La Esmeralda is a ballet in three acts and five scenes, inspired by the novel Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, originally choreographed by Jules Perrot to music by Cesare Pugni, with sets by William Grieve and costumes by Mme. Copère.

Esmeralda

During harvest festival at a collective farm, a visiting dance troupe reunites a ballerina with her childhood friend Zina. In order to teach her unfaithful husband a lesson, Zina, the ballerina, and the ballerina’s husband decide to swap roles for the evening… Alexei Ratmansky invokes the genius of Shostakovich’s score at the Bolshoi, creating a laugh-out-loud masterpiece with its bits of slapstick comedy, hilarious deceptions, false identities including Principal Dancer Ruslan Skvortsov dressed as a Sylph and its many colorful characters! The Bolshoi bursts with vivid life and bright spirits in Ratmansky’s brilliantly choreographed smash. Captured live on Apr 29, 2012.