I was wondering about "Bayadere" on DVD. My experience with the ballet in video comes basically from the only copy I own, the beautiful Nureyev staging for POB, but maybe i'm getting behind the times, so I want to update myself on this matters and get a hold on whatever is considered now the most accurate version . Any suggestions...?
Thanks...!

Why do you think the POB version is inaccurate? (I ask because it's the most accurate and complete version I know on DVD or video. Both Makarova's and the Kirov's productions are cut (and Makarova's third act is a reconstruction, and a pastiche). The last act went long ago; like the original ending to "Giselle" (when Bathilde comes back to forgive Albrecht), it didn't suit early-20th century tastes and, in Russia, dances were pulled out of that act and put into the betrothal scene. If Doug Fullington sees this he'll be able to answer much more fully than I can.

Hi Alexandra...No, in ANY WAY (God forbidden!) do i doubt of the accuracy of the POB version, when actually that's the only one i've ever seen, and i happen to love !....I just thought that maybe, with all the new restagings and revivals and reworkings based on the Stepanov notations that has been taking place lately there was something out there that can be consider superior by the experts and that perhaps i'm not aware of. If not, i will be very happy to be still updated in terms of "Bayadere" accuracy with my old VHS of the POB... Thank you again for your response. As an amateur, I always like to relay on the expertisse...!

As opulent and traditional as the Nureyev production is - doesn't it also include a lot of Nureyev's own choreography and a few slight modifications to the choreography as well? (ie male corps dancing in Acts 1 & 2, and Gamzatti's variation being different from the ones usually danced?)

Is there any hope for release of a Kirov New/Old Bayadere? Not 100% pure, as has been noted elsewhere, but it would be a valuable document for ballet lovers everywhere.

I'm sure the male corps dancing is added -- but I don't know if that is by Nureyev, or from the Kirov. Kurgapina helped in the staging, if I remember correctly. I can't speak to Gamzatti's variation -- but the production (compared to Nureyev's other restagings) is .... tasteful

Cristian, there are at least two other versions on DVD or video that you may like. One of the Kirov dancing the work, and another, the Makarova staging for the Royal Ballet. I don't care for that version, but it does have Asylmuratova as Nikia.

when choosing something to discuss in the BAYADERE chapter for my BALLET 101 book, i chose the soviet/kirov version w/ komleva and abdiev. hardly ideal, but filmed on the very stage where petipa worked on his last revision and w/ settings connected to 19th c. traditions.
i don't think i'd change that decision if i were asked to do a similar intro the ballet today, unless o'course a reasonable filming of vikharev new/old version were put on the market.
still, i fully understand and respect that there might be as many opinions as there are BT members weighing in here.

I, too, would go with the Kirov/Komleva/Abdiev version. Of course, I'd say get all of them, but if you have to make a first choice, then I'd lead with that one.

Thank you all for your always wonderful expertisse advisement!...I think i'm gonna keep busy doing some "Bayadere" researching homework ...




I just ordered it


Good idea...will do. So far this is what i've found:

The Makarova staging for the RB (1992) with Altynai Asylmuratova and Irek Moukhamedov.
Another Makarova staging for the LSB with Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle.(any thoughts on this one?)
A 1996 VHS Bolshoi production with Nadia Garcheva and Alexander Vetrov.( ..?)
Your favorite 1991 Kirov production with Gabriella Komleva and Rejen Abdyev.(ordered already)



Well, in fact i'm gonna be comparing all of them with my own first choice, my old Nureyev's POB copy with Isabelle Guerin and Laurent Hilaire.

all again!

Did the POB version end with Nikiya and Gomez reuniting in the afterlife (the 'Hollywood' Happily Ever After ending) and was it in four acts? I saw the May 2006 ABT performance which used the Makarova production, and that exactly was how it ended. I find it a little too sugary, and would like to see another version.

Agnes, the POB version ends with Shades. There's no Destruction of the Temple Act.

