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 :-)