Russians on speed

There is more to 19th-century ballet than fluttering sylphs, spectral broken-hearted peasant girls and doomed feathery princesses. There is comedy and fun, too. Take the 1869 classic Don Quixote, a Spanish romp loosely based on Miguel de Cervantes’ literary masterpiece. The ballet was Marius Petipa’s second major work — the first being The Pharaoh’s Daughter (which I reviewed a fortnight ago) — and it gave its first Russian audiences definitive proof of Petipa’s choreographic talent and theatrical genius.

Not many comic or comedy ballets have stood the test of time, thus prompting the erroneous but widespread belief that 19th-century ballet is mostly about tear-jerking stuff. Luckily, Don Q (as it is familiarly known among balletomanes) has survived to show that our ancestors could also have a laugh or two ‘en pointe’.

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Rod Liddle

Sack the judges

For a mid-19th-century comic work, Don Q is unusually complex with a huge cast of dancers and numerous set changes and theatrical effects, and it is generally accepted that only a select number of companies can stage it successfully. The legendary Bolshoi Ballet is, arguably, top of that list.

The Bolshoi artists have a special understanding of Petipa’s preposterous adaptation of this celebrated novel, and never turn the whole work into a cheap, circus-like display of bravura steps —which is how many treat Don Q. As far back as memory goes, the Bolshoi Ballet’s Don Q has always come up with ingenious ways to tell the comic story with sparkling élan, and yet elegant panache.

There is no doubt that, from a technical point of view, the ballet is pure ‘circus’. But in the hands — and feet — of the Bolshoi dancers, it becomes both technically dazzling and highly engaging circus. And the performance last week was no exception. Danced with a thrilling caution-to-the-wind approach to break-neck tempi — when was the last time such speeds were seen in the West? — the performance brought the house down from its very first scene.