Dance Review by Sarah Kaufman

IMPOSSIBLY DREAMY

Finally - a Don Quixote worthy of its legacy.

The way most ballet companies perform it, Don Quixote is a jolly excuse for bravura dancing in a vaguely Spanish style. There is usually not much story behind it, the title figure being little more than an elderly buffoon who makes an occasional appearance.

The Bolshoi Ballet’s version, performed Thursday night at the Kennedy Center Opera House, sweeps all others aside. It delivers all the electrifying dancing you could want, and leaves no doubt as to both its Spanish heritage - by way of Russian classicism - and literary origins, with its deeply touching and noble old knight woven into the festivities.

The atmosphere is roaringly lusty and celebratory, and the dancing - led at this opening by the sensational Nina Ananiashvili - is of an unparalleled intensity and brilliance. In short, this is a ballet that has sipped a few glasses of amontillado and is having a very, very good time.

Begin with the principals. Ananiashvili, as Kitri, the lively small-town girl whom Don Quixote mistakes for his idolized Dulcinea... can make your heart race, and she can make it stop - and she did both throughout the evening. Her kick is huge, and her long, curved feet are saber-sharp; she seemed to chew up the stage in a series of stabbing little marching steps on toe. Her fouettes, whipping turns on one leg, whirled at a stunning clip. In fact, everything she did was fast, fast, fast - including the diving jumps into the arms of her partner, Andrei Uvarov, in which she seemed to travel half the length of the stage in the air.

And not only did Ananiashvili throw herself into every step, but she also quite obviously fed off the thrill and shared that exuberance with the audience.

As Basil, the barber in love with Kitri, Uvarov was a foil to Ananiashvili’s fire. Tall (he seemed to have added inches since they were paired together earlier in the week in Romeo and Juliet) and slender, his dancing was airy and clear, and grew in confidence over the evening. His Basil is no playboy, no rogue, just a nice, decent guy who could be a rock for his spitfire ballerina. He never wavered as he held Ananiashvili over his head in spectacular one - arm lifts.

Don Quixote was originally choreographed for the Bolshoi in 1869 by Marius Petipa, loosely based on portions of the Cervantes novel and accompanied by Ludwig Minkus’s hearty... score. The company describes its current production as a "new choreographic version" by Artistic Director Alexei Fadeechev, based on Petipa and a later version by Alexander Gorsky. The result is a ballet of remarkable depth and dramatic interest. We start with the wistful Don Q (Andrei Sitnikov), depicted in his shadowy study, where he decides to set off on a voyage with his sidekick Sancho Panza (Alexander Petukhov). Then we are thrust into a sun-drenched afternoon in a Spanish port - beautifully described in a backdrop - where Kitri and Basil’s pyrotechnical displays are matched by vivacious village dancers, chief among them Maria Aleksandrova’s predatory street dancer. Just as the Bolshoi showed its prowess with character dancing in Romeo and Juliet, here it captivates with well-schooled Spanish dancing, deep backbends, squared shoulders, stamping feet and all.

The Bolshoi doesn’t stint on detail, from the richly colored costumes to the evocative sets. When Kitri and Basil run off to escape her disapproving father, the lantern-lit tavern they slip into is a perfectly magical romantic hideaway, where you can practically taste the wine. This is the scene for dancing of a more seductive nature, with the smoldering, castanet-wielding Maria Volodina and Yuliana Malkhasyants, who seemed to melt from her own heat...

Ultimately, this ballet had something to say about the romantic heart, as embodied by the dreamy old don, and the forceful young lovers. And it had something to say about the sheer glory of dancing, and especially about the centuries-old traditions of the Bolshoi Theater, which proved that even in today’s unmoored world, something authentic, something felt in the bones and not just picked up in rehearsal, wields enormous power.