La Bayadère: the recipe for immortality from Petipa

Marius Petipa died in 1910. For most of his ballets Egyptian days came in 1918−1920s. The theatre that Petipa used to call Mariinsky now was called so weird that the ballet master wouldn’t have understood anything — SATOB, and more often — «ex-Mariinsky» which was even weirder: how is it possible for the theatre to be «ex» when the building still existed and the performances were still shown? There were still those glass ball lights and the dome, so familiar to citizens…

 
But everything became clear inside the theatre. Spectators in the auditorium were different. Instead of evening dresses and brilliants — coats. Instead of tails — coats. Instead of more or less presentable suit — coat. Everyone sat in coats. Spectators’ breath was misting. Dancers stood behind the stage wearing valenki to jump out of them right onto the stage as if they ran out a steam room and jumped in a snowdrift. And then, with blue noses and goose-skin, they jumped back in valenki. They were paid by wood and bread (when they were paid). Of course it was not the life that female dancers of Imperial theatres were used to. They were used to come to the performance by car or carriage, to wear real jewelry instead of properties (ladies in loges would scrutinize a new diadem of Faberge). 

Female dancers of the Imperial Mariinsky theatre didn’t want to dance at the «ex». By the beginning of 1920s all ballerinas, almost all soloists and most of corps de ballet emigrated. There was simply nobody to dance ballets by Petipa. Especially the ballets like La Bayadère: with two ballerina parts, huge corps de ballet, and giant pageantry, — where all troupe had been involved before. 

They started with half-measures. Minimized corps de ballet, cut pageantries. Did spectators mutter? If any left. Of course «brilliant rows» went away. Now the audience in stalls and loges was soviet. They joyed without guile the new, inapproachable before flourish: imperial ballet was too expensive entertainment, while the soviet one belonged to people. Only ideologists were not happy: in that time the very ballet seemed to be too not-soviet. Everything, from strange atlas shoes to princesses — what princesses after the revolution? Lenin was going to scatter all ballet theatres, saving a couple of dozens of artists «for Moscow and Peter» for fun. And zealous members of Komsomol encouraged to ruin all old theatres to the smithereens: Tchaikovsky? — a bourgeois whiner, Princess Aurora — if only rename her as Revolution that will be woken up by Proletariat and preferably with a friend hand shake than a kiss. 

Ballet had no choice: to accommodate — and survive. Or to die.

Those were 1920s when they decided to save the most viable performances and to kill all the rest so that a deserted, impoverished and exhausted troupe could handle the repertoire. 

That was a dividing line for La Bayadère. It was chosen to survive.

The main criterion of survival was music. They saved all ballets by Tchaikovsky and Glazunov. But the music of La Bayadère wasn’t its strong point: pleasant, melodic, full of tunes, expressive pantomimic episodes and a lilting rhythm of dances, it was very ballet music. Nobody would ever perform it in a philharmonic. And still La Bayadère survived. Why?

Its Indian exotica in the beginning of 20th century, before the revolution, seemed naïve. Nowadays people applause to a giant prop elephant — a wonder! Those days practically all the audience consisted of frequenters. An elephant would cause an ironical smile at its best.

The plot? First of all, the subject was migratory. There are several ballets in 19th century about a rich man that fell in love with a poor girl and his bride poisoned her but a ghost of a killed girl came back for revenge. Secondly, the narration of La Bayadère is not very well done. Two female antagonists meet — and? How should they explain with hands and mimics who has more rights for a man and who cheated on who? In La Bayadère this problem is solved very funny: they put a portrait of a man on stage, so that ballerinas could point at it, saying: this is my fiancé, no, he’s mine. «A fiancé» was pantomimed by pointing a ring finger. And rolling eyes. Laughable!

Bulgan Rentsendorj (Gamzatti), Polina Buldakova (Nikiya)
Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre

Wonderful dances? The truth is that La Bayadère is pretty much like an oyster with a pearl: a shaggy shell, a slick shell-fish and only under it — a precious opalescent glob. The pearl of La Bayadère has always been Grand pas Shades. A hero goes to bed before the marriage. He dreams Himalayas. Corps de ballet in white tutu skirts and white voiles. And a ghost of a killed beloved: also in a tutu skirt and a voile. Whole stage is totally white. No colours. As if daylight faded, and all this flowery life with fake India, fans, sari, elephants, parrots fade, too. Grand pas looks like a soul’s dream: nothing can be described with words but everything is clear. It’s an unbelievably beautiful ensemble. At first corps de ballet lulls, repeating swinging movements. Then a climax comes, and in the end bursts a real tutti of corps de ballet, soloists, and ballerinas: a furious allegro gallop. Shades is an absolute chef d’oeuvre of Petipa, it is one of the best ballet compositions in the world and of all times. It is often performed as a separate ballet. But even this is not the guarantee of life of the whole La Bayadère. 

