La Bayadère - Reconstruction of Petipa's 1900 revival 16/17

16/17 of the premiere of the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet's reconstruction of Marius Petipa's final revival of "La Bayadère" as staged in 1900. March 31, 2002, Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. See 1/17 for extensive notes on the production. **Cast for this clip - --Nikiyia, a Bayadère of the temple - Daria Pavlenko --Solor, a wealthy kshatriya - Igor Kolb --Gamzatti, the Rajah's daughter - Elvira Tarasova --4 Coryphées - Janna Serebriakova, Xenia Ostreikovskaya, Yulia Kasenkova & Viktoria Kutepova **Résumé of dances & scenes for this clip - Grand pas d'action - 1. Grand adage 2. Variation de Solor (Minkus, taken from Petipa's 1874 revival of Offenbach's "Le Papillon") 3. Variation de Gamsatti (Riccardo Drigo, taken from Petipa's revival of "Le Roi Candaule") 4. Grand coda **Notes - Here we have the original 'Grand adage' & 'Grand coda' fully restored both musically & choreographically. Petipa's scheme for the 'Grand adage' was much inspired by the Grand pas de trois created by Filippo Taglioni for the original "La Sylphide", in which the heroine is only visible to her beloved & haunts him throughout the dance. Minkus did not compose any variations for the lead dancers of this pas, which were performed ad libitum, i.e. at the dancer's choice. Minkus wrote in the score that the 'Grand adage' would be "followed by variations for Gamzatti & Solor". When Petipa mounted his 1900 revival of "La Bayadère", the 56 y.o. Pavel Gerdt performed the role of Solor. In light of Gerdt's age the danseur Nikolai Legat performed his variation (Pavel Gerdt created nearly every lead male role in Petipa's ballets, but as he got on in years younger dancers were brought in to perform his solos). For the 1900 revival, Legat inserted a variation originally composed by Minkus for Petipa's 1874 revival of Offenbach's "Le Papillon". This is the variation that is still performed by Solor today. Unfortunately the notation does not document the choreography, so the Mariinsky retained the traditional version by Vakhtang Chabukiani, created in the early 1940s. However the Mariinsky did restore Solor's prop bow as used by Nikolai Legat in 1900 (it is important to note that Vakhtang Chabukiani is responsible for much of the traditional choreography for the male variations in the Imperial/Petipa-derived pieces that make up the ballet repertory, such as "Le Corsaire pas de deux" & the "Diane et Actéon pas de deux"). No record survives of what variation Olga Preobrajenskaya (who performed Gamzatti) danced in 1900. In light of this the Mariinsky has retained Gamzatti's traditional variation, which was inserted into the pas at some point at the turn of the 20th century. The variation is actually by Riccardo Drigo, & is taken from the additional music he wrote for Petipa's revival of the grand ballet "Le Roi Candaule" in the 1890s. The choreography is the work of Pyotr Gusev in the style of Petipa, & was originally created for Natalia Dudinskaya in 1947. Sadly, the Mariinsky was not able to restore Nikiya's variation - for the 1900 revival, Petipa created a variation for Mathilde Kschessinskaya to new music by Riccardo Drigo. As was standard practice at the time, the variation quite literally became the ballerina's legal property, & was never performed by anyone else. As a result the variation was not documented when the choreographic notation was created circa 1900-1903, & the music has since become lost. --ENJOY!!

YouTube | February 28, 2009

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