Don Quixote wanders on the stage of the Opera

(story to be published in tomorrow’s issue, March 10)

Tomorrow night starting at 18.30, the premiere of the ballet show “Don Quixote” is set at the Romanian Opera. The show is made with the music of Ludwig Minkus. Both the directing and the choreography of the play are signed by Mihai Babusca. The show features a few dance elements belonging to the “parents of contemporary choreography,” Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky. The fruit of the fervent mind of Spanish writer Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra, Don Quixote, the wandering knight, fighting the windmills, always accompanied by his trusty and chubby servant Sancho Panza, become for the 20th century the symbol of human condition and the artist’s status. The arts were most interested in the subject and some of the many shows related to the item at hand are quite fascinating. The “Don Quixote” ballet was set for the first time on the stage of the Balsoi Theatre in Moscow in December 1869. The leading parts were played by two legends of the Russian theatre: Anna Sobeshenskaya (Kitri) and Sergei Sokolov (Basil). Tomorrow’s show will feature Adrian Fadeev, soloist of the Kirov Theatre in Sankt Petersburg. He will be, for a night, the partner of ballet dancers Corina Dumitrescu, Cristina Uta, Alin Gheorghiu, Ion Dumitrescu, Loredana Salaoru, Laura Blica, Antonel Oprescu, Mihai Fotescu, atefan Soare and Oana Popescu. The version of the Romanian Opera respects the structure of the shows that were conceived at the end of the last century by Petipa and Gorsky even though Mihai Babusca managed to introduce some modernist elements in the setting. “The show I made is rather different from the others by the fact that I brought in some “troops movements” on the stage. I abode by no law of scene symmetry.” Lucian Anca conducts the music for the show. Ludwig Minkus composed for Marius Petipa music for other ballets as well: “Baiadera”, “The Golden Fish” and “Snow Lady”, that were received very well by classic dance lovers.