I don't think you'll findl it sugary. I prefer this version to others. I like the dancing

I recently watched both the POB's and Royal Ballet's Shades scenes simultaneously on different screens.

For me, the differences between them -- as between POB and the Kirov, at least as far as I remember it -- have a lot to do with the cinematography and the "look" which the designers and stagers have tried to achieve.

It's not that one is better, imo, but that they seem to have been spun from quite different aesthetic sensibilities.

The POB Shades scene is truly ghostly -- blue-white silhouettes emerging from the darkness as they descend the ramp. They reveal themselevs gradually. It's stunning and seems to have come from an different century the Royal's Shade scene, which is evenly lighted throughout and more burdened with detail. The POB Shades (32) are slender, ethereal beings. The Royal Shades (only 24) have corporeal weight from the first appearance of the first Shade -- you can see their costumes in detail (even stretch marks across the bodices, how they did their makeup, etc., and -- in certain closeups -- a great deal more than you want to see.

The POB version takes place in a vast, clean, empty space, with a dark backdrop in which the tropical vegetation is only slightly visible, and pale white luminiscent floor. The Royal has drooping trees overhanging the ramp; it's clearly the Covent Garden stage, and little effort has been made to forget it.

The POB version ends with Solor supporting Nikiya in arabesque as the 32 Shades surround them in a circle, each extending one arm in homage towards the couple. It's a beautiful image, but the end seems to come too abruptly. The curtain descends. The curtain calls begin. You know that something is missing, even if you don't know the history of this and other productions.

The Royal's version -- staged by Makarova -- shifts from the Shades act to an image of Solor once again lost in his opium dream. Other characters enter, and the entire High Braham/ Gamzatti/ et al . plot resumes. After the temple destuction, out comes the smoke machine. Nikiya re-emerges to save Solor (or at least his spirit) from the cataclysm, as she ascends a stairway and Solor holds the other end of the long white scarf.

Makarova's reconstruction, it seems to me, provides an opportunity for the Royal to do a bit of melodrama and to create effects that are like a final, heroic outburst of 19th-century stagecraft. It's fun on that level, but in no way truly moving.

Both versions are danced wonderfully, although I found myself looking more closely at the purity of Laurent Hilaire and Isabelle Guerin, partly because I could see it so clearly defined in the filming.

As has been said before, these classics are vast works with long and complicated performance histories. "In my father's house are many mansions," and there's much to enjoy in each of them.

On the contrary, i've never seen the "lost act"...and all the reviews that i've read don't give to the Makarova's vision too much sympathy... What about the score...?...one can always make it at least music-worthy

there is no way to hear the long-lost last act of LA BAYADERE except in the case of the vikharev new/old kirov/maryinsky 'reconstruction' - which has neither, to the best of my knowledge been audio- or video-recorded by the company.
makarova's production employs music for her last act in the temple that was fashioned esp. for her by john lanchbery - after what i assume were unsuccessful attempts to get the original minkus music out of soviet russia. i believe the current maryinsky version w/ the last act had to be put back together by the stagers b/c some of that act's music had been moved since the mid-1920s into the ballet's other acts. rumor has it that nureyev was on the 'trail' of getting the last act's music for his POB staging but ill health prevented him for following-through on his plans.
so, not only is there no commercially available video of the last act, there is no audio recording of this so far either.
i think after vikharev and his fellow-stagers finally pieced the music back into its intended shape they managed to copyright the work for the maryinsky.
having seen (and heard) this version in nyc in 2002 i can say how thrilling it was to become acquainted with this final act and how frustrating it is to note that no audio or video recording has be made.

Now, I am intrigued! Pray tell, what is the plot of this lost act supposed to be?

