Warsaw Grand Theatre - Polish National Opera (Teatr Wielki) tickets 27 June 2024 - Don Quixote | GoComGo.com

Don Quixote

Warsaw Grand Theatre - Polish National Opera (Teatr Wielki), Warsaw, Poland
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Important Info
Type: Ballet
City: Warsaw, Poland
Starts at: 19:00
Acts: 3
Intervals: 2
Duration: 2h 40min
Cast
Performers
Conductor: Alexei Baklan
Orchestra: Orchestra of the Polish National Opera
Ballet company: Polish National Ballet
Creators
Composer: Ludwig Minkus
Choreographer: Alexei Fadeyechev
Choreography: Alexander Gorsky
Librettist: Marius Petipa
Choreography: Marius Petipa
Dramaturge: Miguel de Cervantes
Overview

In 2014 the Polish National Ballet put on a new, extremely vibrant choreographic version of Don Quixote by Russian-born and Finland-based dancer and balletmaster, Alexei Fadeyechev under the musical direction of prominent Ukrainian conductor Alexei Baklan. After a few-year hiatus, the production returns to the stage under the baton of Marta Kluczyńska.

This is one of the most important ballets brought into being by Marius Petipa, the great French choreographer who is considered the father of classical ballet. He devised Don Quixote in 1869 for the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and staged its revised version two years later at the Mariinsky in Saint Petersburg. It explores an episode from Miguel de Cervantes’s famous novel and draws on more than a hundred-year presence of the theme on European ballet stages. The score was written according to the choreographer’s instructions by Ludwig Minkus, Austrian violinist and ballet composer with long-standing links to Russia. Petipa’s work was complemented in 1900 with new sequences by Moscow-based choreographer Alexander Gorski. For this reason, they are now both listed as choreographers of the ballet.
 
Early European novel verged on loose storytelling, conjuring up a universal world encompassing the human experience as a whole. Miguel de Cervantes’s The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (1605) is simple and sophisticated at the same time: the knight-errant goes from one adventure to another in a natural and organic manner. Transferring this universe into a different art form is an impossible task but you can draw different themes from it until the end of time.  
 
Don Quixote was one of Petipa and Minkus’s most successful collaborations (as was La bayadère).  There is not, however, much in it left of the original mock-heroic epic. The choreographer, who also penned the libretto, decided to focus on a secondary motif – the twists and turns of the love life of Kitri, an innkeeper’s daughter, and Basilio, a barber. In line with the audience’s expectations and the rules of the genre which stipulated that a ballet must, first and foremost, be entertaining, Don Quixote became stunning highly amusing spectacle. The knight-errant and his servant Sancho Panza connect one visually striking scene with another, each dazzling with its display of Petipa’s choreographic ideas, the magnificent Spanish flair in the dancers’ movements, and various dance feats.

History
Premiere of this production: 26 December 1869, Ballet of the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow, Russia

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.

Venue Info

Warsaw Grand Theatre - Polish National Opera (Teatr Wielki) - Warsaw
Location   plac Teatralny 1

The Grand Theatre in Warsaw is a theatre and opera complex situated on the historic Theatre Square in central Warsaw. The Warsaw Grand Theatre is home to the Polish National Ballet and is one of the largest theatrical venues in the world.

The Theatre was built on Theatre Square between 1825 and 1833, replacing the former building of Marywil, from Polish classicist designs by the Italian architect Antonio Corazzi of Livorno, to provide a new performance venue for existing opera, ballet and drama companies active in Warsaw. The building was remodeled several times and, in the period of Poland's political eclipse from 1795 to 1918, it performed an important cultural and political role in producing many works by Polish composers and choreographers.

It was in the new theatre that Stanisław Moniuszko's two best-known operas received their premieres: the complete version of Halka (1858), and The Haunted Manor (1865). After Frédéric Chopin, Moniuszko was the greatest figure in 19th-century Polish music, for in addition to producing his own works, he was director of the Warsaw Opera from 1858 until his death in 1872.

While director of the Grand Theatre, Moniuszko composed The Countess, Verbum Nobile, The Haunted Manor and Paria, and many songs that make up 12 Polish Songbooks.

Also, under Moniuszko's direction, the wooden Summer Theatre was built close by in the Saxon Garden. Summer performances were given annually, from the repertories of the Grand and Variety (Rozmaitości) theatres. Józef Szczublewski writes that during this time, even though the country had been partitioned out of political existence by its neighbors, the theatre flourished: "the ballet roused the admiration of foreign visitors; there was no equal troupe of comedians to be found between Warsaw and Paris, and Modrzejewska was an inspiration to drama."

The theatre presented operas by Władysław Żeleński, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Karol Szymanowski and other Polish composers, as well as ballet productions designed by such choreographers as Roman Turczynowicz, Piotr Zajlich and Feliks Parnell. At the same time, the repertoire included major world opera and ballet classics, performed by the most prominent Polish and foreign singers and dancers. It was also here that the Italian choreographer Virgilius Calori produced Pan Twardowski (1874), which (in the musical arrangement first of Adolf Sonnenfeld and then of Ludomir Różycki) has for years been part of the ballet company's repertoire.

During the 1939 battle of Warsaw, the Grand Theatre was bombed and almost completely destroyed, with only the classical façade surviving. During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 the Germans shot civilians in the burnt-out ruins. The plaque to the right of the main entrance commemorates the suffering and heroism of the victims of fascism.

Important Info
Type: Ballet
City: Warsaw, Poland
Starts at: 19:00
Acts: 3
Intervals: 2
Duration: 2h 40min
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