Die Bajadere (polka)

For the operetta by Emmerich Kalman (1921), see Die Bajadere

"Die Bajadere" is one of Johann Strauss II's polkas, Op. 351. A bajadere was a temple dancer in the European vision of legendary India being popularized by the first translations of Indian classic literature into European languages. The European view melded all the world east of Suez into an exotic locale. The themes of "Die Bajadere" were drawn from the score of Strauss's first operetta, Indigo und die Vierzig Räuber ("Indigo and the Forty Thieves"), loosely based on the Arabian Nights, which premiered in 1871 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.

Marius Petipa's ballet La Bayadère premiered at the Maryinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg, February 4, 1877[1].