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KIROV BALLET & ORCHESTRA NEW YORK CITY CENTER SEASON
(Apr 1-Apr 20, 2008)
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SONATA | BALLET IMPERIAL | LA
BAYADERE | CHOPINIANA | DIANA
AND ACTEON | DON QUIXOTE | ETUDES | JEWELS | IN
THE MIDDLE, SOMEWHAT ELEVATED | LE SPECTRE
DE LA ROSE | PAQUITA | PIANO
CONCERTO NO. 2 | RAYMONDA | SCHEHEREZADE | SERENADE | STEPTEXT | LE CORSAIRE-LE JARDIN ANIMEE
DON QUIXOTE Grand ballet in four acts (seven scenes) with prologue Music by LUDWIG MINKUS Pushkin’s Salieri knew a good remedy for melancholy-to uncork
a bottle of champagne or to reread Le Marrige4 of Figaro.
The ballet Don Quixote, in which the Knight of Rueful Countenance
himself is given the honorable ye4t minor role of the “wedding
general”, seems to be composed in exact accord with this recipe.
The dancing, like champagne, sparkles and bubbles, exploding in the
finale with the frothy gush of the bravura Pas de deux. The lead character
of Basilio the barber may well rival his counterpart from Seville
for wit. Trails and tribulations, things not scarce in the long story
of the ballet, do not seem to have affected mood of the inhabitants
of Barcelona. Even today, the jubilant festival of dance, which acts
as a backdrop for the adventures of the resourceful lovers Kitri and
Basilio, cannot leave audience unaffected. And how could it have been
otherwise if Petipa (then over fifty) was returned, so to speak, to
the Spain of his youth by the force of his imagination when creating
this ballet in gloomy St.Petersburg? An untiring merry-maker, an irresistible macho
wielding castanets as well Andalusian and driving his young admirers
mad, a brave duelist and general favourite…That is how Petipa
recalled himself in his memoirs. Why not as a Basilio?
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