Hi bart, and thank you so much for your wonderful and detailed analysis!
Well, now that i know that i won't see any original Petipa/Minkus on the reconstructed "lost act" , and that my Nureyev POB version is very well liked among the experts , it's obvious that i will be looking up to rg's suggestion , the 1991 Kirov Komleva/Abdyev production...(it's only on VHS on Amazon, and currently unavailable). BTW bart, ever since i saw for the first time the Nureyev's POB video, i've also been enchanted by the Guerin/Hilaire duo..

to confirm the date of the filming of the soviet/kirov BAYADERE, it's 1977 - dating of videos gets complicated b/c sometimes the distributor notes the date the title was marketed w/ its label and not necessarily when the perf/filming got done.
fyi:
La bayadère / USSR Gostelradio ; presented by Dennis M. Hedlund ; television director, Elena Macharet ; choreography by Vakhtang Chabukiani and Vladimir Ponomarev after Marius Petipa, staged by Chabukiani ; music by Ludwig Minkus.
U.S.S.R. : Gostelradio, 1977 ; W. Long Branch, N.J. : Kultur International Films. (130 min.) : sd., col.
Recorded in performance at the Kirov Theatre, Leningrad.
Scenery, Orest Allegri, Konstantin Ivanov, and Adolf Kvapp.
Performed by the Kirov Ballet.
Gabriella Komleva (Nikia), Redzhep Abdien [Rejen Abdyev] (Solor), Tat'iana Terekhova (Gamzatti), Gennadii Seliuskii (Chief Brahmin), Yuri Potemkin (The Rajah), and company.
Conductor: Victor Shirokov.
Intermission narration in Russian.

cubanmiamiboy:

The Kirov ballet recently brought to the Met in New York city the "restored" staging of their original "Bayadere" (they did the same with The Sleeping Beauty). The difference with the ballet we've seen in the theatres and videos is amazing. I haven't seen this "original" version on DVD.

From the commercially available Bayaderes, there are 2 which I would recommend because they are "standard", both staged by Natalia Makarova for the Royal Ballet and for La Scala. Either of these two DVDs is wonderful, it's a matter of choice about the cast. The La Scala recording came out recently, and is superb, with Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle.

I always avoid Nureyev's POB version (which I saw at the Met in NYC) because it was recorded with wide angle almost all the time, to capture the lavish settings but leaving the dancers distant from the viewer, almost like part of the settings.

Thanks, Rg. Yes, i was refering to the marketing date, which is 1991, but i knew that this was an older work from the 70's, which actually, it would be very exciting to look at, giving the fact that back then there was not a strong emphasis on production lavishness at the Kirov, (which is closer to my own experiences on what i was used to consume in Cuba), so the choreography is way more exposed..

I am surprised there wasn't more talk of the Bolshoi production with Gracheva/Vetrov, both of whom gave gorgeous performances. Vetrov's Shades solo is one of the best I have seen. To anyone familiar with this production, I would love to know who the Gamzatti was---and also, the 3 soloists in the shades scene. There is one scene in this production I can live without---it's in the Gamzatti 'tutu' scene---before Nikiya's basket dance. A male corps flies around beating what looks like tom-toms and behaving like refugees from 'Prince Igor'.

Well, here's where you have different strokes for different folks. Of the 5-6 Bayadere's I have, I rank this in a tie for the bottom spot (the other being the recently released La Scala production)

First this production looks old and worn, and no beauty in the first place. I hate the blocking, (and this is a personal issue; I find the badly applied blackface offensive).

If there were other considerations I could overlook some of this but I find Gracheva sound but more boring than Wonder White Bread (for those not from the US, this is NOT a compliment) . She did not move me one bit.


The Gamzatti is Bylova(hopefully I have that right).
I can't get that this is a dancer with a major company, she is SOOOOOO sloppy. And she seems to find it difficult to get up fully on point. I REALLY hated her.

Vetrov. Yes, he is dashing and looks like a Solor and a lot of his dancing is very showy and exciting. He was the only reason
I kept the tape.


Well, there you have it. Of course this is all my opinion and others will differ.

