The Stage

La Bayadere

Published Monday 8 October 2007 at 12:05 by John Percival

The Royal Ballet’s new season opens with a run of La Bayadere featuring six casts in the top roles.

Since the first night used the company’s three best dancers, it’s inevitable that standards will vary. How can any other pair of ballerinas match the exultant perfection of Tamara Rojo as the temple-dancer heroine Nikiya or the touching pride of Marianela Nunez as her royal rival Gamzatti?

Nunez is also to dance Nikiya later in the month, but meanwhile she shows a smiling triumph until fate turns against her. Rojo’s incredible balances and dazzling pirouettes may seem less than tragic as her character is brought to a sad end, but how can anyone watch them without thrilling? And for the heroic Solor whom they both love, Carlos Acosta’s acting is as credible as his virtuoso solos.

Unfortunately Natatalia Makarova’s production of this 130-year-old classic is not what it should be. Some of Marius Petipa’s fine dances are omitted, transposed or transformed. A particular loss is that the corps de ballet, which works with exemplary care, is given a version of its famed big ensemble that really needs more dancers, a smoother choreographic style, and longer, steeper ramps for the potentially breathtaking entrance. Equally disappointing is Makarova’s own interpolated choreography in the final scene, and now we no longer have the collapse of the temple at the end.

Ludwig Minkus’ attractively danceable music, too, was given a stodgy performance under Valeriy Ovsyanikov’s direction. We’ve seen this production in better form, and anyway Paris and Petersburg both have superior versions of this work.