Bolshoi Don Quixote reviews Bolshoi Performances? Nina Ananiashvili Web Site

DonQ is from 1869 and is Petipa learning his stage craft - nothing too complex here. It's his earliest surviving full length work and was actually created for the Bolshoi, indeed it's the only major work that was not premiered by St Petersburg first.

Not that this means the Bolshoi version is particularly more faithful to the original than any other. It's been "got at" several times since the turn of the century. Sadly Petipa was very out of fashion when he was old and even while he was still alive DonQ seems to have been revised twice and made more 'naturalistic'. Hard to imagine such a thing happening now. Whatever, we will never know what Petipa's original DonQ was like.

The famous fireworks of course survive and for that we should all be very thankful. Certainly nobody would go for the moving plot, in reality less about Don Quixote and more about a tavern landlord's daughter (Kitri) and her barber lover (Basil or Basilio). Somehow these days you can't really imagine any choreographer giving the male lead to a hairdresser (correction - well possibly William Tuckett would!). Along the way we have Toreadors, a street dancer, Gypsies, Dryads (wood nymphs to you) and a rich idiot suitor called Gamache. All good fun and enabling the Bolshoi to push their chests out and be wickedly proud - Spanish even!

The designs and costumes are worth a special mention for being so good - quite the best of the Russian designs we have seen this season. The costumes are actually based on some 1903 version when the Bolshoi revived the piece. This was the time of Faberge when Russia was very much part of 'Western' design and good taste - and they look spot on. One wonders if current Moscow audiences decry them for their wild and odd nature! Not that they have particularly seen much of them since the production was only premiered in Moscow 2 weeks before the company arrived in London. (Still at least they managed to premiere at home unlike the Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty which got its first night on foreign soil, much to the chagrin of the company's loyal supporters).

The Bolshoi DonQ is by the company's artistic director - Alexei Fedeyechev - it all seems a straight telling, though if you are only used to the Royal Ballet production (originally by Baryshnikov for ABT I think) there are some differences in what happens when. It's a longer production, but the differences are of no particular consequence and I think I got bored for all of a nanosecond.

I must be especially sympathetic to DonQ because I don't think I've ever come away from any production feeling other than happier then when I went in. But this was special, the first DonQ and Nina Ananiashvili was dancing.

We had all been astounded by her Raymonda and this was just another night of bliss - one that has gone into my top five (or so) best performances ever seen. I can't believe that dancing can come any better. Imperfections that you never really knew were there go when she dances. Every movement has the most breathtaking clarity and looks so fresh, like you have never really seen it done properly before. And of course she can really dazzle in the dazzling bits like the fouettees. She turns so, so, fast.

Given she guests with companies, and did with the Royal Ballet some 6 years ago, somebody should ensure that we see more of her in the UK.

Her Basil was Andrei Uvarov. We had seen him earlier as Spartacus, a tall classical dancer and excellent partner with an air not unlike Jonathan Cope. He is a new partner and is perhaps a little tall for Nina, so it will take a few performances for them to mesh perfectly. But they put on a marvellous show and if my words are a little guarded remember we are talking of performances at the very highest of levels. You go months and years without seeing dance this good.

Again the quality of soloists and support dancing was excellent, the only thing I missed was Stephen Jeffries, or Stephen Wicks, as Gamache - far more colourful, human interpretations of the old lounge lizard. And I missed Nicola Roberts' Cupid (amongst the Dryads). I guess one always tries to assemble a perfect cast - we can't stop ourselves - but the Bolshoi Don Quixote is a gorgeous beast, inhabited by fine dancers, the best designs and in Ananiashvili a leading lady to die for. Everybody in the world should see artistry like this.