Houston Ballet Premieres Stanton Welch’s New Adaptation of Raymonda

Houston Ballet artistic director Stanton Welch tackles one of the most beloved stories with the world premiere this month of Welch’s adaptation of Raymonda. The full-length ballet is set to music by Alexander Glazunov.

Inspired by Marius Petipa’s original 1898 choreography and other variations, Raymonda follows the titular character as she and her sisters navigate the complicated world of young love in the midst of a treacherous royal court.

Realizing that previous productions have been marked by technical difficulties, Welch adapted the story for modern audiences, pairing choreographic brilliance with the characters’ emotional depth.

“What I tried to make in this version,” explains Welch, “was a story about sisters and the bond between them. Kind of like a Jane Austen novel or Little Women, Raymonda is a story about several sisters who are going through similar things, but with different temperaments. That really appealed to me. We have a really strong set of soloist women who are all very close to each other in real life, but also very individual.”

Mounting a full-length ballet usually takes three years or more of preparation. For Raymonda, Welch has been actively working on it for only two years.

Welch’s parents, Marilyn Jones and Garth Welch, two of Australia’s most celebrated dancers of the 1960s and ’70s, performed it. Welch himself also danced excerpts as a young dancer. Variations are performed frequently in ballet competitions, which Welch attends regularly.

“Luckily, with Raymonda, it’s been a part of my music history since I was born,” he adds, noting that he’s been working on his adaptation with Houston Ballet dancers for more than a year. “It felt like I was returning to something that I knew very well. It’s really beautiful music.”

“In storytelling work,” he explains, “I start really with just the story. We begin with just acting it out and not doing any steps. I say, ‘You walk over here and you have a conversation with the queen. This is how you feel.’ They begin to move into mime and act it out. That also inspires steps for me. I’ll say, ‘That looks great when the queen is sad and has her head down.’ That becomes a movement for me.

“I’m a very prepared choreographer. I come in with a script and often some level of steps. You want the dancer to finish that step and naturally cascade into another step. That allows me to say, ‘Well, from that step we can do this.’ It becomes like a tennis match. I give them a puzzle, and they tumble out of it, and that becomes the next movement.” 

“Unique to Raymonda,” Welch continues, “was bringing in Petipa’s solos, which are traditional. Boy, they’re hard! They’re very hard. I think the dancers relish them and look fantastic in them. But they are things that you really have to work on. These women have been working on these solos for nearly a year now.

“I don’t think people realize how much time goes into this. All those hops on pointe, that’s not something you can assign to someone on Monday and then they do it on Wednesday. That’s something you have to prepare for and strengthen for. All of those solos have been in the works since before we finished last season.”

Costume and set designer Roberta Guidi di Bagno joins Welch for Raymonda.

“I had always imagined Roberta as the designer for Raymonda,” says Welch. “Roberta is an icon, really. She’s wonderful to work with.”

Their creative process begins with Welch writing a script and descriptions of the characters, including how much dancing they do scene by scene.’

“Everything after that is her,” Welch explains.

Welch gave Guidi di Bagno free rein with the costumes for Raymonda. “She’s so glamorous, and she loves sparkly clothes. I’m always having to say ‘No sparkles, no sparkles. It’s ballet, no sparkles!’ Here, I could say, ‘Roberta, do everything that you want. Go crazy!’”

For Raymonda’s scenery, Guidi di Bagno created an entire palace.

“The nice thing about this ballet for her is that it all happens in a palace. We go from one ballroom to another. It’s all opulent, it’s all breathtaking,” says Welch.

“And what’s so fascinating about her as a designer is that most of what you see is actually a place. It’s not just her imagination. She finds real places. She takes a photo of a window or the front of a building she likes and pairs it with a door from her family home. Every place on stage is based on real palaces and cathedrals. That’s amazing.”

Harper Watters is among those performing in Raymonda. A longtime OutSmart reader favorite who was recently elevated to the position of Houston Ballet principal dancer, Watters is also an Instagram star with more than 263,000 followers.   

A product of the Houston Ballet Academy, Watters has spent his entire professional career with the company. “I think it really shows the strength of our company and school that we have several principals who have come to the company from the school,” says Welch. “Not many companies have that, especially in America. I’m very proud of that.

“Every time I see Harper, there’s an improvement. He has continuously come in and reformed, remade himself. I think that says a lot. I’ve choreographed on him a lot, and I enjoy it very much.”

WHAT: Stanton Welch’s Raymonda
WHEN: May 29–June 8, 2025
WHERE: Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas Ave.
INFO: houstonballet.org