Don Quixote

Ballet in three acts with prologue

Libretto by Marius Petipa based on the novel by Miguel de Cervantes

Choreography by Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky, adapted by Yuliana Malkhasyants (including choreography by Kasiyan Goleizovsky, Rostislav Zakharov, Anatoly Simachev, and Naum Azarin-Messerer)

The ballet was written in 1869. This version was first performed in Perm in 2004. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including 2 intervals

In 1900, Alexander Gorsky staged his version of Marius Petipa’s 1869 production of Don Quixote at the Bolshoi Theatre, adding his own dances. In his memoirs, however, Petipa accused the young director of plagiarism, and theatre experts still debate the authenticity of Gorsky’s choreography. 

Unlike Cervantes’s original novel, the leading characters in the ballet are not the knight of the doleful countenance and his armour-bearer, but the innkeeper’s daughter Kitri and her sweetheart, the barber Basilio. Bolshoi Theatre soloist Yuliana Malkhasyants worked on the production in Perm. The image of sultry Spain, conveyed by a wealth of typical dances, is completed by Andrey Zlobin’s scenery in the style of old black-and-white book illustrations. 

The production is staged with the support of the Pearl of the Urals Foundation