this, the cultural administration of the Paris Opéra gave the production an enormous budget, with even more funding coming from various private donations.
Nureyev wanted to use Minkus' score in its original orchestration, which was only available at that time in Russia. In spite of his poor health Nureyev made a speedy trip to St. Petersburg to make photocopies at the Kirov/Mariinsky Library of the original orchestral parts for La Bayadère, though in his haste he accidentally copied only the bottom half of each page, which fortunately included the page numbers. He did not realize his mistake until he returned to Paris, and with the help of John Lanchbery, the score was reassembled and orchestrated as close to the original as possible. Because certain sections were not copied at all, Lanchbery was forced to compose a few transitional passages, but in the end, nearly all of the music was scored by Lanchbery in Minkus' style.
Nureyev called upon the Italian film designer Enzio Frigerio to create the décor, and broadway designer Franca Squarciapino
Franca Squarciapino
Franca Squarciapino is an Italian costume designer who won the Academy Award for Costume Design in 1990 for Cyrano de Bergerac. She has spent much of her career designing costumes for major theatres and opera houses, including the Burgtheater in Vienna, Royal Opera at Covent Garden, the...
to create the ballet's costumes. Frigerio took inspiration from the Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is a white Marble mausoleum located in Agra, India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal...
and the architecture of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, as well as drawings of the original décor used for Petipa's 1877 production - Frigerio called his designs "a dream of the Orient through Eastern-European Eyes". Squarciapino's costume designs were inspired by ancient Persian and Indian paintings, with elaborate head-dresses and hats, colorful shimmering fabrics, and traditional Indian garb, with much of the materials coming from Parisian boutiques that imported directly from India.
Regarding the choreography, Nureyev left nearly all of the traditional Ponomarev/Chabukiani revisions intact, all the while retaining Zubkovsky's Dance of the Golden Idol in the Act II Grand Divertissement and Sergeyev's Pas de Deux for Nikiya and the Slave in Act I-Scene 2. Among Nureyev's revisions was a passage for the male corps de ballet in the opening of Act I-scene 2, as well as another passage in the Valse évantails from Act II. He re-ordered the variations of the Shades in Act III, putting the final variation first, and revised the choreography of the Variation de Nikiya (a.k.a. the Scarf Duet) so that Solor also performs Nikiya's movements, a change he had originally included in his 1962 staging of the The Kingdom of the Shades for the Royal Ballet. In the documentary "Dancer's Dream: La Bayadere" it is said that Nureyev considered recreating the lost fourth act, à la Makarova's production, but ultimately decided to follow the Soviet tradition and end the ballet with the scene The Kingdom of the Shades, saying that he preferred the "gentler" ending compared to the original ballet's rather violent conclusion.
Nureyev's production of La Bayadère was presented for the first time at the Palais Garnier
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
(or the Paris Opéra) on October 8, 1992 with Isabelle Guérin as Nikiya, Laurent Hilaire as Solor, and Élisabeth Platel
Élisabeth Platel
Élisabeth Platel is a French ballet dancer, born in Paris on 10 April 1959.-Career:After studying at the conservatoire in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, she entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1971, graduating with First Prize, which allowed her to complete her studies at the École de Danse de l'Opéra...
as Gamzatti (and was later filmed in 1994 and released onto DVD/video with the same cast). The theatre was filled with many of the most prominent people of the ballet world, along with throngs of newspaper and television reporters from around the world. The production was a resounding success, with Nureyev being honored with the prestigious Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
from the French Minister of Culture. The premiere of Nureyev's production was a special occasion for many in the world of ballet, as only three months later he died.
The Danseur Laurent Hilaire later commented on Nureyev's revival:
The 1900 reconstruction
In 2000 the performance history of La Bayadère came full circle when the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet began mounting a reconstruction of Petipa's 1900 revival.In order to restore Petipa's original choreography, Sergei Vikharev, the Balletmaster of the company in charge of staging the production, made use of the Stepanov Choreographic Notation
Vladimir Ivanovich Stepanov
Vladimir Ivanovich Stepanov , dancer at the Imperial Ballet in Saint Petersburg. In 1892 he published a dance notation with the title L'Alphabet des Mouvements du Corps Humain. This Alphabet of Movements of the Human Body is a notation that encodes dance movements with musical notes and not with...
from the Sergeyev Collection
Sergeyev Collection
The Sergeyev Collection is a collection of choreographic notation, music, photos, décor and costume designs, theatre programs and various other materials relating to the repertory of the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia at the turn of the 20th century...
. The most anticipated passage of the work to be restored was the long deleted last act. This scene included the lost Danse des fleurs de lotus (Dance of the Lotus Blossoms) and Petipa's original Grand Pas d'action, which up to that point had been performed during the second act in the revised Ponomarev/Chabukiani choreography.
For the majority of the 20th century Minkus's original score for La Bayadère was thought to have been lost. Unbeknownst to the company, the Mariinsky Theatre
Mariinsky Theatre
The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. The...
