La Bayadere
A three-act ballet by MARIUS PETIPA with music by LUDWIG MINKUS
Last year, for the first time, British viewers joined the audience in the Kirov Theatre, Leningrad, to watch a performance by the dancers of one of the Soviet Union's greatest ballet companies.
La Bayadère is a 19th-century masterpiece, telling a tragic love story set in legendary India. It is danced here in the theatre that saw some of its earliest performances, known in pre-revolutionary days as the Maryinsky. When RUDOLF NUREYEV mounted the last act for the Royal Ballet in London, critics were astonished at its beauty. Now, in our Russian Season, we have a second opportunity to see the entire work in the Soviet production by VLADIMIR PONOMAREV - and VAKHTANG CHABUKIANI. conductor VIKTOR SHIROKOV
In the interval Humphrey Burton talks to Clement Crisp , dance critic of the Financial Times.
Television direction by HELENA MACHERET A RUSSIAN TELEVISION production