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Gamzatti (Ekaterina Shipulina) emerged with some very well-drilled but rather unfortunately choreographed and costumed children in tow. When the front cloth had risen to reveal the very painted-on Rajah’s palace, Gamzatti indulged herself in a solo, followed by the unfortunate children (dancing very well). The high-kicking d’jampe dancers (led by Svetlana Gnedova and Joo Yoon Bae) d’jamped very glamorously. Nikiya entered with a hunky slave in tow (Artem Shpilevsky) and danced the beautiful pas de deux, marred only by some rough partnering. When she and the d’jampers had left, Solor entered and got engaged to Gamzatti with indecent haste. The High Brahmin entered pouting, and the fiancées left together, Gamzatti (presumably having dumped Solor somewhere) returning immediately to eavesdrop. The High Brahmin told all, and once the Rajah (Alexei Loparevich) had sworn vengeance (I liked how he stepped over Nikiya’s veil) Gamzatti, left alone, gave us a sneak ‘fight scene’ preview. Nikiya entered and the fight scene proper began. This sequence suffered from Too Much Ballet, with both ladies striking arabesques and jeté-ing all over the place, resulting in a rather angry dance-off. Nikiya fled, and Gamzatti (you guessed it) swore vengeance.

Act II began with a prancing procession of assorted warriors, temple dancers and unfortunate children. Once the gorgeous golden front cloth went up, we were joined by Gamzatti and Solor in sedan chairs and then the dancing began. Aside from one decidedly unmotivated dancer the corps dances were very well done, with only a little sign of being cramped. A decidedly under-dressed Manu dancer (Anna Rebetskaya) swung her hips, joined by two altogether more demure girls, who were very sweet. The drum dance (led by Anastasia Yatsenko, Vitaly Biktimirov and Andre Bolotin) was terrific. The pale-Golden Idol (Viacheslav Lopatin) danced cleanly if not especially excitingly, hampered somewhat by the increasingly overused children. The Grand Pas was very good, though I did not like the coda with all the divertissements joining in. Nikiya rushed in to put a damper on everything, but then was killed by a snake, mourned by Solor, the sympathetically played High Brahmin and, unusually, the Rajah.

Solor’s mourning spilled over into Act III, but Magdaveya pointed him towards opium. So, while Solor was taking drugs in the corner, the fakirs danced their beautiful sacred dance, which was immediately upstaged by…

The entrance of the 32 shades was done extremely well, with scarcely a wobble. Once the lights went up further, the setting was revealed, which was much more obviously mountainous than other productions. Nikiya and Solor were reunited. The three shades (Anna Leonova, Ekaterina Krysanova and Anna Nikulina) danced near-perfectly, together and individually. At the end of the scene, instead of the Shades forming a circle around Nikiya and Solor, Solor broke away and the familiar front cloth came down to familiar music from the start of Act III. After an uncomfortably long period of thunderclaps and Solor alternately running and dancing in the small strip of stage available, the front cloth went up and Solor rushed to a temple altar upstage centre, between some painted columns. At this point rocks began to fall (and rise?!) between the columns and with this the temple collapsed. Presumably Solor was zonked on the head in the process, and he fell down on the altar steps. The violin music for Nikiya’s Act III entrance played and Nikiya appeared above Solor, arabesque-ing back up the Shades ramp and bourrée-ing out of sight. Solor rolled down the steps and proceeded to die as the curtain fell to the (surely hideously difficult) sustained stratospheric pianissimo violin note. Quite a downer of an ending – I prefer the Kingdom of Shades to end the ballet.

Anna Antonicheva impressed from her first solo, showing steady pointe-work and beautiful Bolshoi arms used to lyrical effect. Throughout the ballet her dancing was fluid yet strong: beautiful feet, high yet pleasing extensions and strong arms. Interestingly, she turned to the left in her Act III solo. However, she did not make a very sympathetic Nikiya: her important rejection of the Brahmin appeared overly prissy, and her capering solo with flower basket had an unpleasantly aggressive feel. She was at her best in the Kingdom of Shades, where the beauty of her dancing could be admired fully.

Ekaterina Shipulina was a glamorous Gamzatti, stepping onstage in her first appearance with a series of long, long balances in attitude. She had a very slightly untidy quality to her dancing, but she created great excitement with her powerful jumps and beautiful lines. Dramatically she was very strong, very much a spoiled princess with fistfuls of rage to spare.

With two strong leading ladies, Vladimir Neporozhny was a somewhat subdued Solor: perhaps it was due to his warrior pals having snaffled the last of the masculine warrior garb (and warrior attitude if Neporozhny’s teeny-tiny stage claps were anything to go by). Or perhaps it was due to his horrendous portrait in the Rajah’s palace. His dancing was very impressive, with some amazing pirouettes. He partnered both his ballerinas smoothly, especially Antonicheva. However, he could not make much of this most passive of ‘heroic’ roles (except for Aminta).

Finally, the Bolshoi orchestra was completely wonderful. If the beginning was a little scrappy, they pulled it together and produced some of the most interesting and exciting playing that I have heard of this score; the brass section was particularly scrumptious. The conductor was Pavel Sorokin.