There's nothing quite like a behemoth ballet to lift me out of my February funk. I call it the other Vitamin B. I am expecting the glittery wattage of Houston Ballet's shiny new La Bayadere, which opens tonight, to make up for all the days the sun forgot to show up this winter. There's even a sun god in the show, and he doesn't wear much more than a gold Speedo. I am feeling the warmth already.

To get fully in the mood, I gave myself a little personal tail gate party. Why should pre-show hysteria be reserved for football fans?

Now, when you are talking about an old warhorse 132-year old ballet like La Bayadere, a lot of dust rises. Dragging this baby out of the closet comes with some historical juiciness concerning 19th century ideas around exoticism, spiritualism and a curiosity about unknown lands. La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer) takes place in a make believe India. No one troubled themselves with authenticity back then.

Remember, this was before the Travel Channel, when people needed to get their faraway vibes from ballets and operas. The year was 1877. Aida had just premiered six years earlier and there was a kind of oneupmanship going on with how faraway you could really get. It's about now that I wish I had paid attention in dance history class. My colleague Joseph Carmen did, and you can read his Playbill essay. Knock yourself out, I'm off to gawk at the costumes.

At HB headquarters, trunk after trunk of sparkles, brocaded bra tops, gorgeously patterned silk saris, and crimson harem pants cram the hallways. I pick up one of the bejeweled sultan headpieces. "It's not as heavy as it looks," says Laura Lynch, wardrobe manager.

Numbers start flying: 121 costumes, 568 items, 99 pairs of earrings. I thought about staying a few extra hours to count pearls on tutus, but I wanted to leave something for the audience to do. Don't worry about any of those jewels coming loose, because a mesh back has been painstakingly sewn on each pair of beaded earrings to prevent such a catastrophe.

The down-to-the-wire energy in the room is palpable. Everyone is moving quickly, with the exception of one seamstress, who is painstakingly sewing a ruby on an already-jeweled-encrusted tunic.

"Job security," she says, looking up from her work.

Peter Farmer designed the sets and costumes. As usual, his painterly style is all over the place. Ballet is an ethereal art form, and Farmer uses layers of fabric scrims, conjuring a dreamy India in our imagination. He's also a master of creating a sense of place while leaving plenty of space for all that fabulous dancing.

As for the story, I've read it five times and I still don't get it. There's opium in this ballet, and I wonder if the guy who wrote the synopsis was on it. It's the mother of convoluted plots and makes Lost look easy to follow.

It's basically a boy (Solor) meets girl (Nikiya), then another girl (Gamzatti). Boy marries wrong girl. Girl meets venomous snake. Are you following this?

The moral of the story: Stay away from reptiles you don't know, and it's not nice to offend the gods. I don't want to give away anything, but things don't fare well for the temple. Principal Connor Walsh (Solor) thinks the plot lines just need a little getting used to.

"When Stanton read us the story, I thought he was at the end and we were about ten minutes into the ballet," Walsh says. "I get to kill a tiger though; so I've added hunting to my skill set."

Stanton Welch likes to tweak classic plot lines, and he's done that here, giving the classic ballet a more updated feel. "I picked up the pace a bit," Welch adds.

Sara Webb, who dances Nikiya, has no worries about the plot. "It's basically a soap opera," she says.

There's even a girl fight between Gamzatti and Nikiya. "I am looking forward to that," Webb says."Stanton buffed up my character so I really hold my own. In the end I do get the guy, OK so I have to die to get the guy."

There are steps in this ballet, lots of them, some super famous. This ballet comes with a "greatest hits" section called "Kingdom of the Shades," which Houston Ballet performed as a stand alone ballet-blanc in 1994 and 1998. After Solor puffs on a hookah, he hallucinates 24 female dancers (Shades), clad in pearl-encrusted white tutus descending a ramp while executing 38 synchronized arabesques. One wrong move and the whole thing falls apart.

Reptiles also join the ranks of Houston Ballet for the show. The troupe's newest slithery members include a corn snake, a Puelban milk snake, a gray branded king snake and a California king snake. One of them is really quite musical.

Expect a touch of Bollywood, which is a sure-fire spirit lifter. "Mostly in the over the top acting style and the color scheme," says Welch. "And in the bursting into dance."

He hopes the audience will float right out of the Wortham on a ballet high. "You will feel uplifted and spiritual," he says, with his usual mischievous grin. "The good people win, even though they are all dead."