Royal Ballet - Don Quixote review: Flamboyance and gusto — with a hint of English reserve

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Emma Byrne19 February 2019

The Royal Ballet first tackled Don Quixote nearly 70 years ago, but it has never seemed entirely comfortable with Petipa’s pop and crackle 19th-century showcase. After all, this is a ballet about brash, flashy bravado — and the Royal’s dancers, moulded by Ashton’s gentle lyricism and MacMillan’s dark psychological musings, aren’t natural exhibitionists.

British dance lovers have usually had to wait for the Russians to roll into town to get their fix; with this revival, of Carlos Acosta’s 2013 staging, has Don Q finally found a home at Covent Garden?

It’s all very nearly there, though it’s not nearly vulgar enough. Dance is full of three-acters that call for restraint and reserve — and Don Quixote is not one of them. The programme notes quote Acosta as saying he wanted his production “to portray a kind of realism on stage”, but nothing in this ballet — not its slapstick antics or broad-strokes story-telling — should be in any way naturalised. Unrestrained flamboyance is key. So, though the dancers throw themselves into the action with gusto, it’s all done with mild good humour and a hint of English reserve. But what dancers. On opening night, the Royal led with the dream team of Marianela Nuñez and Vadim Muntagirov as Kitri and Basilio (forget Don Quixote and his windmills — this innkeeper’s daughter and her barber lover are the real stars).

Don Q is made up of gala-friendly showstoppers, which this pair powered through easily. Nuñez is always a delight, but what a joy to see Muntagirov ditch his usual princely constraint; those split jetés and tweaked cabrioles drew gasps from a hard-to-please Opera House crowd.

Until April 4, Royal Opera House

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