Don Quixote is a ballet in four acts and eight scenes, based on episodes taken from the famous novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus and first presented by the Ballet of the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow, Russia on 26 December [O.S. 14 December] 1869. Petipa and Minkus revised the ballet into a far more expanded and elaborated edition in five acts and eleven scenes for the Imperial Ballet, first presented on 21 November 1871 at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre of St. Petersburg.

All modern productions of the Petipa/Minkus ballet are derived from the version staged by Alexander Gorsky for the Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow in 1900, a production the ballet master staged for the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg in 1902.

History
Earlier versions

The two chapters of the novel that the ballet is mostly based on were first adapted for the ballet in 1740 by Franz Hilverding in Vienna, Austria. In 1768, Jean Georges Noverre mounted a new version of Don Quixote in Vienna to the music of Josef Starzer, a production that appears to have been a revival of the original by Hilverding.

Charles Didelot, known today as the "father of Russian Ballet," staged a two-act version of Don Quixote in St. Petersburg for the Imperial Ballet in 1808. In 1809 a version of the work was mounted at Her Majesty's Theatre by James Harvey D'Egville. Paul Taglioni (brother of Marie Taglioni) presented his own version of Don Quixote for the Berlin Court Opera Ballet in 1839, and his uncle, Salvatore Taglioni, set a production at the Teatro Regio, in Turin, in 1843.

Marius Petipa's original production and revival
The most famous and enduring ballet adaptation was created by the choreographer Marius Petipa, unrivalled Maître de Ballet of the Tsar's Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, and the composer Ludwig Minkus. By special commission, Petipa mounted the work for the Ballet of the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. The production premiered on 26 December [O.S. 14 December] 1869 to great success.

Petipa then restaged the ballet in a far more opulent and grandiose production for the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet on 21 November [O.S. 9 November] 1871. This new production consisted of five acts (eleven episodes, a prologue, and an epilogue) and used the same designs as the first production.

Alexander Gorsky's revivals
Alexander Gorsky presented his revival of the ballet for the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre on 19 December [O.S. 6 December] 1900, a production that he then staged for the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, premiering 2 February [O.S. 20 January] 1902.

For his productions of 1900 and 1902 Gorsky interpolated new dances. For his 1900 production, he added new dances to music by Anton Simon – a variation for the Queen of the Dryads, and a dance for her mistresses, as well as an additional Spanish dance for the last scene. When he staged the production in St. Petersburg in 1902, the composer Riccardo Drigo composed two new variations for Mathilde Kschessinskaya, who danced Kitri/Dulcinea – the famous Variation of Kitri with the fan for the ballet's final pas de deux, and the Variation of Kitri as Dulcinea for the scene of Don Quixote's dream (these variations are still retained in modern productions and are often erroneously credited to Minkus).

It is widely believed that Gorsky interpolated the Grand Pas des toréadors from the 1881 Petipa/Minkus ballet Zoraiya, a piece that is still included in modern productions of Don Quixote. However, this piece was already in Don Quixote by the time Gorsky came to revive it as it was found published in the ballet score in 1882. Therefore, the likelihood is that it was actually Petipa himself who interpolated the Grand Pas des toréadors in Don Quixote.

Gorsky's 1902 revival was not well received in St Petersburg, causing shock among both Petipa and the balletomanes, who claimed that the production was a mutilation of Petipa's original masterpiece by one of his former students and dancers.

The ballet lived on in Russia well after the revolution of 1917, whereas many other ballets ceased to be performed into the Soviet period. In fact, it became part of the permanent repertoire both of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre (the most famous productions being those of Rostislav Zakharov and Kasyan Goleizovsky in 1940, which included new music by Vassily Soloviev-Sedoy) and the Leningrad Kirov Theatre (which saw productions by Fyodor Lopukhov in 1923, with new choreography for the fandango, and by Pyotr Gusev in 1946, with the scenario modified by Yuri Slonomsky and with new dances introduced by Nina Anisimova).