| | |  | Ballets & Classics | Home » » » Minkus - La Bayadere / Kirov Theatre | | | | | | | Description: | | Here is La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer) a ballet in three acts performed by the company that first brought it to the West. Filmed at the Kirov Theater (on the stage where it was premiered in 1877), La Bayadere stars Gabriella Komleva as the pathetic temple dancer, Nikia; Tatiana Terekhova as Gamzatti, the Rajah s daughter, and Rejen Abdyev as Prince Solor. Based on an ancient Indian poem, the ballet concerns the love between Nikia and Solor. Solor, unfortunately, is obliged to wed Ganeatti, who murders her rival by sending a basket of flowers hiding a poisonous snake. After Nikia s death, the inconsolable Solor envisions Nikia inviting him to join her in the Kingdom of the Shades. In their final dance together, they manage to find a measure of happiness among the phantoms of other maidens who have died of unrequited love. A piece of history, and a work of art, La Bayadere is quite simply a gem to be savored again and again. CAST:
Gabriella Komleva ............ Nikia
Rejen Abdyev ................... Solor
Gennadii Selyutsky ............ Chief Brahmin
Yuri Potemkin .................. The Rajah
Tatiana Terekhova ............. Gamzatti
and the Company of the Kirov Ballet
Choreography: Vakhtang Chabukiani and Vladimir Ponomarev after Marius Petipa
Music: Ludwig Minkus Conductor: Victor Shirokov | | | Product Details: | | | Actors:
| Shirokov, Terekhova, Komleva, Minkus | | Director:
| Vakhtang Chabukiani | | Format:
| Color, DVD, NTSC | | Language:
| English | | Number of Discs:
| 1 | | Studio:
| KULTUR VIDEO | | Run Time:
| 130 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| January 29, 2008 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 3 reviews |
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| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 A common man's point of view.Jul 19, 2008
I only have this one copy of La Bayadere so I cannot compare it with others, as Ivy Lin is able to do. By the way, I like to read Ivy Lin's reviews for her honesty and knowledge of subject, and use her reviews to help me make purchasing decisions.
I will have to view this ballet several more times before I can say that I love the music of Ludwig Minkus. I must say that I liked the music of the act three Entrance of the Shades. By reading Ivy Lin's review I now know why I felt there was something missing from this story. That is, some sort of retribution for Nikia's murder. Prince Solor seems to be a real coward and does not deserve her continued love, even in an after life. There seems to be other versions of this ballet showing the destruction of the temple during the wedding of Solor and Gamzatti, which would be a fitting end after the treachery of Gamzatti and the Rajah.
Someone said the costumes were somewhat dowdy, but seemed quite sexy to me. Especially the female part of the Indian Dance. She was ravishing, and had more fun than anyone else. All the sets were very well done, and one must say the Russians must have the largest of everything including their theater stages and must have them filled to capacity with people (or elephants). The lighting was good even in the night scenes of the Shades, where there is proof that these ballerinas are human after all when, at the end of the dance of the Shades two or three of them including at least one of the soloists lose their balance and almost fall. I can't hold that against them, however, since I sometimes lose my balance just putting on my pants. One must remember, the young ballerina who nearly lost her balance had just done 38 exceedingly difficult arabesque movements as she descended the slopes of the Himalayan mountains, and was doing another when her knee buckled slightly. I forgive her, but I wonder if her boss did?
I'm glad I bought this ballet and will probably buy other versions.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Should not be your first BayadereJul 06, 2008
I agree with the reviewer who praises the dancing of Terekhova and Komleva-- but who also notes that the latter is a bit compact and not too glamorous. Since size is not a litmus test (but does matter), I made this my third Bayadere DVD and was neither disappointed nor transported. It's hard to go wrong with the Kirov, and if this were the only performance available, I would give it a higher rating, because one must have a Bayadere. But the more recent Paris Opera Ballet DVD (Nureyev's last choreography) with Guerin, Platel, and Hilaire is in my opinion by far the best. By comparison, even the costumes in this performance seem dowdy.
