See the Bolshoi Ballet dance ‘Spartacus’ on Sunday

Above: Fathom Events will debut the 2021-2022 Bolshoi Ballet season on Sunday with a production of "Spartacus." (Photo/Fathom Events)

The story of Spartacus, the gladiator/slave turned rebel against the Roman authorities, has been told several times, most famously through Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 film “Spartacus” starring Kirk Douglas.

And then there was the Starz network series which ran from 2010 to 2103.

Far less known, at least among the general public, is “Spartacus” the ballet. The work of the Russian Aram Khachaturian, it was first performed in 1956 by the Kirov Theatre of Opera and Ballet.

It was the Bolshoi Ballet troupe, however, that staged the definitive version of “Spartacus.” And it is that same troupe that will stage the version, live, that will screen in a special Fathom Events presentation at 12:55 p.m. on Sunday at the Regal movie theater at Northtown Mall.

The program is the first of five live ballet programs that Fathom Events will put on this season. Others are “The Nutcracker” (Dec. 19-20), “Jewels” (Jan. 23), “Swan Lake” (March 6) and “The Pharaoh’s Daughter” (May 1).

Reviewing a 2019 Bolshoi production of “Spartacus,” Guardian critic Roslyn Sukas wrote, “the ballet, for all its focus on soloist virtuosity, is also an ensemble tour de force, a marvelous display of might from the Bolshoi corps. ‘Spartacus’ is still a ballet for the masses, on stage and off.”

Imagine that. A toe dance for the masses.