A three-act ballet by MARIUS PETIPA with music by LUDWIG MINKUS .
The Kirov Ballet, soon to celebrate its 200th anniversary, prides itself on its preservation of some of the great 19th-century ballets which until recently were hardly known in the West. La Bayadere tells a tragic love story set in legendary India.
Conductor VIKTOR SHIROKOV
In the interval Humphrey Burton talks to Clement Crisp, Dance Critic of the Financial Times.
Production VLADIMIR PONOMAREV and VAKKTANG CHABUKIANI
Television direction by HELENA MACHERET A RUSSIAN TELEVISION production
Presented for BBCtv by JULIA MATHESON