Don Q was discussed by the panel on last Friday's Newsnight Extra. They were not impressed. The full programme can be found on this Realplayer link. The segment is 16'37" from the top, and lasts 6 minutes in all. It includes a short video clip and brief interview with Ross Stretton. (Note the material is on the BBC site and the link may well cease to work at some point: Ed)
The following transcript, heavily abridged, gives a flavour. It is worth listening to in full.
Philip Hensher:
This is such a depressing statement of intent. This awful piece is so dreary. It's full of the most idiotic miming. It's just such an old-fashioned awful thing, with the most awful score. I can't believe that they couldn't find anything more exciting to start with. The orchestra just plainly couldn't be bothered, and I don't blame them. The designs could have been executed 50 years ago. This was one of the most depressing, boring evenings I could have imagined spending. It gives ballet a bad name. It is very difficult to see the cultural merit of this.
Natasha Walter:
I'm pretty much with Philip. Some of the dancing here is brilliant, but there's something sad about seeing all this technical training, this virtuosity, with no art really to spring it into life. In the end, it's very hard to take this kind of thing seriously, to see it as high culture. There is something pantomime about it, and then in comes the pantomime horse.
John Carey:
One thing that ballet can't do is narrative. Why should it? It is a ludicrous way to tell stories, by jumping around. Don Quixote is a narrative of lots of short stories joined together. That said, though I think it was a failure, at least this ballet was a little less objectionable than Don Quixote, which is my least favourite classic book. At least this was just sweetness, a nonsense.
Kirsty Wark:
Was there any emotion in it for you?
John Carey:
None whatsoever, nor any intellectual content. That's the trouble. Here's this glittering audience, paying a great deal for their seats, and the intellectual content is less than a first-class football match. Much the same skills are used, and this is thought to be high culture.
Philip Hensher:
I think it's the piece, not the genre. Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Nutcracker - those are grand, serious, intelligent pieces.
Kirsty Wark:
Why would you want to have Don Quixote in your repertoire?
Philip Hensher:
This is a famously demanding part for the dancers. It is a showpiece for dancers. No-one's going to listen to the music or look at the backdrop or discuss whether she meant it when she said… You know, it's nonsense.
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