La Bayadere.
Choreography Marius Petipa
Music Ludwig Minkus
La Bayadère (meaning The Temple Dancer or The Temple Maiden) tells the story of the bayadère Nikiya and the warrior Solor, who have sworn eternal fidelity to one another. The High Brahmin, however, is also in love with Nikiya and learns of her relationship with Solor. Moreover, the Rajah Dugmanta of Golconda has selected Solor to wed his daughter Gamzatti, and Nikiya, unaware of this arrangement, agrees to dance at the couple's betrothal celebrations.
In his effort to have Solor killed and have Nikiya for himself, the jealous High Brahmin informs the Rajah that the warrior has already vowed eternal love to Nikiya over a sacred fire. But the High Brahmin's plan backfires when, rather than becoming angry with Solor, the Rajah decides that it is Nikiya who must die. Gamzatti, who has eavesdropped on this exchange, summons Nikiya to the palace in an attempt to bribe the bayadère into giving up her beloved. As their rivalry intensifies, Nikiya picks up a dagger in a fit of rage and attempts to kill Gamzatti, only to be stopped in the nick of time by Gamzatti's ayah (nanny or governess). Nikiya flees in horror at what she has almost done. As did her father, Gamzatti vows that the bayadère must die.
At the betrothal celebrations Nikiya performs a somber dance while playing her veena (a musical instrument similar to a sitar). She is then given a basket of flowers which she believes are from Solor, and begins a frenzied and joyous dance. Little does she know that the basket is from Gamzatti, who has concealed beneath the flowers a venomous snake. The bayadère then holds the basket too close and the serpent bites her on the neck. The High Brahmin offers Nikiya an antidote to the poison, but she chooses death rather than life without her beloved Solor.
In the next scene the depressed Solor smokes opium. In his dream-like euphoria he has a vision of Nikiya's shade (or spirit) in a nirvana among the star-lit mountain peaks of the Himalayas called The Kingdom of the Shades. Here, the lovers reconcile among the shades of other bayadères. (In the original 1877 production, this scene took place in an illuminated enchanted palace in the sky.) When Solor awakes, preparations are underway for his wedding to Gamzatti.
In the temple where the wedding is to take place the shade of Nikiya haunts Solor as he dances with Gamzatti. When the High Brahmin joins the couple's hands in marriage, the gods take revenge for Nikiya's murder by destroying the temple and all of its occupants. In an apotheosis (or epilogue), the shades of both Nikiya and Solor are reunited in death and eternal love.
Source: Wikipedia, retrieved January 6, 2022
La Bayadère was the creation of the dramatist Sergei Khudekov and of Marius Petipa, the renowned Premier maitre de ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The music was composed by Ludwig Minkus, who from 1871 until 1886 held the official post of Ballet Composer to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres.
Nearly all modern versions of La Bayadère are derived from the Kirov Ballet's production of 1941, which was a severely redacted edition of the original 1877 ballet, staged by Vakhtang Chabukiani and Vladimir Ponomarev in Leningrad in 1941. Natalia Makarova's 1980 production of La Bayadère for American Ballet Theatre was the first full-length production to find a permanent place in the repertories of western ballet troupes, having been staged by several theatres throughout the world. Makarova's version is itself derived from Chabukiani and Ponomarev's 1941 redaction for the Mariinsky Theatre.
Source: Wikipedia, retrieved January 6, 2022