Diana and Actaeon the role of the Satyr, with Lydia Ivanova as Diana and Nicholas Efimov as Endymion. In 1886, Petipa incorporated a new "pas de deux," set to music by Riccardo Drigo, into his production of Pugni's "La Esmeralda" for the Maryinsky Ballet, as the Imperial Russian Ballet had come to be called. This "pas de deux" was based on the Greek myth of Artemis (predecessor to the Roman Diana), in her aspect of virgin goddess of the hunt, and Actaeon, a Theban hero. According to Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Actaeon, out on a hunt, stumbled upon Artemis while she was bathing at a
Diana and Actaeon the transformation still in progress; like many depictions the head is shown transformed, but most of the body remains human. Less often Actaeon is fully transformed when caught by his dogs. The story was popular on Italian Renaissance maiolica. The origins of the "Diana and Actaeon Pas de Deux," a "divertissement" created for a 1935 version of "La Esmeralda," lie in two earlier ballet productions. The first of these was "Tsar Kandavl" (aka "Le Roi Candaule"), premiered in 1868 by the Imperial Russian Ballet in Saint Petersburg. Based on a story told by Herodotus in his "Histories," this four-act ballet,