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AUGUST 11, 2009                                                         KIM ESPINOSA
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Stanton Welch Stages a New Version of the Nineteenth Century Classic
La Bayadère in February 2010

From February 25 - March 7, 2010, Houston Ballet presents the highlight of the 2009-2010 season:  the world premiere of a new production of La Bayadère(The Temple Dancer) by Stanton Welch, Houston Ballet's first-ever staging of this full-length classic.  Set in northern India, La Bayadère dramatizes the love story of the temple dancer, Nikiya, her lover Solor, and the vengeance that keeps them apart, at least in this life. English designer Peter Farmer, who has a long and rich history with Houston Ballet, will create the spectacular scenery and costumes for the production.

"We wanted a grand classical ballet as the centerpiece for the fortieth anniversary season, and this will be like a big Bollywood production. It's a colorful story that's sexy, provocative and very dramatic," commented Mr. Welch.

The famous Kingdom of the Shades section will remain intact in Mr. Welch's new staging. This renowned classical set piece for 24 female dancers in white tutus, executing synchronized and seamless movements  while descending onto the stage, is one of the purest forms of ballet-blanc,  or the white tutu ballet. There are few works in the classical repertoire that require more precision from the corps de ballet.  It is so popular it is often performed on its own.  Houston Ballet first performed The Kingdom of the Shades scene, staged by Ben Stevenson after Marius Petipa, in March 1994 and revived it in 1998.

A tragic soap opera set in an Indian royal court, La Bayadère blends exoticism, white tutus, venomous snakes and opium.  In his book, The World's Great Ballets, critic John Gruen, places La Bayadère in the following historical context, "The creators of Romantic ballet shared with other artists of the time a fascination with the spiritualism and exoticism of the Orient. The most notable early dance treatment of such themes was Filippo Taglioni's opera-ballet Le Dieu et la Bayadere, based on a poem by Goethe. More than forty years later, Marius Petipa conceived of the idea for his own Oriental ballet.  At its premiere on February 4, 1877, at the Bolshoi Theatre, St. Petersburg, La Bayadère was a triumph: it catered to the Russian taste for spectacular theatrics, exotic settings, and convoluted, melodramatic plot lines, yet also contained classical choreography of breath taking purity."

Marius Petipa (1815 - 1898), the "father of classical ballet," was born in Marseille, France in 1819, and produced over sixty full-evening pieces, including works that that have become the foundation of the classical ballet repertoire such as The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Swan Lake. Swan Lake and La Bayadère share many similarities:  Both were premiered in 1877, and both made spectacular use of the corps de ballet in performance to a symphonic score.  (Although the original '1877 production of Swan Lake was choreographed by Julius Reisinger,   Petipa, with Lev Ivanov,  later staged the definitive version of the work for the Maryinsky Theater in 1895.)

Although La Bayadère remained in the repertory of many Russian companies throughout the twentieth century, it was little seen in the West until 1961 when the Kirov Ballet  performed The Kingdom of the Shades scene at the Royal Opera House in London.  In 1963, Rudolph Nureyev staged a version of The Kingdom of the Shades for England's The Royal Ballet.  In 1980, the great Russian ballerina Natalia Markova staged the first full length production of La Bayadère in the West for American Ballet Theatre to critical acclaim.  In 1992, Mr. Nureyev also staged a full-length version for Paris Opera Ballet.

Although the exact origin of the story of La Bayadère is unknown, it is an example of nineteenth-century Romantic ballets set in an exotic location with a fascination with the Orient, spiritualism, triangular relationships, ethereal beings, and melodramatic plot lines. A number of operas and ballets were created about "bayadѐres" - Indian temple dancers - at that time. Despite the ballet's setting in ancient India, Ludwig Minkus's music and Petipa's choreography, barely made any gesture to traditional forms of Indian dance and music, as the ballet was a vision of the Orient seen through nineteenth century European eyes, particularly since it was produced during the height of the British Raj (Queen Victoria of England took the title Empress of India in 1877.) Petipa's choreography contained various elements that reminded the spectator of ballet's setting, but he did not stray from the classical ballet cannon. Petipa was not interested in ethnographic accuracy in any part of the ballet with regards to choreography. It was the fashion of the time, whether a ballet was set in China, India, or the Middle East; the ballet master rarely, if ever, considered including traditional native dance forms.

It is fitting that this production should be designed by Peter Farmer, who has created eight  full-length productions for Houston Ballet since 1972 and is one of the few artists to have worked with three of the company's directors:  Nina Popova, Ben Stevenson and Stanton Welch. "It was such a pleasure working with Stanton on Madame Butterfly in 1995 for The Australian Ballet that I was so pleased when he asked me to design La Bayadère," commented Mr. Farmer.  
"Stanton's vision, as in all his works, is visually exciting and adventurous. I've always been an admirer of the great works of the nineteenth century. And, I've always admired La Bayadère and have wanted to design it for some time. It's a big challenge for me, and for the company, to have the chance to make the production new again."

Born in Luton, England in 1941, Mr. Farmer's prolific career in set and costume design includes over 300 productions in dance and theater. Mr. Farmer was first commissioned for his designs in 1964 for Jack Carter's production of Agrionia, performed by the London Dance Theatre. The following year, he was asked to create designs for Ballet Rambert's Giselle. This ballet has since been associated with Mr. Farmer and led him to create designs for leading ballet companies around the world. His designs for ballet productions include Swan Lake (Royal Winnipeg Ballet), The Sleeping Beauty (Munich Opera House and The Royal Ballet), Manon (Houston Ballet, Vienna State Opera and The Australian Ballet), Coppélia (Birmingham Royal Ballet) as well as several modern pieces for the London Contemporary Dance Theatre.  His designs for drama include The Night of the Iguana, A Woman of No Importance and What Every Woman Knows. Other productions that he has designed for Houston Ballet include Frederic Franklin's productions of The Nutcracker (1972) and Coppélia (1974); Ben Stevenson's stagings of Cinderella (1976), The Sleeping Beauty (1978), Peer Gynt (1981), and Lady in Waiting (1984); Peter Wright's staging of Giselle (1979);  Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Manon (1992), and Patricia Olade's one-act work Conceptual Contrast (1989).

La Bayadère is the second new staging of a nineteenth century classic that Mr. Welch has created for Houston Ballet, after Swan Lake in 2006. He has choreographed a number of full-length story ballets for The Australian Ballet,  including Madame Butterfly (1995), Cinderella (1997),  and The Sleeping Beauty (2005); as well as two original evening-length works for Houston Ballet: Tales of Texas in (2004) and Marie (2009) for Houston Ballet.

La Bayadère is set to the music of Viennese composer Ludwig Minkus (1826 - 1917), in an arrangement by John Lanchbery. The composer of over twenty ballets, Minkus was an excellent craftsman in the style of ballet music of his day. Born in Vienna in 1826, Minkus was a ballet composer and violinist.  From 1864-1871, he was the official ballet composer at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. In 1871, he was transferred to St. Petersburg, where he worked until 1891.