Don Quixote

Minkus
Don Quixote
Birmingham Royal Ballet

Royal Ballet Sinfonia
Conductor – Paul Murphy

Dancers –
Don Quixote – Rory Mackay
Sancho Panza – Alfie-Lee Hall
Lorenzo – Jonathan Payn
Kitri – Momoko Hirata
Basilio – Mathias Dingman
Gamache – Rafael Bejarano Vidal
Espada – Max Maslen
Mercedes – Yaoqian Shang
Kitri’s friends – Olivia Chang-Clarke, Katherine Ochoa
Two Matadors – Gabriel Anderson, Haoliang Feng
Gypsy couple – Frieda Kaden, Ryan Felix
The Queen of the Dryads – Céline Gittens
Amour – Tzu-Chao Chou
Dulcinea – Eilis Small
Fandango Couple – Frieda Kaden, Ryan Felix
Townspeople, Matadors, Gypsies, Dryads – Artists of Birmingham Royal Ballet
On-stage Guitarists – Tom Ellis, Alexander Crawford

Ludwig Minkus arr. Hans Vercauteren – Music
Carlos Acosta after Marius Petipa – Choreography
Carlos Acosta – Production
Tim Hatley – Set and Costume design
Nina Dunn – Video design
Peter Mumford – Lighting

Cuban ballet superstar-turned company director Carlos Acosta brings his second production of Marius Petipa and Ludwig Minkus’ Spanish romp Don Quixote to Sadler’s Wells. His first was for his former company, Covent Garden’s Royal Ballet, but he wished to have a rethink and give his new ensemble a brand-new production. It is better than the first, not least because Tim Hatley’s designs are more successful for BRB than they were for the RB, and Acosta has tweaked his concept slightly for the better. However, Acosta, superb dancer that he was, is no choreographer, nor particularly adept at dramaturgy. Don Quixote, for all its perma-smiles, castanets and olés is a tricky ballet to pull off; it is bitty and possesses a narrative which makes no real sense; Acosta has tried to bring greater logic, but to no avail, as he cannot resist adding more and more. An example is the Act II gypsy encampment where he has interpolated a pas de deux for the lead characters, feisty Kitri and her lover, cheeky jack-the-lad Basilio. Not only does it serve to slow up the action, but, given that it is Acosta’s own choreographic invention, it is not very interesting. Again and again, he stops and restarts the action (the prologue is a bore and makes for a very low-key opening), so that the sweep of performance, so vital in a work which has such a threadbare storyline, is seriously compromised.

Admirable as the current BRB company is, one has to question whether Don Q is the right ballet for it. The work’s history teaches us that it was the great Marius Petipa’s creation in 1869 for Moscow but that, crucially, Alexander Gorsky staged a radically revised version for the Bolshoi in 1900, and it is from this version that current productions derive. It is, therefore, very much a Moscow ballet through and through, and reached its apogee in the Soviet era with spectacular performances of outstanding bravura and belief. This is what all companies who perform Don Quixote need to match, and it is no surprise that they do not. So BRB, for all its efforts, comes across in the ballet as a tad too polite and the impression is that the dancers are in essence performing against type. As a company, it has a long tradition of narrative work and also comedy, but the brash bravura of Don Q is simply not in its DNA.

The dancer who came closest to what is needed was company principal Mathias Dingman, who has relaxed considerably into the role of Basilio and seems very much at home as the local barber cheeky chappie. He is not quite the virtuoso dancer that the role now demands, but he comes close enough, and is a confident partner with an easy stage personality. Would that there had been some stage chemistry between him and his Kitri, Momoko Hirata. She is an accomplished dancer who is competent, almost clinical, in her dispatch of the technical challenges presented, but there was precious little personality – Kitri is a demi-caractère creation, supposed to fizz with character and defiance, but Hirata approaches the role with coolness and detachment; it no surprise that she was at her most impressive in the Act II Dream section when she appears in a classical tutu.

Max Maslen was an arrogant, almost angry matador Espada, oozing oily confidence, but, again, there was little interaction with his lover Mercedes, danced unevenly and unidiomatically by Yaoqian Shang – in fact she and Hirata could well have benefited from watching the characterful performances of Kitri’s friends by Olivia Chang-Clarke and Katherine Ochoa, the latter Kitri in another cast. Tzu-Chao Chou was impressive as Amour in the Dream sequence, even if the wisdom Acosta’s decision to change the part from a female to male role remains in doubt. Special mention to the four unnamed young male dancers who were the town square ragamuffins – they gave their all and grasped every opportunity for knockabout fun.

Praise too for Paul Murphy, the company’s Music Director, who led the orchestra in a spirited rendition of the score – Minkus may be no Tchaikovsky, but he knew how to compose music for dancing, and the score was a pleasure to hear in such an engaged performance – tempi were lively, and there was no doubt that the pit was attempting to inject greater momentum and vim into the proceedings.