By reconstructing the closing scene that vanished from ballet tradition nearly a century ago, the ballet company of the Hungarian State Opera will premiere La Bayadère, one of the most successful collaborations between choreographer Marius Petipa and composer Ludwig Minkus on 14 June 2025. As his choreographic debut, company ballet master Albert Mirzoyan created the ending of this spectacular gem of classical ballet, based on the original libretto.
Set in ancient India, the story of La Bayadère follows the doomed love of Solor, a warrior, and Nikiya, a temple dancer, whose union is thwarted by jealousy and malice. Solor's master, the rajah Dugmanta, has chosen his finest warrior as the groom for his own daughter, Gamzatti, while the high priest, the great Brahmin seeks to claim the bayadere for himself. As a result of their schemes, Nikiya is fatally bitten by a snake.
Based on ballet traditions from the past century, La Bayadère typically ends with the grieving Solor's dream, where he reunites with his beloved in the famous white scene set in the Kingdom of the Shades, finding redemption there. However, Petipa's original libretto does not conclude at this point: the following day, as Solor struggles between love and duty, the wedding takes place, leading to a dramatic turn of events.
These original final scenes and other parts of the narrative have now been reconstructed by Albert Mirzoyan, ballet master of the Hungarian National Ballet. After graduating from the Vaganova Academy, Mirzoyan spent over two and a half decades as a ballet dancer and ballet master at the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad (now the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg), and later worked for 12 years as a ballet master at the Vienna State Opera, where he also choreographed works in addition to preserving the classical repertoire. The restored ending was arranged for symphony orchestra by György Lázár, the company’s principal ballet répétiteur, based on Minkus’s piano score. At the choreographer’s request, the music was enriched with excerpts from another Petipa–Minkus collaboration, the ballet Nuit et jour (Night and Day), premiered in 1883.
La Bayadère returns to the Opera House with lavish visuals. Romantic, fairytale India is evoked through elaborate sets designed by István Rózsa and intricately crafted costumes envisioned by Nóra Rományi. Reflecting the strength of the ballet company, the production features four different casts. Nikiya is performed by Tatyjana Melnyik, Maria Yakovleva, Miyu Takamori, and Soobin Lee; Solor by Louis Scrivener, András Rónai, Dmitry Timofeev, Boris Zhurilov, and Motomi Kiyota; and Gamzatti by Maria Beck, Claudia García Carriera, Elena Sharipova, Olha Skrypchenko, and Yuki Wakabayashi. Each performance brings nearly 70 artists of the Hungarian National Ballet to the stage, including the famous white scene with 32 members of the corps de ballet and three soloists. In addition, students from the Hungarian National Ballet Institute appear in 10 children and 4 adult roles, supported by a crowd of over 40 extras. The Hungarian State Opera Orchestra is conducted by Máté Hámori and Péter Dobszay.
Following its premiere on 14 June 2025, La Bayadère is performed eight more times during the season at the Hungarian State Opera: 15, 18, 19, 21, 22 (matinée and evening), 25, and 27 of June.
La Bayadère enjoyed its world premiere in 1877 by the Imperial Russian Ballet at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg as a benefit performance for the troupe’s prima ballerina, Yekaterina Vazem. Marius Petipa created the four-act libretto based on his own ideas and the script by playwright and ballet critic Sergei Khudekov, drawing inspiration from classical Indian poet Kalidasa’s drama Shakuntala, Goethe’s ballad The God and the Bayadère, and popular 19th-century French ballet adaptations of these stories. The premiere was a great success, and along with Don Quixote, La Bayadère is considered one of the greatest collaborations between Petipa and Minkus. The choreography underwent numerous transformations throughout the 20th century, and became widely known on the international ballet stage from the 1960s onwards through productions by émigré Russian artists. The Hungarian National Ballet first staged the work in 2008, in a choreography by Slava Muchamedov, also based on Petipa’s original.
