Minkus: La Bayadère Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Minkus: La Bayadère Blu-ray Movie Review

Silly? Yes. Old-fashioned? Absolutely. Sumptuous? Incredibly!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 21, 2011

Have you ever thought about what audiences of yesteryear did for spectacle in the days before summer blockbuster CGI-fests at the local Cineplex? If you haven’t, that thought may at least occasionally pop into mind as you watch La Bayadère, a patently old fashioned ballet that is long on exotic settings and costumes, but woefully short on story and character. Much like summer blockbuster CGI-fests at the local Cineplex, in fact. La Bayadère harkens back to the days when the ruling elite would go to the ballet in order to see pomp and pageantry, usually set to appealing but never overly complex or challenging music, a sort of carnival that bejeweled audiences could sit back and drink in without having to think too much, or indeed at all. And though this new Blu-ray release’s insert booklet quotes a contemporary 1877 review as remarking on how “intelligent” La Bayadère is, cynical readers may be prone to comment about various critics’ sensibilities. What can’t be denied is La Bayadère’s opulence, culled partly from its pseudo-Indian setting (Indian in the way a Brit might think of India, though of course this was originally a Russian opera staged by a French born choreographer and director). But for all its faux Orientalism, La Bayadère is ultimately about nothing more than a flurry of color and pageantry. If you go for “stuff” (not to be overly demeaning) like that, this gorgeous production by The Royal Ballet will boggle the eye as much as anything can. If you want something a little less dramatically inert, chances are while you might be seduced by the visual opulence of this piece, you’ll probably be yawning, figuratively or literally, at its trite storyline and cardboard cutout characters.

The 19th century was a time of the decline of The Grand Tour, but it even as late as the premiere year of La Bayadère, it was still a time when faraway lands beckoned to those who could afford travel, and perhaps retained an even greater allure for those who could not afford travel. The mystical climes of India were still seen as something almost Divine and inspiring, and Marius Petipa, who had previously explored settings as diverse as Egypt, Spain and (believe it or not) the North Pole in his other sumptuous Russian ballets, knew that there would be a built-in “wow” factor by exploiting an Indian locale. There is some debate as to what exactly inspired Petipa to undertake La Bayadère (a bayadère is a temple dancer), but the ballet’s progenitors are really of no earthshaking relevance. What’s obvious is that Petipa had had a long string of successes in staging glamorous ballets in exotic settings, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist, or whatever the 19th century analogy of that brain power might be, to figure out that setting a ballet in even an admittedly fanciful version of India would provide ample opportunity for magnificent sets and costumes. And that La Bayadère has almost always had in abundance in any number of productions through the intervening decades.

Giannandrea Poesi’s liner notes for this new Opus Arte release (a Kultur Blu-ray of the Nureyev Paris Opera La Bayadère is also available) mention the similarities between this outing and another iconic work for which Petipa provided choreography, Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida. Both pieces obviously sport exotic locales, and while La Bayadère also boasts a supernatural element which is not found in Verdi’s Egyptian opera, the ballet features a number of remarkable similarities to various aspects of Verdi’s piece, including a love triangle featuring a woman who loves a warrior who is engaged to a princess, leading to a showdown between the women. Probably more importantly, both pieces feature famous second act openers offering gigantic processions, something that Petipa evidently had in mind from his earliest plans for La Bayadère, which premiered two years after he had performed similar magic for Aida.

So while it is probably inarguable that there are rather strong elements of pastiche in Petipa’s approach to La Bayadère, once again that barely matters when one is confronted by such an amazingly theatrical presentation as The Royal Ballet offers here. This is about as sumptuous a production as one could hope for in a piece this frankly musty smelling, and that very sumptuousness helps to offset any slightly (or even more than slightly) stale feeling some more jaded audience members may have while meandering through the mystical world of Nikiya (Tamara Rojo), Solor (Carlos Acosta) and Gamzatti (Marianela Nuñez). With Petipa’s original intentions reinterpreted here by Natalia Makarova, a suitable amount of suspension of disbelief will allow an experience something akin to a living fairy tale, replete with over the top costumes, sets and lighting (including some strobe elements which come with a warning).