Music Library had in their possession two volumes of Minkus's complete, hand-written score of 1877, as well as three manuscript rehearsal répétiteurs in arrangement for two violins, which included many notes for ballet masters and performers. Sergei Vikharev commented on the restoration of Minkus's score:
The Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet's traditional 1941 Ponomareyev/Chabukiani production of La Bayadère utilized the 1900 set designs for Act I, Act II, and Act III-scene 1, designed by Orest Allegri, Adolf Kvapp and Konstantin Ivanov respectively. However the 1941 production did not utilize the Pyotr Lambin's 1900 designs for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades, and instead used a design by Mikhail Shishliannikov. For the reconstruction the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet restored Lambin's designs, as well as his designs for the last act from miniature models which had been preserved in the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music. The scene of the destruction of the temple was restored using assemblage blueprints kept in the Russian State History Archives.
The 1900 costumes designed by Yevgeni Ponomaryov were restored from the original sketches, which were kept in the St. Petersburg State Theatre Library. Technical descriptions of the costumes of La Bayadère, housed in the Russian State History Archives, were used in the reconstruction of the costumes from the 1900 production. Where possible when selecting fabrics, the costume restoration team used those described in the archive documents. Since some of these fabrics are no longer produced today the Mariinsky Theatre's costume technicians, supervised by Tatiana Noginova, used similar materials, and strictly observed the principle of sewing by hand.
The Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet opened the 10th International Stars of the White Nights Festival with their reconstruction of La Bayadère at the Mariinsky Theatre on May 30, 2001, with Daria Pavlenko as Nikiya, Elvira Tarasova as Gamzatti, and Igor Kolb
Igor Kolb
Igor Kolb is a principal dancer of Mariinsky Ballet. He graduated Byelorussia State Ballet School, and joined Mariinsky ballet in 1996...
as Solor. The reconstruction received a rather mixed reaction from the St. Petersburg audience, which was largely comprised with the most prominent persons of the Russian ballet. The celebrated Ballerina of the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet Altynai Asylmuratova
Altynai Asylmuratova
Altynai Asylmuratova is a former Soviet and Kazakhstaniprima ballerina with the Kirov Ballet/Mariinsky Theatre and a guest artist all over the world. Asylmuratova was born in Alma-Ata, Kazakstan, and after graduation from the Vaganova Choreographic Institute she joined the Kirov Ballet in 1978...
was seen weeping after the performance, allegedly because of her shock at seeing the ballet presented in its original form. When the company included the production on their 2003 tour, it caused a sensation around the world, particularly in New York and London. To date the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet only perform the reconstruction on special occasions.
Ekaterina Vazem on the first production of 'La Bayadère'
Here is an account by Ekaterina VazemEkaterina Vazem
Ekaterina Vazem was a Russian prima ballerina. She was made famous for first dancing the role of Nikiya in 1877 Marius Petipa's ballet, La Bayadère...
, Soloist of His Imperial Majesty and Prima Ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, on the first production of La Bayadère.
Sources
- American Ballet Theatre. Program for Natalia Makarova's production of La Bayadère. Metropolitan Opera House, 2000.
- Beaumont, Cyril. Complete Book Of Ballets.
- Croce, Arlene. Review titled "Makarova's Miracle", written August 19, 1974, republished in Writing in the Dark, Dancing in 'The New Yorker (2000) p. 57.
- Greskovic, Robert. Ballet 101.
- Guest, Ivor. CD Liner Notes. Léon Minkus, arr. John Lanchbery. La Bayadère. Richard Bonynge Cond. English Chamber Orchestra. Decca 436 917-2.
- Hall, Coryne. Imperial Dancer: Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs.
- Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. Yearbook of the Imperial Theatres 1900-1901. St. Petersburg, Russian Empire. 1901.
- Kschessinskaya, Mathilde Felixovna (Princess Romanovsky-Krassinsky). Dancing in St. Petersburg - The Memoirs of Kschessinska. Trans. Arnold Haskell.
- Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet. Souvenir program for the reconstruction of Petipa's 1900 revival of La Bayadère. Mariinsky Theatre, 2001.
- Petipa, Marius. The Diaries of Marius Petipa. Trans. and Ed. Lynn Garafola. Published in Studies in Dance History. 3.1 (Spring 1992).
- Petipa, Marius. Memuary Mariusa Petipa solista ego imperatorskogo velichestva i baletmeistera imperatorskikh teatrov (The Memoirs of Marius Petipa, Soloist of His Imperial Majesty and Ballet Master of the Imperial Theatres).
- Royal Ballet. Program for Natalia Makarova's production of La Bayadère. Royal Opera House, 1990.
- Stegemann, Michael. CD Liner notes. Trans. Lionel Salter. Léon Minkus. Paquita & La Bayadère. Boris Spassov Cond. Sofia National Opera Orchestra. Capriccio 10 544.
- Vazem, Ekaterina Ottovna. Ekaterina Ottovna Vazem - Memoirs of a Ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, 1867-1884. Trans. Roland John Wiley.
- Wiley, Roland John. Dances from Russia: An Introduction to the Sergeyev Collection Published in The Harvard Library Bulletin, 24.1 January 1976.
- Wiley, Roland John, ed. and translator. A Century of Russian Ballet: Documents and Eyewitness Accounts 1810-1910.
- Wiley, Roland John. Tchaikovsky's Ballets.