I think that if you're going to start with Bayadere's, start with either the POB or Kirov videos. I'm of the very strong opinion that starting with Makarova's version of La Bayadere gives one a false impression of the ballet. I admire her for trying to reconstruct the "lost act" but in the process she sheds so much of the ballet that it practically becomes the Cliff Notes version of La Bayadere. I started with the Makarova version (at the ABT, then on video) and so I was shocked to see the POB video. Wow, this is Grand Ballet, I thought. At first I was impatient at the spectacle, but eventually I came to appreciate Petipa's design of pairing the pageantry of the Betrothal Scene with Nikya's personal tragedy, and then with the austere beauty of the Shades act.
And I've never appreciated 8 dancers more than in La Bayadere. Makarova uses 24 Shades. The POB, Kirov and Bolshoi use 32. 24 Shades - beautiful. 32 Shades (especially when danced with a corps as well-trained as the Kirov or POB) - breathtaking.

Completely agree with canbelto. I saw ABT's performance this May, and now am watching the POB version. And what a difference! The POB version is more aligned with how an Eastern tragic myth might be staged for a ballet. Makarova's staging had that Hollywood happily-ever-after / good-over-evil flavor to it...more of a Western thought process.

Actually in "Dancer's Dream," it says that Nureyev considered reconstructing the last act, but ultimately chose the "gentler" ending of having Solor and Nikya reunited in the dream. In this sense Nureyev's version is almost identical to the Kirov version (except in the Scarf duet, Solor pirouettes along with Nikya. But really, that's it.) So it seems as if ending the ballet after the Shades act was an artistic choice.
And hasn't the Kirov dropped the "new-old" Bayadere? The "new-old" Sleeping Beauty has remained in the repertoire but I haven't heard reports of the "new-old" Bayadere being staged in years.

They brought it to NY in 2002. It was very long. I actually found it rather boring

Yes, that is on "Dancer's Dream," but that isn't necessarily definitive. Other people, in interviews, are more in line with what rg posted above. (There are several contradictory statements about other things by artists interviewed on Dancer's Dream, which happens when you talk to artists )

I haven't seen the "Dancer's Dream" Bayadere, but I own the Raymonda and have seen another (Sleeping Beauty, I think.) The Raymonda is precious to me because of the dance footage, but these films remind me a bit of "The Making of [Harry Potter]" that HBO or studios create to sell the movies. They're a bit softballin my opinion, and I usually fast-forward to the dancing and ignore the interviews and talky footage. They're official, and occasionally piquantly dishy, but I don't find them terribly illuminating, unlike the interviews in the documentary in the POB Jewels DVD or the charm of Delouche's films that lovingly depict their subjects.

The Komleva 1977 Kirov La Bayadere, that is currently unavailable on VHS
is scheduled to be released on DVD for sale January 29th, 2008 from
Kultur International Films, please check our website www.kultur.com
it will be posted there for pre-order the end of December.


Thanks
Andrea

Thank you, Andrea!

I hope you will come back and let us know when Kultur is about to release other back and new ballet properties. We have a forum focused on miscellaneous video topics.

And a warm welcome to BalletTalk.

Sad to say that there's still no release of the reconstructed ballet.

However adding another vote to the 1977 Kirov performance didn't they use the same scenery as the 1900 production (the reconstructed one) for this production for the first acts--but not the Shades? (Wikipedia says so but they coul dbe wrong) which would add another partial element of authenticity. (to make things more confusing apparantly recently the Marrinsky has taken to performing the 1940s version again--but using all the desings, or so I've read, of the 1900 reconstruction...)

yes, it seems the Ponomarev/Chabukiani etc. production of BAYADERKA from the '40s used the scheme of the 1900 scenery for it's scenes outside the temple, in the palace and on the palace terrace. the Shades scene of that prod. did not reflect what the new/old Bayadere by Vikharev brought back.