Highlighted by Royal Ballet star Carlos Acosta (who has become such a sensation that he is greeted by rapturous applause upon his first entrance), this Bayadère features lyrical and often extremely athletic dancing including some spirited work by the corps in several huge set pieces. Ludwig Minkus’ score is full of that patently fake “Oriental” color that was the rage of the late 19th century, and while it’s certainly not innovative in any way, it’s incredibly colorful and is here given a thoroughly vigorous reading by conductor Valeriy Ovsyanikov. But as excellent as the performances are here, and they undoubtedly are, the real stars are the costumes and sets. Pier Luigi Samritani has filled the stage with one eye popping design after another, and the unbelievably opulent costumes of Yoland Sonnabend establish the exotic setting, again undoubtedly far removed from “reality,” but captivating nonetheless.

Minkus: La Bayadère Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

La Bayadère dances onto Blu-ray courtesy of Opus Arte with a really stunning looking AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This is one of the more opulently beautiful productions in recent memory, and this Blu-ray offers it all with precise detail and completely gorgeously saturated color. The hues in this production are often astounding. In the bridal scene we get a jaw droppingly beautiful teal and blue backdrop, and in Act Two some of the specialty dances involve gilt-skinned soloists who could have been the featured "corp(se)" in Goldfinger. (Sorry, couldn't resist). Fine detail is really beautiful in this release and even though we're dealing with an interlaced source, there's very little if any artifacting, all the more remarkable in that there are a fair number of intricate arabesque designs, including some very ornate peacock feather-plume grills in one scene which resolve perfectly. You may find a lot about La Bayadère to be staid and out of date, but the visual aspect of this ballet is top notch, and this Blu-ray offers it all with spectacular looking results.

Minkus: La Bayadère Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

You may not be overly impressed with Minkus' score for this ballet, but chances are you'll have few if any complaints about either of the lossless audio options offered on this Blu-ray, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix and its sibling LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down. Minkus works within a fairly standard 19th century orchestral vocabularly, colored with appropriately "Oriental" orchestral flourishes. That means that there's not a huge opportunity here to exploit dynamic range, but there is certainly fulsome sounding brass and strings throughout this piece which are beautifully reproduced on the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. Occasionally I found the wind section to meld a little too indiscriminately into the mix, but otherwise this is a sparkling representation of a frankly sort of pedestrian score. The LPCM fold down, while obviously narrower, also boasts excellent fidelity and in fact this is one time when the surround option doesn't significantly increase the allowable "space" to listen into the music.

Minkus: La Bayadère Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Cast Gallery (1080i; 00:45)
• Tamara Rojo on Dancing La Bayadère (1080i; 9:23) offers the prima ballerina talking about the human element of the ballet as opposed to its pomp and pageantry. Rojo emphasizes the moralistic aspects of the storyline.
• Leanne Cope and Francesca Filpi on the Corps de Ballet (1080i; 7:46) features two charming women in the corps who discuss the Kingdom of the Shades scene. Watch this for a new meaning for The 39 Steps.
• Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta Rehearse with Alexander Agadzhanov (1080i; 20:06) offers some tough love from Principal Coach Agadzhanov as he puts the two stars through their paces. It may look easy to be that graceful, but this rehearsal footage proves what an arduously demanding task it can be.
• Natalia Makarova on Choreographing La Bayadère (4:13) is an audio only extra (with an accompanying photograph of Makarova) where the choreographer talks about her history with this ballet and how she decided to edit and adapt Petipa's original conception.

Minkus: La Bayadère Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

La Bayadère is, to repeat a phrase I used in my review of the Nureyev Paris Opera version, a 19th century warhorse. Therefore no one should come to this piece expecting innovation and nuance. Instead we're offered an incredibly lavish production of a piece that was meant to be a "spectacular," nothing more, nothing less. If you have no tolerance for this sort of lightweight entertainment, best to pass this one by. On the other hand, if you have a certain admiration, no matter how grudging, for the pure theatricality on evidence here, chances are you'll be entranced by the incredibly opulent physical production granted La Bayadère in this Royal Ballet outing. I guess I left my curmudgeon cap in another room today, because I was drawn up in the sheer visual splendor of this production and therefore rate it Recommended.