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The Bolshoi Ballet's Don Quixote

By Marc Haegeman

 

The Bolshoi Ballet finished its comeback-season at the London Coliseum last July with the first showing in the West of its new production of Don Quixote. A better finale for this in many ways remarkable engagement was hardly thinkable. Premiered in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theater on June 25, 1999, the ballet is a dizzying cocktail of sunny colors, careless joy and first-rate dance. It was the ideal vehicle to highlight the qualities of the Muscovite ensemble at every level.

This new Don Quixote is an initiative of the company's recently appointed artistic director Alexei Fadeyechev. It is a serious and praiseworthy effort to resurrect the spirit and flavor of the authoritative staging by Alexander Gorsky, who revived at the beginning of this century, successively for the Bolshoi (1900) and the Maryinsky Theaters (1902), the original 1869 Don Quixote (music by Minkus) after Petipa's choreography. However, for those of us who expected that this would have been another major example of the "back-to-the-roots" trend in classical ballet, as perfectly illustrated by the acclaimed Maryinsky's revival of Petipa's Sleeping Beauty earlier this year, it must be said that the Bolshoi's new Don Quixote is not exactly the real thing.

True, Alexei Fadeyechev happily cleared away the cobwebs and dust obscuring the Bolshoi's long-time performing tradition of this ballet. The new costumes, handsome and stylish, are reconstructions of the designs conceived by Vasily Diachkov for a production from 1903. The grand and visually strong sets by Sergei Barkhin also serve the new production delightfully well, even if they ideally need more space to breathe than was the case on the London Coliseum stage. The vision scene is indeed a marvel.

Fadeyechev moreover edited the misplaced accents introduced in the ballet by former artistic director Yuri Grigorovich, as well as some improbabilities of the text - such as the rather pointless duel between Don Quixote and Basilio occurring in the last Act. Most of all, Fadeyechev deserves credit for not looking for anything which isn't there: he sees the ballet basically as unpretentious fun.

Yet, what Fadeyechev could not get rid of completely were the additions by various Soviet choreographers, who changed Gorsky's staging at will. Of course, a piece like Kasyan Goleizovsky's Gypsy Dance in the 2nd Act has acquired classic status in Moscow and removing it from the ballet is tantamount to sacrilege. Nevertheless, stylistically and dramatically it still looks an anomaly, as do the Spanish character dances in the tavern scene or in the final Act (not to mention the modern-sounding music used for these passages.) The new Don Quixote remains something of a choreographical patchwork - Gorsky, after Petipa, plus several 20th-century additions -- but as presented by the Bolshoi company it is truly an irresistible one.

The commitment, the energy, the power of conviction, last but not least, the superb schooling of the Bolshoi dancers was in that respect winning on all fronts. The action is carried forward at a fast pace and there is never a dull moment. Don Quixote was created for them and they still make it their own. They obviously enjoyed every step of it and the audience enjoyed it with them.

The Bolshoi cast three different leading couples in London. Nina Ananiashvili and Andrei Uvarov, who danced the first performance and the closing night of the season, were in many ways the most successful pair. Characters were beautifully worked out through acting and dance, and it was dance in a class of its own. Ananiashvili, who finished a series of magnificent performances during this Bolshoi season, possesses the role completely and the ballerina being on excellent form, the evening was a hit. Uvarov, tall, slim and refined, shook off his princely image and gave us a fine Basilio. Both dancers fittingly turned the final pas de deux in a grand and quite dazzling apotheosis of dance.

Svetlana Lunkina, only twenty but one of the eye-catching new artists in the company on this tour, made her debut in the role partnered by Sergei Filin. Lunkina, physically gifted, is an attractive stage personality and I appreciated her unobtrusive manner. Unlike some fellow-dancers of her age she didn't vulgarise her Kitri, by throwing herself across the footlights from the start. There were nice and subtle touches in the characterisation, looking dramatically quite mature for her age. Above all she knew how to give wit to the part. Lunkina's dancing may still lack the necessary attack and punch to be fully convincing in the first Act, and in the vision scene there were instances were the technical efforts were too much on display. But on the whole it was a successful debut, making us eager to see this young dancer develop. Sergei Filin, a stylish classicist who definitely affirmed himself during this season as one of the better male dancers in the company, was a handsome, attentive and dashing Basilio.

Anna Antonicheva and Dmitri Belogolovtsev were by comparison somewhat of a letdown. Antonicheva, another young artist with a lovely lyrical line, had been a remarkable Swan and a moving Phrygia in Spartacus earlier in the season, yet as Kitri she was miscast. Soft and cautious, ill-at-ease and lacking dynamic, she seemed to approach the role as Swan Lake and missed all the comedy in it. Dmitri Belogolovtsev, a tall and strong dancer who winningly stood the test as Spartacus, made a promising start as Basilio, dancing boldly and with obvious joy. The final pas de deux, however, was something of an anti-climax, with both dancers, undoubtedly tired, lacking stamina and short on bravura.

Among the supporting roles one could admire many others of the newest generation of Bolshoi dancers. I have to single out Maria Alexandrova, a soloist of great promise. As Street Dancer and in the variation in the last Act she was quite simply outstanding. Powerful and fast, Alexandrova possesses a soaring ballon and her jetés are breathtaking. Nina Kaptsova was a ravishing Cupid, while Svetlana Uvarova and Anastasia Iatsenko were ideal as the Flower Girls. The role of Espada was brought alive by Mark Peretokin, who emphasized the comical side, while Vladimir Moisseyev gave it dignity. Yuliana Malkhasyants, a striking soloist during the whole season, and Svetlana Tigleva as the gypsy girl, proved that the Bolshoi still knows how to do character dance. The only disappointing performance came from Maria Allash, bland and lacking authority as the Queen of the Dryads. Andrei Sitnikov, a vivid actor in the great Bolshoi tradition, and Alexander Petukhov were delightful as the Don and Sancho Panza. The many toreadors, street dancers, gypsies, dryads, were pure joy.

London audiences had to miss some nice details of the production due to restrictions linked to performing on tour. The company could not bring the much adored live animals, such as the horse and donkey used by Don Q. and Sancho during their entrance, while the many cupids, danced by children, normally appearing in the vision scene, were reduced to six English girls. The variation of Cupid in the last Act was scrapped altogether.

The Bolshoi Orchestra, which was one of the delights on this tour, played with great zest and conviction under Alexander Sotnikov and veteran Alexander Kopylov.

While the four weeks of the 1999-London tour undoubtedly restored faith in the Bolshoi Ballet, this Don Quixote convinced the last sceptics among us that this is a company of the highest order which needs to be seen.