In this revival, Paul Marque’s Solor becomes even less the brutal centre of the drama, shifting the focus towards the opposition between Nikiya and Gamzatti. Marque is technically astonishing, with crystalline turns, outstanding elevation and partnering of unfailing precision and dedication. Dramatically, he brings a beautiful weakness to the role and indeed constructs a Solor of his own: gentle, hesitant, almost caught between two fires. Sae Eun Park is a formidable ballerina, and her Nikiya is at once delicate and strong-willed, apparently fragile yet charged with inner force. Her port de bras strips away everything merely decorative, ornamental or conventionally “orientalist,” and becomes invested with intention and dramatic meaning. Her established stage rapport with Marque (they also danced “La Bayadère” together in 2022) gives their scenes an exceptional sense of harmony.

Act I brings this partnership to the fore. It is also the act in which Nureyev’s hand is most clearly felt, especially in Solor’s solos and in the ensemble scenes, such as the dance for Solor’s friends, almost folk in its accents and heelwork. Great energy came from the Hindu warriors, among whom Shale Wagman, the Golden Idol in the alternate cast, was impossible not to notice, and above all from Chun Wing Lam’s stunning fakir. With his jumps and feral presence, Lam brought a vivid sense of athleticism and, dramatically, an intense rapport with Solor. It was moving, too, to see him in his last role before leaving his dancing career behind. The Djampo dance, or scarf dance, was taken at too quick a tempo, so that it lost the slightly mysterious suspension it has in older recordings. Antonio Conforti, as the Slave in Nikiya’s pas de deux, turned a brief divertissement into one of the evening’s most refined moments, dancing with immaculate elegance.

Act II unfolds as a succession of divertissements: the fan dance, the parrot dance, the pas de quatre, the Golden Idol. As the Idol, Antoine Kirschner was splendid, statuesque and hieratic. The Danse Manou, in which a woman hides the contents of a jug from two little girls, the jug later turning out to be empty, was performed by an inspired and witty Marine Ganio, whose playful, almost maternal spirit towards the two young Opéra ballet students added a touch of metatheatre. Célia Drouy and Keita Bellali, in the Indian Dance, delivered one of the finest performances of the evening. Splendidly executed, refined and explosive at the same time, it was rightly greeted by the audience with a warm ovation.

Inès McIntosh’s Gamzatti entered like a true queen, entirely within the role, establishing from her first appearance an unquestionable dramatic authority. She reigned over the stage and towered over the other characters, while her jealousy over Solor remained strikingly human, almost everyday in its immediacy. Though the confrontation with Park’s Nikiya was perhaps a little too polite, the glorious pas d’action, a display of virtuosity originally placed in the now-lost fourth act, gave her and Marque the chance to shine in their respective variations and in their brilliant partnering. Park’s Nikiya is so ethereal that even her death appeared sweetly inevitable. Her best qualities, purity of line and outstanding technique, became essential in the most glorious, timeless and classically conceived act of the production: the Kingdom of the Shades.