28 of 28 found the following review helpful:
The Kirov dances this ballet as if it were in their bloodFeb 10, 2008
If any ballet can truly be associated with the Kirov/Mariinsky, it is La Bayadere. This is the ballet that made Anna Pavlova in instant star. Even the Kirov defectors (Nureyev, Makarova) could not forget about La Bayadere, as both of them staged the ballet in the west. Petipa's ballet about the doomed affair between an Indian temple dancer and a warrior is such a part of the Imperial Ballet's history that it's a surprise that to date this is the only official video of the Kirov's Bayadere.
But rest assured, despite being old (filmed in 1977), it's an excellent document of the ballet. You can tell this is a ballet the company has danced for ages. Each character dancer really SELLS his/her part in the Grand Betrothal Act, from the Golden Idol to Manu (the girl with the vase over her head). The Kirov dances the ballet as if it were in their blood. This is particularly apparent in the famous Kingdom of the Shades, in which Solor, high on opium, hallucinates Shades descending down the Himalaya mountains, one by one. Each shade lunges forward in an arabesque, then stretches backwards. Notice the almost nonchalant way the 32 shades descend down the ramp, in complete unison. It looks easy, although any ballerina will tell you it's probably the most terrifyingly exposed choreography in classical ballet.
The two female leads (Gabriela Komleva as Nikya, Tatiana Terekhova as Gamzatti) are very strong. The Kirov nowadays favors very tall, imperious looking dancers like Uliana Lopatkina as Nikya, so if your idea of Nikya is a Lopatkina or Svetlana Zakharova, you're likely to be disappointed with Komleva who is considerably smaller and more compact (and less glamorous looking). But she's a delicate, vulnerable Nikya, with a pliant back and expressive face, and she handles the treacherously difficult part without any technical problems. If I have one criticism of her it's that in the Shades scene she isn't quite as otherworldly and ethereal as the best of Nikyas. Tatiana Terekhova is simply astonishing as Gamzatti. She simply drips hauteur and evil. Her confrontation with Nikya is exciting, and in the Betrothal Grand Pas she steals the show with her spectacular grande jetes and series of Italian fouettes. The weak link is the Solor. There is tragedy behind Rebdan Abdyev's Solor -- originally the telecast was slated to go to Yuri Soloviev, but Soloviev died in an apparent suicide, an event that devastated the company. Abdyev is an appropriately macho Solor, but he has a distinct lack of finesse, and one does long for the incredible elevation and elegance of Soloviev.
I would say this is *the* Bayadere to get as an introduction to the ballet, but it also faces some stiff competition on video. The Royal Ballet video has Altynai Asylmuratova on loan from the Kirov dancing the Makarova production (see below). Asylmuratova, exotic, beautiful, and heartbreaking, is probably the best Nikya on video, and Irek Mukhamedov is a wonderful Solor, but I dislike the Makarova version. The Paris Opera Ballet video boasts the POB Shades which are as stunning in their own way as the Kirov's, beautiful sets and costumes, and wonderful performances by Isabel Guerin, Laurent Hilaire, and Elisabeth Platel. There is also a video from La Scala starring Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle in the Makarova production. I'm not a huge Zakharova fan, but Nikya is probably her best role.
*The Kirov dances the Chabukiani version of the ballet, which debuted in 1941. This ballet dropped the last act (in which the ghost of Nikya destroys the temple during Solor and Gamzatti's wedding), and instead ends the ballet after the Kingdom of the Shades. This was probably for technical rather than artistic reasons -- even without the lost act, the ballet is over two hours long. After the Russian Revolution, the theater could not afford the elaborate stage machinery required to depict a destroyed temple. Years later, Kirov defector Natalia Makarova staged her own La Bayadere for the American Ballet Theater, in which she streamlined the mime and the character dances in the Betrothal Scene considerably, and then recreated the "lost" act by some creative reshuffling of music and barebones choreography. Then in 1992, a dying Rudolf Nureyev staged La Bayadere for the Paris Opera Ballet. His version is almost a carbon copy of the Kirov/Chabukiani version. In 2002, the Kirov finally staged a reconstructed Bayadere based on the 1900 production, which contained the "lost" act. This version is not available in commercial video.
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