The Bolshoi Ballet

Grigorovich's Spartacus was created at the Bolshoi in 1968 and has since remained the Russian company's signature ballet. This most spectacular production is an epic tour de force, giving full expression to the strength for which the Bolshoi's male dancers are renowned.

A triumphal procession marks the return to Rome of the consul Crassus. Among his chained prisoners are Spartacus and his wife Phrygia, both of whom are condemned to slavery.

Spartacus is taken off to become a gladiator and subsequently forced to kill a man in combat. Disgusted, he foments a rebellion and the gladiators escape to freedom. But Spartacus cannot bear the thought of Phrygia as one of Crassus's concubines and leads an attack to rescue the slave women.

Khachaturian's most famous ballet was first performed by the Bolshoi back in 1958. But it was Yuri Grigorovich's choreography for the 1968 production that sealed the ballet's reputation as one of the greatest works in the Bolshoi's repertoire.