La Bayadère (; ) is an 1877 ballet, originally staged in four acts and seven tableaux by the French choreographer Marius Petipa to music by Ludwig Minkus and libretto by . The ballet was staged for the benefit performance of the Russian Prima ballerina Ekaterina Vazem, who created the principal role of Nikiya. La Bayadère was first presented by the Imperial Ballet at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on . From the first performance the ballet was hailed by contemporary critics and audiences as one of the choreographer Petipa's masterpieces, particularly the scene of act II The Kingdom of the Shades, which is one of the most celebrated pieces in all of classical ballet.
Nearly all modern versions of La Bayadère are derived from and Vakhtang Chabukiani's redacted version staged for the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet in 1941 that has remained in the company's repertory to the present day. Outside of the Soviet Union, Natalia Makarova staged the first full-length production of La Bayadère in 1980 for American Ballet Theatre, a version that is itself derived from Ponomarev and Chabukiani's production of 1947.
Origins La Bayadère was the creation of the dramatist and of Marius Petipa, the ballet master of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The music was composed by Ludwig Minkus, who from 1871 until 1886 held the official post of Ballet Composer to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres.
Plot outline Khudekov's libretto for La Bayadère (meaning The Temple Dancer or The Temple Maiden) tells the story of the bayadère Nikiya and the warrior Solor, who are secret lovers. Solor, with the help of Madhavya, head of the fakirs, arranges to meet Nikiya outside the temple, where the two agree to elope, swearing eternal fidelity to each other over the sacred fire. Their meeting, however, is secretly witnessed by the High Brahmin, who is also in love with Nikiya and has been rejected by her.
Unknown to Nikiya, Solor has been betrothed since childhood to Gamzatti (called Hamsatti in the original production), daughter of the Rajah Dugmanta of Golconda. When the Rajah decides that the time has come for the marriage, he summons Gamzatti to tell her she is to marry Solor and shows her a portrait of her intended husband, which delights her. When the marriage is announced, Solor attempts to refuse the princess's hand, but the Rajah becomes angry and tells Solor that defying his wishes would amount to high treason. Solor is forced to comply.
In his effort to have Solor killed and have Nikiya for himself, the jealous High Brahmin informs the Rajah that the warrior has already vowed eternal love to Nikiya over a sacred fire. The High Brahmin's plan backfires when, rather than becoming angry with Solor, the Rajah decides that Nikiya must die. Horrified, the High Brahmin warns the Rajah that murdering a member of the temple would provoke the wrath of the gods and bring destruction upon the Rajah and his household, but the Rajah refuses to reconsider. Unknown to both men, Gamzatti has overheard the conversation and is stunned to learn that her fiancé loves another woman.
Gamzatti summons Nikiya to the palace and spitefully invites her to dance at her forthcoming wedding before revealing Solor is the bridegroom. Gamzatti begs Nikiya to give Solor up and, when Nikiya refuses, offers her jewels in exchange. Nikiya refuses again, and the confrontation escalates until Nikiya picks up a dagger in a fit of rage and attempts to kill Gamzatti, only to be stopped by Gamzatti's ayah. 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. In reality, the basket has been sent by the Rajah and Gamzatti, who have concealed a venomous snake among the flowers. When Nikiya holds the basket close, the snake bites her. The High Brahmin offers her an antidote on the condition that she renounce her love for Solor in favour of him, but Nikiya refuses and dies in Solor's arms, remaining true to her vow and pleading with Solor to remember his.
Tormented by grief and guilt over Nikiya's death and his failure to remain true to his vow, Solor retreats to his room. Gamzatti visits him and unsuccessfully tries to win his affection. Suddenly, the shade of Nikiya appears, weeping, but only Solor can see her. Gamzatti worries that he is going mad, but Solor sends her away as Nikiya's shade continues to haunt him. Solor, exhausted by grief, smokes opium and falls asleep. In his dream-like euphoria he has a vision of Nikiya in nirvana among the star-lit mountain peaks of the Himalayas, in a realm called the Kingdom of the Shades. He begs for her forgiveness and they reconcile among the shades of other bayadères. (In the original 1877 production, this scene took place in an illuminated enchanted palace in the sky.) When the vision ends, Solor is awakened by Madhavya and other warriors, who remind him that the day of his wedding has arrived. He reluctantly follows them.
At the wedding, Solor remains distant and preoccupied by Nikiya, whose shade continues to haunt Solor as he dances with Gamzatti. During the celebrations, Gamzatti is frightened by a basket of flowers that resembles the one used to kill Nikiya, and Nikiya's shade becomes visible to those present. Terrified, Gamzatti urges her father to have the marriage completed. Before the High Brahmin can complete the ceremony, however, the palace is destroyed by an earthquake sent by the angry gods to avenge Nikiya's murder.
The ballet ends with an apotheosis that shows an image of the god Vishnu and the shades of both Nikiya and Solor reunited in death and eternal love.
Early productions La Bayadère was created especially for the benefit performance of Ekaterina Vazem, Prima ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The role of Solor was created by the forty-three-year-old Lev Ivanov, Premier danseur of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, with the classical dances of the character Solor being performed by the younger Pavel Gerdt. The ballerina Maria Gorshenkova created the role of Gamzatti (or Hamsatti, as the character was known in the original production), while the role of the High Brahmin was created by Nikolai Golts. Dugmanta, the Rajah of Golconda was created by Christian Johansson, former Premier danseur of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres and an influential teacher. The 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.
Petipa spent almost six months staging La Bayadère. During rehearsals, 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 Imperial Theatre's Director Baron Karl Kister increased the ticket prices to be higher than that of the Italian Opera, which at that time were expensive. 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.
Petipa's final revival of La Bayadère was first given on for the benefit performance of the Imperial Theatre's Premier danseur Pavel Gerdt, who performed the role of Solor. The Prima ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya performed the role of Nikiya, and Olga Preobrajenskaya performed as Gamzatti. Among Petipa's changes for this revival was the re-setting of the scene The Kingdom of the Shades from a brightly lit castle in the sky to a dark and rocky landscape on the peaks of the Himalayas. In this scene Petipa increased 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 1894, the Imperial Ballet implemented a project to document the company's repertory in the Stepanov method of choreographic notation. Petipa's 1900 revival of La Bayadère was notated by the Imperial Ballet's régisseur Nikolai Sergeyev as rehearsals were conducted. Nearly the entire ballet was notated in detail.
In March 1903, the scene The Kingdom of the Shades was performed independently during a gala performance at Peterhof Palace in honor of a state visit from Kaiser Wilhelm II. This is the earliest occasion where the scene The Kingdom of the Shades was performed independently.
Vaganova's revival On December 13, 1932 the great pedagogue of the Soviet Ballet Agrippina Vaganova presented her version of La Bayadère for the Kirov Ballet (the former Imperial Ballet). Vaganova revised the ballerina's dances for her star pupil Marina Semenova, who danced Nikiya. This included triple pirouettes sur la pointe (on the toes), and fast piqué 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.
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 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. 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 character of Nikiya went through a renaissance in when performed by the virtuoso ballerina Dudinskaya, whose revisions to the choreography remain 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 (often referred to as the Scarf Duet) Ponomarev and Chabukiani changed the original staging of Petipa – originally, this variation called for Nikiya to perform her variation alone, with a long veil connected by wire to a fly-space above the stage, with the veil flying upward upon the final moments of the variation. The variation was changed so that Solor would now hold one end of the veil as Nikiya danced, departing the stage half-way through her solo offstage. Dudinskaya 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 revisions to the choreography would become the standard for all proceeding male dancers.
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.
La Bayadère in the West