Don Quixote

“Don Quixote – when danced by the right cast – always works” 

““Maybe”, suggests Alexei Ratmansky”, Don Quixote is so popular in Russia because it’s so cold there and things always get so ‘heated’ in this temperamental ballet.” From the moment he breathlessly watched Vasiliev and Maximova’s performance as a young ballet student, he has never tired of the ballet – unlike other famous classics.

“Alongside choreographing new works”, says Alexei Ratmansky (56), “I’ve always been interested in adapting and re-staging existing ballets. Not only because I was often expected to do so in the positions I held, but also because it’s a good way of learning and developing as a choreographer. By studying the classics and getting inside the minds of the great choreographers, as it were, you can learn a great deal about the principles and methodology of the profession.”

Original libretto

After creating new versions of the nineteenth-century ballet Le Corsaire (2007) and the Soviet ballet Flames of Paris (2008) for the Bolshoi Ballet (of which he was artistic director from 2004 to 2008), Don Quixote was the next project on Ratmansky’s ‘wish list’. As he says, he grew up with the ballet, and besides being familiar with many other versions, he knows the productions by the Mariinsky Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet back to front. “And the interesting thing is that both companies claim to dance the Alexander Gorsky version, yet there are considerable differences between their two productions.”

For his version for Dutch National Ballet, Ratmansky decided to return to the source. In other words, to the original version created by Marius Petipa in Moscow in 1869, which was not only revised by Petipa himself, but also adapted twice later on by Gorsky. For the process, Ratmansky had placed his hopes in the Harvard University library, where the choreographic notations of several nineteenth-century Russian ballets are kept (having been smuggled out to the West by ballet regisseur Nicholas Sergeyev shortly after the Russian Revolution). But unfortunately, it turned out there were no surviving written records of Petipa’s versions of Don Quixote, nor of Gorsky’s adaptations. 

There were some other sources, however, such as the original libretto by Marius Petipa, annotated music scores, old programmes, reviews, memoires and historical books. “Putting all these sources together sheds some light on the subject and clarifies here and there what was originally by Petipa, what changes Gorsky made, and what alterations and additions were made later on. But…”, stresses Ratmansky, “we can’t really be certain who did what and whether the choreography of the various scenes also remained the same. The productions of Don Quixote that are danced today are the result of more than 150 years of performance history, during which each generation has changed, added and/or cut things.”

Respect for tradition

That is why, says Ratmansky, the version he made for Dutch National Ballet in 2010 should not be seen as the original choreography, or as a reconstruction of the original version. “We simply don’t know what was original.” Despite several of his own additions, however, his production remains a traditional work. “I’ve made use of all the information I’ve been able to find, all the versions I know, and all the famous dances and steps traditionally associated with the ballet. And using that as the basis, I made my own decisions, with great respect for tradition.”

In doing so, he regularly returned to Petipa’s original libretto. “It’s often the case that the more a ballet has been performed and the more time has elapsed since its premiere, the simpler the story of the ballet has become. Connecting elements are cut out and storylines ignored, because choreographers or dancers think they don’t matter. When you then look at the original libretto, some things suddenly make sense and are more logical, and you find out that the story is much less superficial and silly than you’d assumed all this time.”

As an example, he gives the first scene in Don Quixote’s study, for which he takes all the time required by Petipa’s libretto. “In the Bolshoi version, this scene now lasts no longer than one or two minutes, but I thought it was important for the audience to get to know the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza before all the dancing gets going.”
Other choices and scenes in Ratmansky’s choreography are also based on Petipa’s libretto, such as the dance of the cactus men who appear in Don Quixote’s visions, and the shift of Basilio’s supposed suicide to the last scene of the ballet. “He usually stabs himself earlier on, but it’s far more logical for him to do it when Kitri is on the point of getting married to Gamache.” 

No belly dance

Where Ratmansky draws the line, however, is the multitude of character dances that have been added to the ballet over the years. “That happened mostly in the nineteen-thirties and forties, when the companies in both Moscow and Leningrad (as it then was – ed.) had some wonderful character dancers who created their own dances in order to show off. But nowadays, these dances look dated and are inferior to the level of the rest of the choreography in my opinion. And anyway, I’m aiming to create a less eclectic production. I’m convinced that today’s audiences can do without all the ‘entr’actes’ that actually have nothing to do with the story, such as the sailors’ dance that has been woven into the Bolshoi version for some reason, or the oriental belly dance that appears in the Mariinsky version.”
On the other hand, Ratmansky has choreographed several new sections himself, such as the scene in which Kitri and Basilio join a group of actors, the dance of the monsters that appear to Don Quixote in his nightmare and the fandango in the last act. 

Stiff old man

Ratmansky thinks it’s important to have a clear storyline, and he hopes that reducing the number of ‘interruptive’ elements will reinforce the energy and dynamics of the ballet. He has also provided more depth to certain scenes, so that the production as a whole looks less two-dimensional than is now often the case. For instance, he has given a lot of thought to the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. “These roles are usually played by dancers who, though they may look the part, aren’t necessarily good actors as well.”
However, Ratmansky has not made any stronger links to Cervantes’ novel, even though he valiantly ploughed his way through the hefty book. “It’s very difficult to ‘squeeze’ Cervantes into this ballet. In the novel, the main character is Don Quixote, but the ballet revolves around the dancers who play Kitri, Basilio and their friends, and the wood nymphs and cherubs who appear in Don Quixote’s dream. I think it would look very strange to have Don Quixote himself dancing about. When all’s said and done, he’s supposed to be a stiff old man.”

Circus image

Ratmansky is well aware that a certain ‘circus ballet’ image is attached to Don Quixote. “Actually, the story comes in second place in this ballet. Yes, of course it’s about two young people in love, who have to overcome obstacles in order to come together. But there’s no question of heavy drama. Nobody dies and neither does the story have any deep poetic or philosophical slant. The love between Kitri and Basilio merely ‘colours’ the ballet, just as the Spanish setting serves no other purpose than to lend ‘colour’ to the production. The ballet is principally about beautiful, energetic dancers, who get plenty of opportunity to display their virtuosity. Don Quixote is about the beauty of classical ballet technique and about the pleasure you feel as a dancer when you command the finer points of that technique.” So Ratmansky gives the principal dancers of Dutch National Ballet some freedom in adapting the steps of their pas deux and solos. “After all, this ballet is essentially about each dancer being able to show off their best qualities.”

Ratmansky admits that this lack of a deeper meaning has resulted in Don Quixote long being regarded as ‘less interesting’ by serious ballet historians, and he suspects this may also be why it has hardly been researched and why the notation of the ballet has not survived. But the fact remains that Don Quixote is still one of the best loved and most successful ballets today, in Russia and elsewhere. And Ratmansky knows all too well why this should be the case. “Despite Tchaikovsky’s wonderful music, I can sometimes get too much of Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty, but Don Quixote – when danced by the right cast – always works.”

Dutch text: Astrid van Leeuwen

Don Quixote audiences can gaze for hours at the most impressive ballet costumes. The costume parade reaches its climax in the last scene, when the protagonist Kitri exchanges her long skirts for a gorgeous red tutu. “One of the most beautiful we have”, says Oliver Haller, head of Dutch National Ballet’s costume department.

In designing the costumes for Don Quixote, designer Jérôme Kaplan was faced with a big challenge. He had to reproduce a world that never really existed, as the story on which the ballet is based – a passage from Miguel de Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote – is set at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The ballet, however, includes characters and situations that didn’t exist yet in those days. So Kaplan had to think up designs for garments that give the feeling they could have existed in the seventeenth century, despite not being around at the time. He found the solution in paintings by the famous seventeenth-century artist Diego Velázquez, which Kaplan took as the basis for the style of his costumes.

Covered in trimmings

The iconic red tutu worn by Kitri in the last scene, for example, is inspired by the painting Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress. Oliver Haller says, “When Jérôme Kaplan presented his designs, he said, ‘I want the dress of the Infanta Margarita, but then as a tutu’. Ultimately, it became a real showpiece – a tutu that stands out. The decorations on the dress of the Infanta have also been applied to the tutu, both on the bodice and on the top layer of the tulle skirt. Then you get that typically Velázquez look.”

But those decorations that give a wow effect are also precisely what makes the tutu one of the most challenging in the collection of Dutch National Ballet. Haller says, “All the trimmings make the top layer of the skirt very heavy, certainly compared to the tutus of Swan Lake, for instance, where the decorations are only on the bodice. The weight is a challenge for the ballerina and her partner, but also for us, as the heavy top layer makes it very difficult to get the skirt to stick out straight. In order to achieve that, we’ve added extra layers of tulle. But however hard we try, after it’s been worn a couple of times the tulle gets softer and the skirt sags again. So we have to keep adding new layers of tulle or replacing old ones.”

Ballet rule

One striking point on which Kitri’s costume differs from the dress in Velázquez’ painting – apart from the obvious difference between a hoop skirt and a tulle skirt – is the colour. It is Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress, but Kitri in a red tutu. So was ‘Kitri in a blue tutu’ never a possibility? “No, because Kitri’s colour is red”, explains Haller. “Just as Cinderella costumes are nearly always silvery grey and nearly all Giselles wear blue in the first act. It’s a sort of rule in the world of classical ballet, and moreover the colour red is often associated with Spain. So right from the outset, it was decided that our Kitri would wear a red tutu.”

Text: Rosalie Overing