The Pharaoh's Daughter
Several lesser-known ballets of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century also show their Orientalism. For instance, in Petipa's "The Pharaoh's Daughter" (1862), an Englishman imagines himself, in an opium-induced dream, as an Egyptian boy who wins the love of the Pharaoh's daughter, Aspicia. Aspicia's costume consisted of 'Egyptian' décor on a tutu. Another ballet, Hippolyte Monplaisir's "Brahma", which premiered in 1868 in La Scala, Italy, is a story that involves romantic relations between a slave girl and Brahma, the Hindu god, when he visits earth. In addition, in 1909, Serge Diagilev included "Cléopâtre" in the Ballets Russes' repertory. With its theme of sex, this revision of Fokine's "Une Nuit d'Egypte" combined the "exoticism and grandeur" that audiences of this time craved.