In an odd turn around the current Bolshoi version--that Grigorovich did in 1991--uses scenery based on the original 1877 designs, not the 1900 ones.

interesting detail about the 1877-link in Grigorovich's BAYADERKA.
is this noted in one of the slender monographs Grigorovich authored for Planta(?) press? or some other source?
i hadn' realized the scheme for the 1877 production was still well documented in Russia, which is why i assumed the mid-and late-19th Soviet productions went to the 1900 sources. Though i suppose Grigorovich's Bolshoi production aimed to have a different 'profile' from that then in Leningrad.

Grigorovich joined the Kirov in 1946 when its current Bayaderka production was in the Ponomaryev 1941 staging after Petipa with additions by Chabukiani. It was in this production that Grigorovich had appeared in the corps de ballet when in 1948 Nikolai Zubkovsky introduced the Golden Slave variation, a role that he would himself essay later in his career.
The Bolshoi definitely had a, “... different profile"... to the Kirov and some might say at times, their productions of the same ballets were at two performing extremes.
The Bolshoi performing tradition of Bayaderka dated back to 1904, when it was staged by Alexander Gorsky with the Maryinsky designs. One cannot help but wonder if Gorsky who had helped to develop Stepanov's notation, staged the production from memory, notes or his own notation his talent for which, may have played a role in his abrupt transference from the Maryinsky Theatre in 1900 where having been nominated to become a premier danseur, was eight days later suddenly appointed regisseur at the Bolshoi.
Vassili Geltzer restaged the ballet at this theatre in 1907 and it was again revised in a new production in 1917 with Balashova and Mordkin. In 1923 the ballet was again re-staged at the Bolshoi in a Soviet version with Gorsky responsible for Acts 1-3 with Vassili Tikhomirov responsible for a new Act 4.
As far as I can discover, prior to Grigorovich’s 1991 production, the last production had been staged in 1940 by Ivan Smoltsov and Valentina Kudryatseva for Marina Semyonova who is still alive and perhaps the last person to dance Nikiya at the Bolshoi before Nadezhda Gracheva’s debut on November 17, 1991, a gap of more than 40 years.

Finally, my vote is for Gabriella Komleva a wonderfully musically sensitive and expressive dance actress.

thanks for all the above.
i meant to note in my reply that my remarks were addressed specifically to the designs that were part of Grigorovich's '91 prod. which are said in a previous post to differ from those of the Kirov traditions by looking not to the 1900 design scheme but to the original, 1877 designs.
i wondered where this reference to '77 comes from. is it noted somewhere in the histories of Moscow's connection to BAYADERKA? if so, where?

I admit I've never seen the Bolshoi's production (is it on DVD? I'm curious to now). I also have extremely mixed feelings about Grigorovich's restagings of the classics--I think he always put a lot of thought behind them and they're handsome productions but sometimes his decisions of change were really misguided, still I think I enjoy them a lot more than other Western ballet fans I've spoken to. The cynic in me thinks that with Simon Virsaladze passed away he simply didn't know any othe rmodern designer to use so had to resort to the originals ;)

Anyway this is what I do know:

From the Bolshoi's official website:

Libretto by Marius Petipa and Sergei Khudekov
Choreography: Marius Petipa
New scenic version: Yuri Grigorovich
Scenes from productions by Vakhtang Chabukiani, Nikolai Zubkovsky, Konstantin Sergeyev used
Sets and costumes after sketches by designers of the first production (1877) revived by Valery Firsov,
Nikolai Sharonov (sets) and Nikolai Sviridchikov (costumes)
Supervisor of scenery and costumes revival: Valery Levental
Premiered on November 25, 1991.

Presented with two intervals.
Running time: 3 hours 30 minutes.

So I'm not sure how faithful the designs are--probably less so than the Marrinsky's are to the 1900 production, this sounds a bit more like "inspired by".

I assume why the Marrinsky's 40s production used most of the sets from the 1900 revival simply because they were still in decent shape and were the last sets they had--and kept with them. But that's just a guess--of course the reason they were used for the reconstruction was the 1900 production, as you know, was the one that was notated.

