Note: This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players, and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Svetlana Zakharova, Sergei Filin, Gennady Yanin, Maria Aleksandrova (dancers)

Soloists of the Bolshoï Ballet & Orchestra of the Bolshoï Theatre, Alexander Sotnikov

Choreographer: Pierre Lacotte after Marius Petipa.

For the first time in Blu-ray, Bel Air Classiques present Petipa’s extravaganza, The Pharaoh’s Daughter, in the stunning production by Pierre Lacotte. This Russian ballet enjoys a special place in history. Premiered in 1862, this grand spectacle, which lasted four hours and featured a cast of 400, was Petipa’s first truly successful ballet and secured his future in St Petersburg, where he went on to become the most influential choreographer of the 19th century. Until recently, The Pharaoh’s Daughter was also one of Petipa’s lost ballets; it hadn’t been performed since 1928. In 2000 the French choreographer Pierre Lacotte premièred a restored version at the Bolshoi Theatre, after much research into the original, resulting in a shorter although still sumptuous extravaganza. Ballet scenarios don't come much sillier than The Pharaoh's Daughter, which turns on the story of British Egyptologist Lord Wilson who, after a reckless hit of opium, dreams himself back to the time of the pharaohs. Wilson falls in love with Aspicia, the ballet's titular heroine, and when she throws herself into the Nile to avoid being married off to the King of Nubia, Wilson is left to face death by snakebite. Tragedy is averted by the Nile's underwater king who restores Aspicia to Wilson's arms.

"Whatever doubts are raised by Lacotte's choreography, his designs are deliriously extravagant - and with these, at least, we're guaranteed a taste of the blockbusting opulence that enthralled St Petersburg and Moscow 140 years ago." -- Judith Mackrell, The Guardian