Don Quixote (Nureyev)
Since his debut in Don Quixote with the Kirov company in 1959, its lead character, Basilio, had provided one of Nureyev’s favourite roles. In the West, it was the first ballet that allowed him to showcase his scope as a dancer and an actor beyond the tragic or romantic figures he had more usually inhabited onstage.
Marius Petipa’s 1869 choreography centres on a feisty young couple, Kitri and Basilio, positioning Don Quixote and Pancho Sanza as relative sidekicks in their colourful scenes of adventure and romance.Nureyev infused the production with a hectic, joyful energy and increased the comic roles, underlaying the ballet with the structure of Commedia delle’ Arte characters: Kitri can be viewed in the image of Columbine, Basilio as Harlequin, and Don Quixote as Pantaloon.
Nureyev worked hard to perfect the style and attack of the Spanish dances. The steps had lost much of their authenticity since the premiere nearly a century earlier. Coached by the famous Argentinian dancer and choreographer, Hector Zaraspe, Nureyev absorbed himself in learning the intricacies of the dances, which he then reinstated in the production with renewed accuracy.
One of Nureyev’s most striking additions to the choreography was a romantic, highly imaginative pas de deux between Kitri and Basilio. After the couple escapes from Kitri’s domineering father, they spend the night in the countryside beneath the tattered sails of abandoned windmills. Kitri’s flowing shawl is used as an imaginative prop, wrapping sensuously around the two dancers to signify their union.
Nureyev’s first full staging of Don Quixote with the Vienna Opera Ballet (with designs by Nicholas Georgiadis) was not well received by critics. While his own performance as Basilio had been dynamic and funny, Ulli Wuhruer’s performance as Kitri was judged to lack the sparkling, vivacity necessary to carry the high-spirited role. However, the productions of the ballet that followed wholly embodied the high-energy style of Nureyev’s choreography. Don Quixote was praised by audiences and critics alike in stagings by the Australian Ballet (1970), the Zurich Opera (1977), Norwegian National Ballet (1980), Boston Ballet (1983), Matsuyama Ballet Tokyo (1985), La Scala Milan (1987) and the Swedish Royal Ballet (1994).
Nureyev’s 1972 film of Don Quixote, in which he starred alongside Lucette Aldous, Robert Helpmann and the Australian Ballet, is often considered to be one of the best ballet films of all time. Nureyev had frequently voiced his frustrations about the lacklustre way in which directors approached the filming of ballets. On the set of Don Quixote he took matters into his own hands and directed the film himself, to critical acclaim.
Rosella Hightower, Nureyev’s predecessor at the Paris Opéra Ballet, asked him to stage Don Quixote at the Palais Garnier in 1981. The ballet immediately entered the company’s repertoire and it was among the first ballets he mounted when he became the company’s director, in 1983. Having already spotted her extraordinary, era-defining talent, he gave the teenage Sylvie Guillem one of her first major roles as the ethereal Queen of the Dryads.
Don Quixote is still in repertoire today.