Shades
Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre

There is a similar case in ballet history. Grand pas from the ballet Paquita nowadays is performed all over the world though the very ballet Paquita didn’t survive. But why does La Bayadère still live? Why is it still loved, for many decades and in different countries? And still it impresses. Why is the part of a bayadère Nikiya is one of the most desired parts for ballerinas of the whole world? 

Thanks to the dance-monologue of Nikiya in the second act. Solor and Gamzatti are getting married (it was changed in the Soviet edition of the ballet and since that time it repeats in all productions). Nikiya is invited to dance. She feels as obnoxious and bitter as can feel a woman that has to entertain a victorious competitress and a beloved that left her. But Nikiya can’t say no: she is a bayadère. And she starts her dance. Petipa reached the heights of his genius. It seems that with every movement life leaves Nikiya’s body. Her dance is like a heart-rending romance. And suddenly somebody gives her a basket with flowers. «From him,» a slave points at Solor. Petipa stops the dance, and in this pause spectators in any country of the world understand: everything has changed, nothing is lost, Nikiya lifts in spirits. Her dance cheers, marvels, she flies around the stage, races, ecstatically beating pointes into the floor. And suddenly, at the highest point of triumph, a snake comes out the basket and stings her. The joyful dance was end-of-life. Nikiya falls. To appear later in the scene of «shades».

Polina Buldakova (Nikiya)

Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre

These two choreographical chef d’oeuvres, the monologue of Nikiya and Shades, in La Bayadère they are like two power generators that produce electricity dynamic which exhilarates and drives the whole huge performance. Fakirs, snakes, elephants, fans suddenly turn from awkward, old-fashioned, fake to alive. This is pure theatric magic. It is already one and a half centuries old but it still strikes like lightning. 

This magic is the key to truly people’s love for La Bayadère, love that doesn’t know any borders, nor time, neither countries. But there is another one.

Petipa in La Bayadère slowly wastes time and generously wastes money: there are crowds of statists, all people wear Indian costumes and keep in hands exotic things. In the second act, for instance, all pass in front of the audience in a slightly monotonous march, showing themselves. Of course exotica of La Bayadère is naïve but it is also festive. A lot of people in beautiful costumes, then, as much as this, many ardent dances. Petipa seems to whiffle and raise a festive wave. In times of Petipa it was just a celebration in honour of a god. In Soviet time one scene was cut and this celebration was changed to wedding of Solor and princess Gamzatti. But the essence didn’t change. Even the most bored by ballets spectator by no will starts to clap and tap feet inside, responding to a rousing rhythm of these dances. And at that moment, at the crest of the wave, appears Nikiya. The only person that feels bad now. According to perceptive words of Vadim Gaevsky about Petipa, Petipa’s festive is not a festive if somebody suffers. And one person’s suffering prevails. The moment of Nikiya’s appearance has an effect of a crushed carousel. For some seconds the stage freezes in silence. And they do deafen.

Gabriel Lopes (Solor), Polina Buldakova (Nikiya)

Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre

You shouldn’t love ballet or even be interested by it. You can feel bored in the audience. But if you are on La Bayadère and if it is even the first ballet you see in your life, then these few seconds of silence will deafen and touch even you. Petipa is a master: of course it is good to be an expert, pleasance will be more deep and complicated. But one can know nothing about ballet and still La Bayadère will not lose its effect. Why?

Because everybody knows this strong feeling of justice and injustice. In La Bayadère Petipa completely bares injustice, and there can’t be even one person indifferent to the performance. Nikiya is alone in the joyful world of exotic, naïve and colourful «ballet India», she is the only one who feels cold there. And even if later a word «eternity» will be spelled by crystals of ice, Grand pas, the meaning of the story will not change. Neither will change the most amazing quality of La Bayadère: this is the only performance that one should start the acquaintance to ballet with. 

Text by Yulia Yakovleva