La Bayadère, the ballet by the celebrated choreographer Marius Petipa, tells the tragic
story of Nikiya, a temple dancer, and the warrior Solor, who, despite his vow of eternal
love, betrays her and marries another. After Nikiya’s death, she continues to haunt him
in his dreams, and their encounter in the celebrated Kingdom of the Shades scene becomes
a pinnacle of pure dance.
This celebrated work of the classical ballet repertoire was created through the
close collaboration between Petipa and the composer Ludwig Minkus, who possessed an
exceptional ability to adapt his music to the demands of dance. This lavish and technically
demanding production, requiring a large ensemble, premiered in Saint Petersburg
in 1877. The audience’s applause lasted for half an hour, while critics gave unreserved
praise to both the creators and the performers.
Inspired by Romanticism and by a fascination with mysticism, distant lands and
the exotic East, La Bayadère unites reality and imagination while foregrounding the
virtuosity and formal purity of classical dance. Despite its technical demands, the ballet
has endured as an indispensable work of the international repertoire, often presented in
various adapted versions. La Bayadère has also been staged in Zagreb: first in 2002, in
choreography, direction and dramatic adaptation by Dinko Bogdanić, and again in 2015,
in choreography and direction by Vasily Medvedev.
In the 2025/2026 season, Zagreb audiences will encounter a new staging of La
Bayadère — the production created in 1980 for American Ballet Theatre by the celebrated
Russian prima ballerina and choreographer Natalia Makarova, based on the original
choreography of Marius Petipa. It was one of the most ambitious ballet productions in
the history of the company, yet the effort proved more than worthwhile, resulting in a
refined, lavish and enchanting staging that helped popularise the ballet beyond the Soviet
Union. Natalia Makarova devoted much of her career to preserving and revitalising the
classical ballet tradition, staging and reimagining canonical works around the world. Her
La Bayadère remains one of the clearest expressions of her lasting influence on classical
ballet today. The exotic world suspended between reality and dream, together with a
refined and pure classicism in its most refined form, will now also be brought to Croatian
audiences in a performance by the Ballet of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb.
