La Bayadère
| Important Ballets & *Revivals of Marius Petipa |
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*Paquita (1847, *1881) |
La Bayadère (The Temple Dancer) (Russian: Баядерка; transliterates 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 4 February [O.S. 23 January] 1877. 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.
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[edit] 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.
[edit] 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. 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.
[edit] Original production
La Bayadère was created especially for the benefit performance of Ekaterina Vazem, 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 Second Maître de Ballet of the Imperial Theatres, as well as a noted choreographer.
[edit] 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. This version would be the definitive staging of La Bayadère from which nearly every subsequent production would be based.
[edit] Early productions in the West
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:
| “ | ... Motor impulse is basic to Petipa's exposition of movement flowing clean from its source. It flows from the simple to the complex, but we are always aware of its source, deep in the dancer's back, and of its vibration as it carries in widening arcs around the auditorium. This is dancing to be felt as well as seen, and Petipa gives it a long time to creep under our skins. Like a patient drillmaster, he opens the piece with a single, two-phrase theme in adagio tempo (arabesque cambré port de bras), repeated over and over until all the dancers have filed onto the stage. Then, at the same tempo, with the dancers facing us in columns, he produces a set of mild variations, expanding the profile of the opening image from two dimensions to three. Positions are developed naturally through the body's leverage - weight, counterweight. Diagonals are firmly expressed ... The choreography is considered to be the first expression of grand scale symphonism in dance, predating by seventeen years Ivanov's masterly designs for the definitive Swan Lake ... The subject of The Kingdom of the Shades is not really death, although everybody in it except the hero is dead. It's Elysian bliss, and its setting is eternity. The long slow repeated-arabesque sequence creates the impression of a grand crescendo that seems to annihilate all time. No reason it could not go on forever ... Ballets passed down the generations like legends, acquire patina of ritualism, but La Bayadère is a true ritual, a poem about dancing and memory and time. Each dance seems to add something new to the previous one, like a language being learned. The ballet grows heavy with this knowledge, which at the beginning had been only a primordial utterance, and in the coda it fairly bursts with articulate splendor. | ” |
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.
[edit] Natalia Makarova's production
In 1974 Natalia Makarova 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.
[edit] Rudolf Nureyev's production
In late 1991, Rudolf Nureyev, 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.
[edit] 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 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.
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.
[edit] Ekaterina Vazem on the first production of 'La Bayadère'
Here is an account by Ekaterina Vazem, Soloist of His Imperial Majesty and Prima Ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, on the first production of La Bayadère.
| “ | My next new part was that of the Bayadère Nikiya in La Bayadère, produced by Petipa for my benefit performance at the beginning of 1877. Of all the ballets which I had the occasion to create, this was my favorite. I liked its beautiful, very theatrical scenario, its interesting, very lively dances in the most varied genres, and finally Minkus' music, which the composer managed especially well as regards melody and its coordination with the character of the scenes and dances. I associate with La Bayadère the recollection of a clash with Petipa at rehearsal ... We came to rehearsals for the last act. In it Solor is celebrating his wedding to the Princess Hamsatti, but their union is disrupted by the shade of the Bayadère Nikiya, murdered at the bride's wish so that she could not prevent them from marrying. Nikiya's intervention is expressed in the context of a Grand Pas d'action with Solor, Hamsatti, and soloists, among whom the Bayadère's shade suddenly appears, though visible only to her beloved Solor.
Petipa began to produce something absurd for my entrance as the shade, consisting of some delicate, busy little steps. Without a second thought I rejected the choreography, which was not with the music, nor did it match the general concept of the dance - for the entrance of Nikya's shade who is appearing amidst a wedding celebration, something more imposing was required than these minimally effective trifles which Petipa had thought up. Petipa was exasperated - in general the last act was not going well for him, and he wanted to finish the production of the ballet that day no matter what. He produced something else for me in haste, still less successful. Again I calmly told him that I would not dance it. At this he lost his head completely in a fit of temper: "I don' unnerstan what you need to danse?! Yew can't danse one, yew can' danse other! What kin' of talent are yew if yew can' danse noseeg?!" Without saying a word, I took my things and left rehearsal, which had to be cut short as a result. The next day, as if nothing had happened, I again took up with Petipa the matter of my entrance in the last act. It was clear that his creative imagination had quite run dry. Hurrying with the completion of the production, he announced to me: "If yew can' danse sometheeg else, then do wha' Madame Gorshenkova does." Gorshenkova, who danced the princess Hamsatti, was distinguished by her extraordinary lightness, and her entrance consisted of a series of high grand jetés from the back of the stage to the footlights. By proposing that I dance her steps Petipa wanted to "needle" me: I was an "earthly" Ballerina, a specialist in complex, virtuoso dances, and in general did not possess the ability to "fly". But I did not back down. "Fine" I answered, "but for sake of variety I will do the same steps not from the last wing but from the first wing". This was much more difficult because it was impossible to take advantage of the incline of the stage (which was raked) to increase the effect of the jumps. Petipa responded "As yew weesh Madame, as yew weesh." I must add that at preparatory rehearsals I never danced, limiting myself to approximations of my dances (or "marking") even without being dressed in ballet slippers. Such was now the case - during this rehearsal I simply walked about the stage among the dancers. The day came with the first rehearsal with the orchestra in the theatre. Here of course I had to dance. Petipa, as if wishing to relieve himself of any responsibility for my steps, said to the artists over and over again: "I don' know wha' Madame Vazem will danse, she never danse at reheasals." Waiting to make my entrance, I stood in the first wing, where a voice within me spurred me on to great deeds — I wanted to teach this conceited Frenchman a lesson and demonstrate to him clearly, right before his eyes what a Talent I truly was. My entrance came, and at the first sounds of Minkus' music I strained every muscle, while my nerves tripled my strength — I literally flew across the stage, vaulting past the heads of the other dancers who were kneeling there in groups, crossing the stage with just three jumps and stopping firmly as if rooted to the ground. The entire company, both on stage and in the audience, broke out into a storm of applause. Petipa, who was on stage, immediately satisfied himself that his treatment of me was unjust. He came up to me and said "Madame, forgive me, I am a fool." That day word circulated about my "stunt". Everyone working in the theatre tried to get into the rehearsal of La Bayadère to see my jump. Of the premiere itself, nothing needs to be said. The reception given me from the public was magnificent. Besides the last act, we were all applauded for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades, which Petipa handled very well. Here the grouping and dances were infused with true poetry. The Balletmaster borrowed drawings and groupings from Gustave Doré's illustrations from Dante's The Divine Comedy. I had great success in this scene in the Danse du Voile to Minkus' violin solo played by Leopold Auer. The roster of principals in La Bayadère was in all respects successful: Lev Ivanov as the warrior Solor, Nikolai Golts as the High Brahmin, Christian Johansson as the Rajah Dugmanta of Golconda, Maria Gorshenkova as his daughter Hamsatti, and Pavel Gerdt in the classical dances - all contributed much to the success of La Bayadère, as did the considerable efforts of the artists Wagner, Andreyev, Shishkov, Bocharov, and especially Roller (who designed the décor), with Roller distinguishing himself as the machinist of the masterful destruction of the temple at the end of the ballet. |
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[edit] 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.
[edit] External links
- Full-length video on YouTube 1991 Royal Ballet, choreography by Natalia Makarova with Altynai Asylmuratova, Irek Mukhamedov, Darcey Bussell, Anthony Dowell, and David Drew.
- Full-length video on YouTube 1992 Paris Opera Ballet, choreography by Rudolf Nureyev with Élisabeth Platel.
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