Leonid thanks for your detailed information! You may want to update the Wikipedia Bayaderer page where they wrongly seem to think the last time the Bolshoi did Bayadere was 1917 until the Grigorovich production.

Grigorovich's Bolshoi staging of LA BAYADERE was released on videocassette here in the US by Kultur - see NYPL listing below - i don' t think the tape was re-released on DVD but i could be mistaken.
Gamzatti in this production is, if i've got this correctly, Maria Bylova.
the credits below are those from the cassette, which aren't very detailed.
La bayadère / presented by the Bolshoi Ballet ; choreography by Yuri Grigorovich ; music by Ludwig Minkus.
West Long Branch, N.J. : Kultur, [1991?] (140 min.) : sd., col.
Timing given as 146 min. on wrapper.
Danced by the Bolshoi Ballet.
Nadia Gracheva [Nadezhda Grachova?] (Nikia), Aleksandr Vetrov (Solor), and others.
Videotaped in performance.

Oh I hope it'll be transfered to DVD--if only so I can see these designs, but I'll keep my eyes open for the video. Have you seen it? What did you think?

the video is very dark, stage-light was probably not adjusted for the filming.
in the Shades scene, it's more or less impossible to make out any details.

Shame, although that seems to be a problem with a lot of Bolshoi ballets on film particularly those Grigorovich stagings...

(Even more disappointing is going through old threads on here and readying that around 2004 they said that filmings of the reconstructed Kirov Sleepign Beauty and Bayaderer were very likely to happen "very soon" )

given the news from the current director of the Maryinsky ballet co. (Y. Fateev) that these productions will no longer be performed, it would seem these new/old stagings will not only not be filmed, they will not be presented and thus may not last (and wait) for a new director, etc.

As leonid pointed out, it's indeed erroneous to think that there was no La Bayadère at the Bolshoi after 1917, but also typical for the tendency in historical surveys of this theatre to let everything begin again with Yuri Grigorovich and act as if nothing much happened between Gorsky and him - one might call this period the Bolshoi "Dark Ages". (Something that former AD Alexei Ratmansky always tried to reset, precisely by paying attention to ballets that were staged in those Dark Ages.) The 1923 production was performed no less than 126 times until 1936. The WW II revival was performed by Marina Semyonova and Sofia Golovkina. Only afterwards the full-length ballet disappeared from the Bolshoi rep and just the Kingdom of the Shades Act was kept until Grigorovich revived the whole ballet in 1991.

No chance the new/old Mariinsky productions will be filmed. They didn't bother with them when they were new and in, they're not going to now.

I've noticed that about the Bolshoi--there's definetly an era there where, particularly for revivals of the classics, you can find out next to nothing.

I really think it's one of the most depressing thoughts I can think of re the current state of ballet that these works probably won't be performed again and even more likely won't be filmed. Sigh. It's times liek these I wish I was a wealthy billionaire who could finance something

Excuse my reply to myself but one thing--if Grigorovich did indeed base his designs on the 1877 production, I wonder if he did for the Shades too. Wikipedia (never too dependable I admit) says this about the original 1877 Shades design compared to the 1900 revival:

"Among Petipa's most striking changes for this revival was the change of setting for the scene The Kingdom of the Shades from an enchanted castle in the sky on a fully lighted stage, to a dark rocky landscape at the peaks of the Himalayas."

I suspect Grigorovich followed the more familiar later staging...

Nureyev's Paris Opera Ballet production of LA BAYADERE somewhat keeps to the pre-1900 scheme, w/ the Shades sc. set in a place more open and more fully lighted rather than moonlit and rocky.

credits as follows:
Bayadère : Three-act ballet. Chor: Rudolf Nureyev after Marius Petipa; mus: Ludwig Minkus, revised & orchestrated by John Lanchbery; scen: Ezio Frigerio; cos: Franca Squarciapino; lighting: Vinicio Cheli. First perf: Paris, Opéra Garnier, Oct. 8, 1992; Paris Opéra Ballet.