Three hours of tutus, tragedy, and Tamara Rojo serving FACE while dying beautifully.
Marius Petipa’s exotic ballet set in legendary India is a story of love, death and vengeful judgement. Natalia Makarova’s sumptuous recreation of Petipa’s choreography, with atmospheric sets by Pier Luigi Samaritini and beautiful costumes by Yolanda Sonnabend, stars Tamara Rojo as the Bayadère (temple dancer) Nikiya, Carlos Acosta as Solor, and Marianela Nuñez as Gamzatti, whose alluring presence challenges Solor’s love for Nikiya. Live performance recorded in 2009.
Acting
Rojo's Nikiya dies so exquisitely you'll applaud.
Costume
Sonnabend's jewel-toned fantasy of colonial imagination.
Direction
Makarova's obsessive fidelity to Petipa's 1877 vision.
Director
Natalia Makarova
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Makarova defected from the USSR in 1970 and made this production her life's work to preserve Petipa's steps exactly as she learned them from Soviet coaches.
The 'white act' (Shades scene) is ballet's ultimate corps de ballet test—36 women descending in identical arabesques, supposedly representing Solor's opium hallucination of Nikiya's ghost.
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