Sunday evening April 1, Mezzo presented Don Quixote in a version with the Dutch National Ballet

Don Quixote with Dutch National Ballet at Mezzo. Matthew Golding as Basilio, Anna Tsygankova as Kitri in the Grand Pas de Deux, last act. Photo: Angela Sterling

Review by Henning Høholt.

Matthew Golding as Basilio, Anna Tsygankova as Kitri. Don Quichot, choreography Alexei Ratmansky. All photo's : Angela Sterling

AMSTERDAM: Dutch National Ballet with their version of Don Quixote. Realised and additional choreography by Alexei Ratmansky, but based on the version by Marius Petipa and Alexandre Gorsky. This version has been created exclusively for the company by leading Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. Specially we enjoyed that the version is different in many details to the one by Rudolf Nureyev, and are moving the parts in the history, and adding some more Ludwig Minkus music, which we are not used to hear, us who are family with the John Lanchberry arrangement, made for Rudolf Nureyevs TV version. that we enjoyd very many times in the 1980´s with the Norwegoan National Ballet, when Rudolf Nureyev and Patrick Dupont danced the role as Basilio in Oslo together with the two ballerinas Leonie Leahy and Sissel Westnes
. This musical arrangement refresh the history, and gives many new details, and also details, and the possibility to new soloparts
. Furthermore the modern designs for the ballet costumes and scenography , by the renowned French designer Jérôme Kaplan, refer to the times ofCervantes.

Anna Tsygankova as Kitri. Photo: Angela Sterling

The ballet Don Quixote – an audience favourite of prestigious companies like the Bolshoi Ballet, Ballet de l´Opera de Paris, Norwegian National Ballet, Lithuanian National Ballet, The Boston Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. It was a great pleasure to enjoy the new production Don Quixote  (from February 2010) made with Dutch National Ballet. In the leading roles Anna Tsygankova was beautiful and virtuose as Kitri, Matthew Golding showed very much virtuosity and were masculin handsome as  Basile showing flamboyant leaps, dizzying pirouettes and crisp pointe work, that are standard features of the production, but also by these outstanding dancers gave them every opportunity to show off their technical prowess.

Matthew Golding as Basilio. Photo': Angela Sterling

Furthermore Peter de Jong  gave the titelrole new sides as Don Quichotte, forexempel his participating in the Dryade Garden, where he was not passive, as we often have seen, but naturally active together with the Dryades, and the very virtuose Maia Makhateli as Amor, and the  beautiful Sasha Mukhamedov as the Queen of the Dryades
. Very well in tradition to the comic story based on Cervantes’ masterpiece, which makes strong demands on the dancers’ acting abilities, somthing that Peter de Jong  as Don Quixote, Karel de Rooij (Sancho Panza), Dario Mealli (Gamache), Altin Kaftira (Lorenzo, the father of Kitri), took very good care of

. The conductor, Kevin Rhodes that we are familiar with from before, gave the dancers very good tempi, that they deserved, and could fill up, so it was clearly that they enjoyed it on stage.

Don Quichotte at MEZZO.

Chorégraphy: Marius Petipa, Alexandre Gorsky & Alexei Ratmansky,
Dutch National Ballet

Orchestre , Holland Symphonia
Chef d’orchestre, Kevin Rhodes

Peter de Jong (Don Quichotte), Karel de Rooij (Sancho Panza), Photo: Angela Sterling

Cast:
Anna Tsygankova (Kitri), Matthew Golding (Basile), Peter de Jong (Don Quichotte), Karel de Rooij (Sancho Panza), Dario Mealli (Gamache), Altin Kaftira (Lorenzo), Natalia Hoffmann (Mercedes), Moises Martin Cintas (Espada), Maiko Tsutsumi (Piccilia), Nadia Yanowsky (Juanita), Maia Makhateli (Cupidon), Sasha Mukhamedov (Reine des Dryades)

Directors for the TV production: Adrienne Liron and Jeff Tudor.

Don Quixote will be repeated again on Mezzo:  04 / 04 – 09h30. 09 / 04 – 16h45 and 14 / 04 – 09h30.