Alexander Glazunov’s dreamy score matches the fantastical unreality, but it is Luisa Spinatelli’s spellbinding costume and design that truly brings this surreal vision to life. The drop curtain, a faux medieval tapestry, uses clever lighting to render it transparent, becoming our window to the stage throughout the performance. The authentic medieval broken-chin style is both gorgeous and strangely akimbo. With the ceremonial unfurling of the infamous Cross of St. George flag to end the prologue, there’s another subtle nod to fractured realities. It billows across the stage, a pristine whiteness that suddenly bleeds into a swath of scarlet dipped in blood, the view of both conqueror and conquered at once. These twists occur throughout, abstract shifts of perspective in the tilted architecture and skewed backdrops. 

For a while, the obvious allegory freed me to thrill unreservedly to Pepita’s infamous choreography, most deserving of every accolade. More on that later. First, Maki cleverly sets up the allegory as a contrast between idealized love and reckless passion. Raymonda (Saho Shibayama) is caught between these extremes. In the reworked prologue, Seductive Saracen prince Abderakhman (Takuro Watanabe, outstanding in his debut for the role) watches broodingly as a delicate Shibayama bids a chaste adieu to her betrothed,  the French knight, Jean de Brienne (Shun Izawa). The two even glimmer in idealized unison, Shibayama clothed in gold, Izawa in silver. His parting gift—a white scarf—is a proper, courtly remembrance.  

Watanabe as Abderakhman, in contrast, is an exotic, flamboyant outsider, bursting with his passion for Raymonda every time he appears. Watanabe plays the role with not even a hint of villainy. His stereotype is romantic fire, a perfect foil to Izawa, who personifies the lofty Christian hero to cool perfection, symbolically worshipped in a lifesized portrait for most of Act One and Two.