The ballet Don Quixote is based upon the famous novel of the same name by seventeenth century Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes. As soon as it was written ‘Don Quixote’ became a world wide best seller, hugely popular with all nationalities because of its humour and wisdom.
Miguel de Cervantes
The book is a parody or satire on the romances that were popular at the time, dealing with knights-errant and their fantastic adventures. Cervantes main character is Don Quixote whom he describes as:
“ [a] gentleman …. close to fifty, of a robust constitution but with little flesh on his bones and a face that was lean and gaunt.”
Cervantes makes Don Quixote a very keen reader of books on chivalry, so much so that he loses his grip on reality and begins to live in a make believe world.
“….our gentleman became so immersed in his reading that he spent whole nights from sundown to sunup and his days from dawn to dusk in poring over his books, until, finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
“He had filled his imagination with everything that he had read, with enchantments, knightly encounters, battles, challenges, wounds, with tales of love and its torments, and all sorts of impossible things, and as a result had come to believe that all these fictitious happenings were true; they were more real to him than anything elthe world.”
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Don Quixote embarks on a series of adventures accompanied by his trusty and loyal companion Sancho Panza.
“At last, when his wits were gone beyond repair, he came to conceive the strongest
idea that ever occurred to any madman in this world. It now appeared to him fitting and necessary, in order to win a greater amount of honour for himself and serve his country at the same time, to become a knight-errant and roam the world on horseback, in a suit of armour; he would go in quest of adventures, by way of putting into practice all that he had read in his books; he would right every manner of wrong, placing himself in situations of the greatest peril such as could redound to the eternal glory of his name.”
Cervantes sends Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on an extraordinary journey. Through the Don’s reckless disregard for his own safety, they get into many scrapes from which Sancho Panza has to constantly rescue them. All the while Don Quixote is seeking out his ideal love- the beautiful and perfect Dulcinea.
ORIGINS OF THE BALLET
The ballet Don Quixote has a long history, dating back to Noverre in the mid-eighteenth century. Many choreographers have been attracted to the story. The most famous version is by Marius Petipa, a ballet in four acts with music by Leon Minkus.
It had an acclaimed premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1869, and was regarded as a landmark in the history of Russian ballet.
The Petipa version is a comedic ballet following the love affair between Quiteria (Kitri in the ballet) and Basil (Basilio), and is based upon a chapter in the second volume of Cervantes novel. Petipa revised his ballet in 1871 adding many new dances.
There have been numerous Don Quixote ballets since, including versions by Nureyev (Australian Ballet), Balanchine (NewYork City Ballet) and Baryshnikov (American Ballet Theatre).
