Don Quixote, Royal Opera House, review: Colourful production lit up by knockout performances
Returning to The Royal Ballet, Carlos Acosta’s colourful, untidy production of Don Quixote is as busy as ever, full of hyperactive scenery and rhubarbing crowds. It’s lit up by knockout performances from Marianela Nuñez and Vadim Muntagirov.
Acosta, a beloved international star, has just been appointed director of the Royal Ballet’s sister company, Birmingham Royal Ballet – which will dance this production next year. So this revival is also a snapshot of how Acosta responds to a company and its dancers.
Most big ballet companies now dance the surviving classics of the 19th century – which doesn’t mean they’re at home in all of them. The Royal Ballet has an instinct for storytelling and lyricism. Don Quixote is right at the other end of the scale, all about personality and big, flashy steps.
Acosta, born and trained in Cuba, was a natural in it. Staging it for The Royal Ballet in 2013, he tried to bridge the gap by emphasising the acting. There’s a lot more byplay than in most productions; the company flutter their fans like anything, without making you believe it’s hot.
The ballet, originally created by Marius Petipa in 1869, uses Cervantes’ novel about a deluded knight as a peg for the story of village lovers Kitri and Basilio. Acosta gives Quixote more stage time, but his storytelling lacks discipline. His best additions are pensive – Kitri’s snatch of stately, old-fashioned dance with Christopher Saunders’ idealistic Quixote, or the moment she tries to draw him back from his bewildering visions. Acosta’s view of the ballet has a generous sense of community.
Still, we’re here for the showstoppers, and on opening night the company delivered. Nuñez is a marvellous Kitri, with dazzling technique that takes her from the huge jumps of the first act to luxurious dancing in the vision scene. In the final pas de deux, she seems to snatch joy out of the air, sharing it with the audience as readily as she throws herself into Muntagirov’s waiting arms. The daredevil “fish dives” seem less a technical feat than a pleasure, a delighted dip.
The elegant Muntagirov is cast against type in a ballet known for its whizzbang technique. As the poor barber Basilio, he still looks like a prince in disguise, but delivers the wow factor with bells on. Soaring into the air, he looks impossibly effortless: a gasp goes round the audience at his split jumps.
Laura Morera is terrific as the street dancer Mercedes, flirting with Ryoichi Hirano’s swaggering bullfighter. Fumi Kaneko dances the difficult Queen of the Dryads with impressive aplomb, while Anna Rose O’Sullivan shows delicate musical phrasing as Amour.
Until 4 April. Box office 020 7304 4000
