Sunday 15 August 2010

Bolshoi - 2

After seeing 2 performances of Le Corsaire, my favourite ballet was next - Don Quixote! 















This ballet can be relied upon to being a smile to any face with its wonderfully virbant, happy, music (Minkus) and the sunny story of Kitri and Basil who love each other but Kitri's father is determined she should marry a wealthy nobleman, the hapless Gamache.  Long story short, Don Quixote goes on his travels to find his Dulcinea and on arriving in Barcelona finds Kitri is her exact likeness, thus liking Kitri DonQ helps her to marry her true love Basil! All ends happily ever after!

Shown above are Alexei Loparevich as Don Q and Alexander Petukhov as Sancho Panza.  

This is a real "show off" ballet with fabulous jumps and high speed turns throughout. My favourite stars Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev (who I have seen before but who have now matured) danced 2 performances and I have never seen anything like it in my life -nor has the Royal Opera House! The audiences went wild with excitement and I don't think the two young dancers could quite believe the storm they created. It was truly amazing stuff and the reviews in the newpapers bear this out.  It was certainly an occasion to say "I was there"...what a thrill!

Ivan performed amazing high jumps and Natalia demonstrated high jumps and super fast turns - it left one breathless just watching!  Yet in the middle of it all comes the Dream Scene and this is a beautiful piece of ballet, drawing a gasp from the audience when the curtain rises on the exquisite scene.  It requires a dramatic change in character for Kitri as she assumes the role of Dulcinea in Don Q's dream, Natalia pulled off this change with ease and it was a pure classical dream to watch her.  Add to this fabulous costumes and I was in ballet heaven!

Left to right, here are Nina Kaptsova as Cupid, Natalia Osipova as Dulcinea and Maria Allash as Queen of the Dryads.

And below Natalia and Ivan at the curtain call on Sunday, where I was closer to the stage.

The other performances I saw were also beautiful, but not as quite exciting as the 2 given by Natalia and Ivan.  At the Saturday matinee there was a lovely flower throw - something you do not see very often, and more usually when a dancer retires, however this was a mark of appreciation for a wonderful season - you can just see the flowers at the feet of Ekaterina Krysanova and Andrei Merkuriev:-

On Saturday evening I saw a lovely performance by Marianna Ryzhkina and Mikhail Lobuhkin and I loved how Marianna took her curtain call en pointe - every inch a prima ballerina!

I believe we have to wait 2 years now for a return visit, but hopefully I will be able to catch the Bolshoi somewhere else in Europe before then :-)

6 comments:

  1. Thanks you for sharing this wonderful moments.

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  2. Hello Vanportrait - happy to share it was a wonderful few days! Best wishes SA

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  3. Oh my, this is so well written that I truly feel I was there with you. Your photos tell a story as well. Thank you for putting a smile on my face today.

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  4. SMR thank you so much for the compliment so happy you liked it, best wishes SA x

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  5. Oh ScarfAddict! Don Quixote! you are so fortunate to see it! I've seen this master piece on giant screen but didn't even dream about seeing it IRL. Many congratulations and thank you for sharing.

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  6. You're welcome dear Birkinmary, DonQ is a huge delight from beginning to end and I hope you get a chance sometime to see it IRL, SAxx

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