Kingdom of the Shades (Nureyev)
The Kingdom of the Shades from Act III of La Bayadère has a special place in Nureyev’s story. It opened the Kirov’s Paris season, on 16 May 1961, and it was the ballet in which, three days later, Nureyev would first astound audiences in the West.
Choreographed by Marius Petipa in 1877, La Bayadère is set in India in the fifth century. The full-length ballet tells the story of Solor, a young Indian warrior who betrays his true love, a sacred temple dancernamed Nikiya, by marrying the Rajah’s daughter, Gamzatti. Jealous of Nikiya’s bond with Solor, Gamzatti murders her rival.
La Bayadère’s third act – The Kingdom of the Shades – is an opium-induced dream in which Solor is reunited with Nikiya. The shades are ghosts, and their white costumes and ethereal movements invoke the wispy smoke trail from Solor’s opium pipe. Nureyev’s performance, charged with a dazzling energy and pathos, caused an absolute sensation among the audience at the Palais Garnier. A few short weeks later, he defected to the West.
Nureyev’s 1963 production of The Kingdom of the Shades for The Royal Ballet in London, with designs by Philip Prowse, was a remarkable choreographic debut and the first time any part of La Bayadèrehad been performed in England. Although a friend in Russia had managed to smuggle notes on the Kirov production to him in England, Nureyev worked largely from memory: from the beginning, he possessed a remarkable ability to memorise steps. He also quizzed the legendary ballerina Tamara Karsavina (by then, residing in England) about her memories of performing in a 1918 production of La Bayadère in Russia.
Nureyev’s production increased the athleticism and bravura of the male role by adding more complicated steps, including a fiendishly challenging circle of double assemblé turns for Solor. He also introduced an innovation in La Bayadère that he would use in later years: in the pas de deux, Solor dances alongside Nikiya, mirroring her steps rather than supporting the ballerina in the traditional style. According to Julie Kavanagh, this insistence on male equality influenced the work of other choreographers, including Frederick Ashton’s reconciliation pas de deux in The Dream (premiered a year later). Nureyev believed a pas de deux should be a dialogue, asking ‘How can there be a conversation if one partner is dumb?’.
With Nureyev as Solor, Margot Fonteyn as Nikiya and a corps de ballet revitalised by Nureyev’s careful coaching, the production received rave reviews and captivated audiences. The Kingdom of the Shadesimmediately entered The Royal Ballet’s repertoire and was performed frequently over the next 20 years. It was staged at the Palais Garnier in Paris for the first time in 1974. It is still performed today.