Music by
Ludwig Minkus
Orchestrated by
John Lanchbery
Choreography by
Natalia Makarova
after Marius Petipa
Production conceived
and directed by
Natalia Makarova
Designed by
Pier Luigi Samaritani
Costumes by
Yolanda Sonnabend
Staging by
Olga Evreinoff
Orchestra of the
Royal Opera House conducted by
Valeriy Ovsyanikov
Nikiya
Tamara Rojo
Solor
Carlos Acosta
Gamzatti
Marianela Nunez
The High Brahmin
Gary Avis
Rajah
Christopher
Saunders
Magdaveya
Kenta Kura
The Bronze Idol
Jose Martin
D'jampe Dancers
Cindy Jourdain
Laura McCulloch
Artists of the
Royal Ballet
The Shades
Deidre Chapman
Isabel McMeekan
Laura Morea
Artists of the
Royal Ballet
Pas d'Action Act 1
Scene 3
Gemma Bond
Bethany Keating
Emma Maguire
Christina Elida Salerno
Deidre Chapman
Lauren Cutherbertson
Isabel McMeekan
Gemma Sykes
Valeri Hristov
Rupert Pennefather
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La Bayadére
Royal Ballet
Covent Garden
6 - 27 October 2007
In their original conception the great Oriental-theme ballets of the nineteenth century were intended to be spectacular, sumptuous and lavish in every respect of staging and dance. La Bayadere is a supreme example of this ambitious genre. Covent Garden has sustained and more than sustained it; every conceivable production value demanded by Petipa's founding idea is realised by the Royal Ballet's Makarova version, which makes it a welcome standard of the repertoire indeed. Seeing Acosta dance Solor, Rojo dance Nikiya and Nunez dance Gamzatti engenders a timeless feel: is this 2002, from which the programme pictures come, or 2007? It is an enchanting miracle: art stands outside time, and these wonderful dancers are telling the romantic, tragic, eventually triumphant tale for ever in a sphere of the imagination that knows no quotidian laws.
Rojo, Acosta and Nunez are as if born for their roles in this ravishing ballet. They perform it with assurance and conviction, responding to the demand to act as well as dance, and with conscious beauty throughout. Rojo has a genius for expressing everything earnest and passionate, vulnerable, delicate, tragic and spell-binding, moving in the space of the dance as light as air and supple as the breeze. She can be in love, urgent and present, in the tryst scene round the sacred fire; she can be a wisp, a wreathe of smoke, as she haunts the guilty Solor after her death.
Nunez is majestic in every one of Gamzatti's imperious, jealous, vengeful, even - when the temple begins to crack and fall - fearful moods. She is the beauty who perverts Solor's oath; in the struggle with Nikiya she is destined to win in this life, though Nikiya will assuredly win in death. There is something in the straightness of Nunez's carriage, and the length and perfection of her line, which is redolent of greatness: she is Russian in these respects.
Acosta is superb as Solor, a role suited to him as a glove to a hand. Design someone to dance the quintessence of the noble warrior, with a heart vulnerable to beauty but profound in its attachments, rich in strength but vanquishable in sentiment, and the result would be Acosta. Petipa might have seen him in a crystal ball, in the mimetic opening with the tiger's heavy corpse being carried past the sacred fire where his fateful oath will be made: and all else follows, Acosta's athleticism and poise combining with his actorly ability to tell a whole story in the simplest and most graceful of single gestures.
Singling out individuals apart from principals is an invidious business, not least because the corps de ballet excelled itself in the great, great opening of the Kingdom scene, one of the supreme moments of this art. It was exquisite, and the perfect timing and sustained symmetry was a triumph as the Shades appeared in their mesmeric pageant. Every one of the Shades accordingly invites applause. But two other dancers have to be mentioned: Gary Avis as The High Brahmin, also superb, louring and angry, a dramatic presence; and the wonderful Jose Martin again dancing the Bronze Idol. Martin is a treasure. His dancing of specialist ancillary roles, as jesters, rivals, idols, any side role requiring the esprit and athletic versatility that he has in such abundance, is incomparable. Does this fact wrongly stand in the way of his dancing principal roles, which he deserves to do? He is a vastly talented dancer.
This is a very fine La Bayadere, an outstanding night of ballet, a vivid proof of the justification for supporting the high performing arts in our capital city, which set standards of excellence as an example to every other performing arts endeavour at every level in the country.
A.C. Grayling
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