This mysteriously beautiful ballet, originally in four Acts, was created in 1877 by Marius Petipa, ballet master of the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg. This typically Romantic tale has undergone countless retellings and re-settings since its creation, but nothing can destroy the direct appeal to the heart and soul in the famous ‘Kingdom of the Shades’ scene that formed Act III of the complete ballet. Maybe this has something to do with the inner pattern and simplicity of Ludwig Minkus’ music, reflected by the sheer unadulterated purity of the classical ballet movement. It brings forth the Russian heart, exemplifying their strongest balletic qualities, both technical and spiritual.
La Bayadère is a simple tale of a warrior, Solor and his hopeless love for an Indian temple dancer, Nikiya. Betrayal is everywhere, culminating in the famous ‘Kingdom of the Shades’ scene where the desperate Solor seeks his redemption. In the ‘Kingdom of the Shades’ he is besieged and bewildered by a défilé of the corps de ballet emerging from the heavens and down the slopes of the Himalayas in a slow, seamless flow of arabesques. Solor finds his Nikiya, but the anguish is palpable. She is dead. He can reach her in spirit, but not in reality, as it is all a dream.
Like all great works, belief and timing are all. With both in perfect symmetry the message in La Bayadère, elusive as it is, remains compelling and haunting. It is a brilliant work. The dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov says in his book, Baryshnikov at Work, that La Bayadère is ‘one of the great, if not the greatest, classical work in the history of ballet. It is Petipa’s idea of life in the beyond… Poetically, it is unmatched in the classical repertory.’ In recent years La Bayadère has been accused of racist stereotyping and there have been calls for it to be dropped from the repertoire.
When Rudolf Nureyev mounted the ‘Kingdom of the Shades’ scene from La Bayadère for The Royal Ballet in 1962, the cast was headed by Nureyev himself as Solor and Margot Fonteyn as Nikiya, with Lynn Seymour, Merle Park and Monica Mason as solo Shades. The costumes were by Philip Prowse.
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