More Thoughts on Don Quixote

Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev of the Bolshoi   Source Wikipedia

The performance of Don Quixote which was streamed to my local Odeon last Wednesday has prompted me to think about the ballet generally and to ponder why it is not staged more often (see ¡Por favor! Don Quixote streamed to Huddersfield 17 Oct 2013). Lots of companies dance Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker and Giselle but not so may include Don Quixote in their repertoire.  It is one of those ballets like La Sylphide that everyone has heard of but not actually seen. I have only seen one version of Don Quixote on stage and that was London Festival's at the Coliseum in the late 1960s or early 1970s.  Dame Ninette de Valois tried to stage the ballet for what is now the Royal Ballet in 1950 but it does not seem to have been very popular. 

Although the ballet takes its title from Miguel Cervantes's well known novel it is very much a Russian work (or perhaps, more accurately Eastern European as the score was contributed by an expatriate Austrian).  It is one of Petipa's earliest works having been staged for the first time in 1869 and that may be one of the reasons.  It provides scope for some brilliant dancing by the principals and soloists but it does take liberties with the novel. The ballet really ought to be renamed Basilio and Kitri for that is what the story is all about - a Hispanic Fille mal gardée with a touch of Carmen.  

Save for the coda in the last Act, the music is not very well known.  I had (and possibly still have) a vinyl LP somewhere which I bought from the old Ballet Bookshop in Cecil Court. Does anyone else remember that wonderful source of ballet memorabilia? I played that disc often when I was a student - particularly when I had an essay to write.  The composer Ludwig Minkus wrote a lot of music for the ballet. After many years service at St Petersburg, Minkus returned to his native Vienna where he subsisted on a pension from Russia.  That remittance ended with the First World War as the Austro-Hungarian empire and Russia were on opposite sides.  He died in 1917, the year of the Bolshevik revolution, in very straightened circumstances. Having to cope with such circumstances poor old Minkus had more than a little in common with with Cervantes's creation. 

From what I could see from the images that were streamed from Covent Garden, Carlos Acosta has reworked substantially the Petipa ballet.  By dancing Basilio himself and casting another Marianela Nunez, another Latin American dancer, as Kitri he has reclaimed the work for the Spanish speaking world. As I said in my review, the screening left me dissatisfied. All the remaining performances of the ballet this season are fully booked.  I hope Acosta's version stays in the Royal Ballet's repertoire rather longer than de Valois's because I should really ought to see it. 

The Sleeping Beauty - a Review and why the Ballet is important

Even though The Sleeping Beauty was premièred at St. Petersburg, its score was composed by Tchaikovsky and it was choreographed was by Petipa to Perrault's story,  it is also a very English ballet. It was the work that reopened the Royal Opera House on the 20 Feb 1946 after the House had been used as a dance hall and furniture store (see "The History of the Royal Opera House" on the Royal Opera House website).

To understand the importance of The Sleeping Beauty in our social as well as our cultural history you have to know that it entered the repertoire of the Vic-Wells Ballet just before the Second World War.  By all accounts the 1946 revival was a glittering occasion.  It must have been one of the rare great nights of ballet to which I referred "In Leeds of all Places - Pavlova, Ashton and Magic" 18 Sept 2013. It was produced by Ninette de Valois, designed by Oliver Messel, Princess Aurora was danced by Margot Fonteyn and Petipa's choreography was supplemented by Frederick Ashton. There must have been a whiff of mothballs in the theatre as the audience had dusted off their pre-war dinner jackets, retrieved their best frocks and put on their jewellery for the first time after the Second World War.  The analogy of that evening after years of war and rationing with Aurora's wedding after a century of hibernation must have been obvious and compelling.

The Birmingham Royal Ballet is the direct descendant of de Valois's company and Peter Wright's production that I saw at The Lowry last night is derived directly from that 1946 revival.  "This is the gold standard" I thought to myself yesterday as gold confetti fluttered to the stage at the end of the last scene.  It is as much part of our heritage as the Book of Common Prayer. Like Cranmer's masterpiece one meddles with The Sleeping Beauty at one's peril.  The score for the divertissements in the last act, for example, was composed for Petipa's choreography to represent cats and bluebirds.  Any other choreography jars which was why I was irritated by Matthew Bourne's production despite its brilliant dancing (see "Why can't I be nicer to Matthew Bourne" of 6 April 2013). I have yet to see David Nixon's version of The Sleeping Beauty which I gather from Mark Skipper and Andy Waddington is set in the distant future and that is perhaps just as well for I do so love the Northern Ballet (see "The Things I do for my Art: Northern Ballet's Breakfast Meeting" 23 Sept 2013),
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Returning to last night in Salford, it was a wonderful performance. Maybe not a magical one as Midsummer Night's Dream was two weeks ago but that was not the company's fault because such magic is spontaneous and is experienced only once or twice in a lifetime. A more superstitious age would have said it was in the gift of Terpsichore and that is not a bad way of looking at it.

The role of Aurora appears to me (as one who can barely pirouette) to require almost superhuman virtuosity which Elisha Willis demonstrated she possessed in abundance. Virtuosity is required also of Florimund which was danced admirably by Jamie Bond. Yet more virtuosity is required of the Bluebirds as you can see from the following short YouTube clip from the current production,

Yesterday's pas de deux was danced by Max Maslen (a Bradford lad) and Maureya Lebowitz from Malibu. Bluebird is danced by dancers who are on the way up so we can look forward to seeing a lot more from those two. Kit Holder and Yvette Knight made a charming Puss in Boots. I love the slap that she gives him as he touches her leg. Pure Ashton.  The juxtaposition of Samara Downs as Carabosse with Delia Matthews as the Lilac or good Fairy was inspired.  Everyone danced well and should be commended. Philip Prowse's designs dazzled the audience and Mark Jonathan's lighting thrilled us.  All in all it was a wonderful evening.

I am now about to set off for London to see "Star Studded Gala in aid of the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School". In my last ballet class in Huddersfield my dear teacher Fiona warned a promising young student (albeit in a different context) that ballet can break you and I am aware that balletomania can easily become an obsession.   But this is very much a one-off. I live in Yorkshire. My mother was from Yorkshire. I value ballet.  I feel bound to support this Yorkshire institution.