A New Don Quixote

GIUSEPPE PENNISI describes the opening
of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's new ballet season,
with a new version of Ludwig Minkus' work,
creating a stylised and colorful fairytale world

On 15 November 2017, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's new ballet season started with a new production of Ludwig Minkus' Don Quixote. This year the ballet season is not just a very few performances encapsulated as part of the opera program. It now has its own standing, under the leadership of Eleonora Abbagnato, and features six grand ballets and a program for youngsters and children. In Italy there is demand for ballet; in Rome alone there are three theatres almost entirely devoted to this form of art. Ballet is costly: minor theatres often offer performances to taped music. Many major theatres have closed their ballet companies. As Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's ballet has now reached high quality, it might evolve as the British Royal Ballet or the US American Ballet, performing in Italy's various theatres. At the inaugural performance there were, in central orchestra seats, the Mayor of Rome, Ms Virginia Raggi and the étoile Mikhail Baryshnikov, almost seventy years old but in excellent shape.

Iana Salenko and Isaac Hernández in Ludwig Minkus' 'Don Quixote' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Photo © 2017 Yasuko Kageyama

The production is very different from that reviewed five years ago — 'Very Elegant', 30 December 2012. First a few words on the composer. Ludwig Minkus had been born in that part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which is now the Czech Republic, moved to Vienna as a child, but his career started in Paris where ballet had an important role among the performing arts. From France he moved to Moscow and St Petersburg where he had gained the esteem, trust and appreciation of Marius Petipa, then the 'real boss' of ballet in the Imperial Theatres. For the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre 1869-70 season, Petipa commissioned Minkus to create a grand ballet based on Cervantes' novel. Petipa himself worked with another choreographer, Alexander Gorsky. As a matter of fact, Don Quixote is only a pretext for a contrasted love story where the knight settles things right, after, of course, a fight with the windmills. This explains why Minkus supplied a score filled with a great variety of Spanish-style flare, juxtaposed with late romantic and neoclassical music (in the 'dream' scenes) and quite a few reminiscences of Vienna and of Austrian music. The conductor David Garforth seized this point very well.

Isaac Hernández in Ludwig Minkus' 'Don Quixote' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Photo © 2017 Yasuko Kageyama

Don Quixote premiered to a resounding success on 26 December 1869 in the Russian Calendar (14 December, Western Calendar) and went on to become a celebrated work in the repertory. Until the 1960s, in the US and in Europe, only the grand pas-de-deux was known (as part of a program of George Balanchine's New York City Ballet). The full ballet was 'exported' to the West by Rudolf Nureyev when he defected from the USSR. In Rome, this Nureyev version has been always performed. On 15 November, the audience was enthralled by a new, very modern version prepared by Mikhail Baryshnikov for the American Ballet Theatre. It is more dynamic (and athletic) than the standard 'reference' version. The sets and costumes by Vladimir Radunsky and A J Wiessbard create a stylized and colorful fairytale world.

Iana Salenko in Ludwig Minkus' 'Don Quixote' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Photo © 2017 Yasuko Kageyama

Three different casts alternate in the performances. On the evening of 15 November, all the dancers were of very high standing, especially the two protagonists Iana Salenko and Isaac Hernández (in what used to be Baryshnikov's role).