La Vestale
Mikhail Mordkin as Lucio ca. 1900
Choreographer	Marius Petipa
Music	Mikhail Ivanov
Libretto	Sergei Khudekov
Premiere	17 February [O.S. 29 January] 1888 (Imperial Mariinsky Theatre) St. Petersburg, Russia
Genre	Grand ballet

La Vestale (en.The Vestal) is agrandballet in three acts and four scenes with choreography byMarius Petipa and music byMikhail Ivanov. The ballet was first presented by theImperial Ballet on 17 February [O.S. 29 January] 1888 at theImperial Mariinsky Theatre inSt. Petersburg, Russia.

After the extraordinary success of the ItalianPrima BallerinaVirginia Zucchi's performances inLa Esmeralda in St Petersburg, Petipa went on to produce some of the finest ballets in his repertoire for Italian ballerinas. One of these great ballets wasThe Vestal, which was created for the benefit performance ofElena Cornalba. The ballet was a phenomenal success and among ballet historians, it is considered the predecessor ofThe Sleeping Beauty. Many critics who saw the première commented unanimously that the work was the epitome of theBallet à Grand Spectacle. Set inAncient Rome, the ballet was built on fantastical themes, complete with gods and goddesses, Emperors, and the like. The sets, costumes, and props were considered the best yet seen on the Imperial stage. Mikhail Ivanov's music proved to be the first successful score for the ballet that was provided by a symphonic composer.^[1]

Although the ballet was not notated and is not performed today, at least two variations from the ballet's score are used in different pieces. One variation is that entitledL'Armour, which was composed and added to the score byRiccardo Drigo as a variation forCupid, the God of Love. This variation was performed with great acclaim by the ballerina, Maria Anderson and appears in the Bolshoi Ballet's staging of thePaquita Grand Pas Classique, staged by Russian choreographer,Yuri Burlaka. Burlaka also utilised another supplemental variation by Drigo for hisAwakening of Flora Pas de quatre; this variation is entitledL'Echo and was composed and added to the score by Drigo for Elena Cornalba.

• Yuri Burlaka'sAwakening of Flora Pas de quatre featuring the supplemental variationL'Echo by Riccardo Drigo
• The Bolshoi Ballet's performance of thePaquita Grand Pas Classique featuring the supplemental variationL'Armour by Drigo

• Ballets by Marius Petipa
• 1880s ballets
• 1888 works
• Ballets by Mikhail Ivanov
• Ballets premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre