Marius Petipa’s decisive work La bayadère was first performed at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in Saint Petersburg in 1877 in a grandiose production portraying a mysterious India and the impossible love between the sacred dancer Nikiya and the warrior Solor. A scene from the ballet, known as The Kingdom of the Shades, is one of the most celebrated excerpts in all of classical ballet, and is considered to be one of the first examples of abstract ballet.

Living ballet legend, Yuri Grigorovich, created this version for the Bolshoi Theatre in 1991. Nikiya, a temple dancer, has secretly sworn her eternal love to Solor, a noble warrior. When she rejects the attentions of the High Brahmin, he is furious and determines to have Solor killed.

With the collaboration of Naxos