Mariinsky Ballet; La Bayadere

Presented in a dazzling 3-week London season at the Royal Opera House by Victor Hochhauser, the Mariinsky Ballet of St Petersburg demonstrated elegance, virtuosity and versatility with an entrancing array of ballets ranging from McGregor's Infra to Petipa/Ivanov's classic Swan Lake.

La Bayadere, choreographed by Petipa to the traditionalist, melodious music of Minkus, received its premiere on January 23rd, 1877, at the Bolshoi Theatre of St Petersburg- then the home of the Imperial Ballet, which moved to the Mariinsky Theatre in 1886.

For the matinee of August 12th, the Mariinsky's penultimate performance in London, the temple dancer Nikiya who pledges her love to Solor, despite the High Brahmin declaring his love to her, was danced enchantingly by Yekaterina Chebykina, whose long, fawn-like limbs rippled sensuously like an infinite ocean through her innately musical, sincere entrance variation.

In Act 2, the stage was transformed, from a sleek, minimalistic Oriental temple, to a magnificent wedding procession for Gamzatti and Solor, outside the Rajah's palace. La Bayadere is a ballet rarely staged by Western companies, perhaps due to its demanding principal roles, requiring not only technical finesse but also artistic excellence, as well as elaborate sets, including a spectacular, towering elephant in the marital procession. The corps de ballet's technical precision radiated throughout the wedding scene, and yet, despite having well over a hundred dancers onstage, the corps did not appear fussy or imposing during the principals' pas de deux, as can be the case in some Russian productions.

Vasily Tkachenko was perfectly cast as the Golden Idol, seeming to float through the air like a parachute in his spellbinding solo, a soaring skylark lifted by the magnificent orchestra, an epitome of lyrical harmony between music and movement. Meanwhile, tiny catlike Servants of the Golden Idol (danced by students of the Susan Robinson School of Ballet, and Royal Ballet School Junior Associates) adorned the stage, springing lightly through perfectly poised feet, their head movements coordinated like clockwork.

In the assured, adventurously choreographed Act 2 grand pas de deux, Nadezhda Batoeva's devastatingly powerful Gamzatti matched the vibrant yet refined, perfectly placed energy of Timur Askerov's Solor, whose spectacular triple cabrioles, double sauts de basques, and coupe jeté en tournant engulfed the stage in a stunning display of technical virtuosity contrasted with an intrinsic artistic sensitivity.

Batoeva's variation encapsulated the very essence of Agrippina Vaganova's vision for a Russian methodology of ballet; "a broad, powerful, vigorous style of dancing" (E.Pawlick, 2011) and seemed almost reminiscent of Vaganova's own dancing with the Imperial Ballet, regarding which critic Akim Voylonsky declared "Each detail... is a small world of choreography distinguished by internal consistency." (Krasovskaya, 2005) This internal consistency resonated throughout each nuance of Batoeva's dazzling characterisation, as her stage presence continued to grow in her spectacular coda involving both Italian and Russian fouette turns, executed with razor sharp dynamic precision. Chebykina danced Nikiya’s Death with haunting conviction, her wide, sorrowful eyes singing an elegy underpinned by defiance as she rejected the High Brahmin’s antidote, to die in Solor’s arms.

In the Kingdom of the Shades, the corps de ballet’s hypnotisingly divine arabesques, and pultrichudinous exactitude lured the audience into a captivating world of balletic transcendence. Here, May Nagahisa demonstrated technical clarity and neat footwork as the Third Shade, complemented by her willowy, flowing ports de bras. It is rare that the Mariinsky Ballet accept a dancer who has not trained at the Vaganova Academy or other Russian school into their ranks, and yet Nagahisa, a 2017 graduate of Monaco’s Academy Princesse Grace, is an exception to this rule. Her elegant carriage and exquisite feet integrate with an artistic maturity beyond her years, to create a young dancer whose allure can win the hearts of even the most sceptical critics.

Chebykina’s ethereal grace and Askerov’s exhilarating allegro made for a spine-tinglingly radiant Act 3 pas de deux corroborated by substantial emotional intensity, a suitably awe inspiring culmination to the Mariinsky’s interpretation of this iconic ballet.