A JUBILANT DON QUIXOTE
Recently landed: A jubilant Don Quixote
Gracia’s written response to Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote, especially for Fjord Review.
Just as the iconic 1973 film transferred stage designs to film, and the choreography “from a stage setting to a film setting [to] let the camera tell the story,”[i] The Australian Ballet have transferred the energy and humour of the film to the stage once more. As befits a company’s 60th anniversary, transplanting Rudolf Nureyev and Robert Helpmann’s Don Quixote from screen to stage 50 years later, called, of course, for a repolish of colour, as all tributes to legacy should. And so, to do justice to both anniversaries, as artistic director David Hallberg introduced, this rendition connects Nureyev’s “original stage choreography with the sets and costumes Barry Kay created for the film,”[ii] working from Kay’s unfinished sketches from the 1980s for a redesign to archival footage, and the original film set model.
This redesign and restoration, sans extras and perishables from the Queen Victoria Market, so the legend goes, is a joy. Where there was Don Quixote’s barn horse, Rocinante, spray-painted for dappled effect, we now have a life-size, rideable puppet (created and puppeteered by A Blanck Canvas), with communicative ears and ragged appearance as such a tale requires. Upon a screen, the opening credits appeared to roll, uniting this refreshed production further still to its cinematic Australian roots. Across the exquisite engravings of Gustave Doré, the cast was listed as in a film, including Don Quixote’s horse, and, in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek nature of Don Quixote, a disclaimer that no animals where harmed in this production. No matter where you pick them up—stage to screen or screen to stage—such references make you think of the other. This is, after all, in living memory for many, whether you saw the film at the time of original release or on a video frequently rewound to watch again or streamed it recently. In both, those 32 fouettés beguile in the wedding pas de deux, but foremost, it is the colourful momentum, that starts at a pace and accelerates.
[i] ‘A Little of Don Quixote’, The Australian Ballet YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR5JJW-y_CA, accessed 15th March, 2023.
[ii] David Hallberg, Artistic Director, The Australian Ballet Don Quixote 2023 Melbourne program, p. 11.
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27th of March, 2023
