Ludwig Minkus: Don Quijote

Arguably the most celebrated Spanish novel, Don Quijote de la Mancha, from the pen of the Renaissance poet, novelist and playwright, Miguel de Cervantes, has to this day inspired thousands of adaptations, literary, musical, dramatic, and cinematic. In the domains of opera and operetta alone, it has been set by more than 50 composers, ranging from Francesco Conti (Vienna, 1719) and Antonio Caldara (Vienna, 1727), to Giovanni Paisiello (Naples, 1769), Wilhelm Kienzl (Berlin, 1898), to Jules Massenet (Monte Carlo, 1910), Richard Heuberger (Vienna, 1910), and Stanislaw Moniuszko (Warsaw, 1923). The first ballet version of Don Quijote was created in Vienna, in 1740, the work of ballet master Franz Hilverding, and in 1768 it was staged, with music from Joseph Starzer, by the ballet reformer Jean-Georges Noverre.

The famous classical ballet by the Viennese composer, conductor and violinist, Ludwig Minkus, based on the Cervantes novel and focused primarily on the love story of Kitri and Basil, was first performed in Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, on December 26, 1869, in Marius Petipa’s choreography, and it has since made countless comebacks onto all major international stages. Thirty-three years after its premiere, in 1902, it received a new choreography from Alexander Gorsky, at the time a leading innovator of ballet, a version which has never failed to score with audiences, and has survived on the repertoire of major ballet companies to the present time.

The Prague State Opera is presenting the work’s classic version choreographed by Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky, in a production directed by Jaroslav Slavický, long-time soloist of the Prague National Theatre ballet company and currently the head of the City of Prague Dance Conservatory.

Premiere: Feb 16, 2012