The Bolshoi Ballet has taken five years to “reconstruct” an early Petipa ballet. “The Bolshoi Ballet’s project to recover this fascinating curiosity started five years ago, paralleling the attempted reconstruction by Russia’s other great company, the Kirov, of two Petipa masterpieces, The Sleeping Beauty and La Bayadere, as he produced them. But is reconstruction of such old ballets possible? And what are its consequences for the art? Revolutionary, potentially.”