In fact, the ballet was almost unknown in the West until the Kirov brought it to Paris in 1961, with Nureyev in the role of Solor. She was the first to set a complete version of the ballet on a Western company until then, only Russian companies performed it in full. The Bayadère we are used to seeing in New York (and London) is Natalia Makarova’s, created in 1980 for American Ballet Theatre. As Tamara Karsavina said in 1965, the Shades (spirits) should appear as “une chaine d’ombres, une brume s’élevant en nuages”* (a line of shadows, a mist rising in clouds), or, in a more Eastern interpretation, like the repetitive figures in a Mandala. (The trance is usually broken by wobbles, but no matter).
Who doesn’t understand a love triangle, mixed with issues of rank and class? And, like many before me, I have been mightily stirred by the sheer splendor of the corps de ballet in the famous Kingdom of the Shades scene, in which the dancers descend an incline, one after another, to enact a celestial ritual, ebbing across the stage in waves or slowly raising a leg or turning in place, moving as one body, one soul. But, I’ll admit that, in the right hands, the plight of Nikiya, a temple dancer indentured to a high priest but secretly in love with a warrior who, in turn, is betrothed to a princess, can be quite poignant. The score is certainly not one of Ludwig Minkus’s finest moments. Many of the dances-and much of the music-are best described as dance-hall exotique. And, unless we’re Russian, it’s unlikely to be a ballet terribly close to our hearts: it’s a little too camp, with its archaic Indian setting, all fakirs and parrots. First of all, most of us discover it as adults. A pas de deux works just fine, thank you very much. Why muddle matters with another classical pas de deux here? Well, after watching several performances of Alexei Ratmansky’s Nutcracker for ABT, I’ve begun to change my mind.
For example I’ve always adored Balanchine’s Nutcracker, and until recently would have argued vehemently that it was absolutely right to have Marie and the Nutcracker Prince walk off into the snowy forest during Tchaikovsky’s sumptuous forest of firs in winter music, rather than introduce a pas de deux at this point. So much of our reaction to this or that production is determined by what we’ve seen before it’s nearly impossible to be objective.
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