Ballet Don Quixote

Marius Petipa was born in Marseille, France in 1818 moved to St. Petersburg in 1847 from Italy and died in Gurzuf Ukraine in 1910. He worked for nearly 60 years at the Mariinsky bailiwick in St. Petersburg and had a profound influence on recent true Russian concert trip the light fantastic toe. He directed many of the greatest artists in Russian concert leap and developed concert springs that retain an important position in Russian dance repertoire.After Marius Petipas debut in Nantes, France, in 1838, he danced in Belgium, France, and the get together States before accepting an engagement in Spain, where he gathered physical for ballets later produced in Russia. He established a reputation as a talented pantomime artist and unrivaled of the outstanding dancers of his day. Petipa do his initial appearance at the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre in 1847 in Paquita. For his wife, the danseuse Mariya Surovshchikova, he created Le Marche des Paris (1859 Parisian Market stage d as Le Marche des innocents, 1861).His first outstanding success was La fille du pharaon (1862 The Pharaohs Daughter). Later, after becoming choreographer in 1862 and chief choreographer in 1869, Petipa produced more than 60 ballets, working from c atomic number 18fully detailed plans that became the basis of modern classical ballet in Russia. He collaborated with Tchaikovsky on The Nutcracker (Casse Noisette, choreographed by his assistant Lev Ivanov) and The Sleeping Beauty and presented versions of Swan Lake, Raymonda, and Giselle that have been revived frequently.Among a nonher(prenominal) major ballets are his wear thin Quixote (1869), La Bayadere (1877), and Le Corsaire (1899). The composer who collaborated with Petipa in creating sham Quixote ballet was Aloisius Ludwig Minkus. His biographical information is very diverse but the most(prenominal) commonly data on his origin states that he was born in Vienna in 1826. There are opinions that he was of Polish or Czech origin . His first compositions were light euphony for dancing. His first public monstrance of ballet unison was an entracte included into a Moscow performance of Adams Orfa.In1861 Minkus worked in the Bolshoi airfield, first as violin soloist, later he became a composer of the athletic field and in 1864 he was became a ballet composer at the Bolshoi. His career in Bolshoi was interrupted by the trip to France and on returning to Russia the composer started creating ballet medicine for Petipas whole works. In 1868 Petipa made dress Quixote ballet for the Bolshoi Theater, with music undisturbed by Minkus in the same year. The ballet was a well-deserved success beingness first performed in 1869 in Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. It was fame for both Minkus and Petipa.This was set about of fruitful activity by Minkus, and in 1877 appeared one of his most successful compositions La Bayadere, Roxana or The Beauty from Montenegro in 1878 and many others. Though the ballet by Petipa on mu sic by Minkus was not the first enterprise to put the well known novel into music and dances Petipas version of presume Quixote, is considered as the standard ballet version of Cervantes story with the popular hero pas de deux. The great deal of ballet success depends on the look of this ballet which is mostly determined by Minkus music.Minkus ballet music is filled with rhythm, nix and energetic melody. Don Quixote music is often regarded as ordinary music which does not exceed the bounds of traditional co-occurrence to the dance. In fact, Don Quixote score is devoid of rich colors typical of later ballet music, it does not explore moving lyricism like Swans Lake by Tchaikovsky. We also dischargenot feel any symphonic depth or other features which are distinctive for the best ballet scores. However, this music is anomalous dancing, with deep rich rhythm and thus it helps the dance to adopt the unavoidable emotionality and vividness.Don Quixote music is dynamic and it is ve ry important for the comedy performance, it explores bouncy temper, melody and cheerful passion the features so typical for Spanish melodies. Minkus music is both the accompaniment and impulse to dance. Don Quixote is calculated as a bolshoi balet in the Soviet catalogue of Petipas works (Slonimsky 1971, 377-388). A definition of the French ballet a grand spectacle, the term is used to describe ballets that resemble nineteenth-century grand operas in their length, the complexity of their narratives, and tendency toward visual spectacle.(Scholl 1994, 4-5) Because these works dominated the Petersburg stage from the 1860s through the 1890s, and because Russian ballet had no upright competitors in Europe by the 1870s, the Petipa grand ballet has come to embody the ballet style of the late nineteenth century. Petipa, the founder of romantic dance in Russia, developed two versions of the ballet one was created specially for Bolshoi Theater and the second one was created for Mariinsk y Theater in St. Petersburg.This second version contained such(prenominal) elements like white act with its strict symmetry and the famous final examination virtuoso pas de deux. As Scholl observes, before the work was staged in St Petersburg, Peterburgskaya gazeta, the newspaper best representing local balletomane opinion, reported on the Moscow production Don Quixote was staged in Moscow in the decadent manner. As an example, several(prenominal) dances were staged so that on one side of the stage they danced one way, and on the other side, to the same music, other dances were performed. (1 September 1901), (57)Petipas master(prenominal) objections center around the primacy of dance in Don Quixote in which, scenery, and costumes were of tributary importance and respectively the music had to act only as accompaniment and incentive. Don Quixote is a successful combination of perfect and vivid dancing with emotional music. While being brisk and full of vigor the Minkus music in no way dominates the dance itself. The dancers appear before the spectators in their full advantage. As it was already stated the music was best suited for the plot related to events with hot Spanish characters.This music is distinguished by its gift to set any listener to feel like dancing. And that was, probably, why exactly Muniks music was chosen for this ballet. Minkus adored waltz and his passion for that style determined the presence of gypsies, rajahs, Spanish bullfighters, Indian temple maidens dancing to a waltz rhythm in Don Quixote ballet. Though the ballet does not have clear development of the plot it attracts the spectators by its effervescent, masterly dances sight so prolific in the ballet.The dance here serves as the innate(p) expression of the action taking place on the stage. Don Quixote heroes are not simple performers of numerous dance issues they live in their dance and express through it their thoughts and feelings. The spectator gladly forgives the bit part s active for Don Quixote and his faithful Sancho Panza and readily accepts cheerful Kitri and her friend Basilio. These two green heroes are definitely more appropriate for such vivid and impassioned music than old knight in heavy armour.Petipa displays a peculiar command of mass on the stage and the form taken by his dancing shows considerable imagination. The choreography and staging Petipa devised for the ballet were similarly ostentatious. The ballets ballabile featured 36 dancers with baskets of flowers on their heads containing children who suddenly appeared in the dances final pose. Scholl sums up Petipas choreography as the completion of the evolution of a particular type of theatrical dancing, designed to process the scenic potential of the proscenium stage.The ballets emphasis of the pitying bodys maximal legibility evolved as the Renaissance side stage was developed. (8) As consequence, the perfect combination of Petipas choreographic approach and Minkus music dev eloped into a sunny comedy with derisory elements. Petipa-Minkus ballet Don Quixote convinces the spectator that ballet is great art. Ballet can express thoughts, create harmony and an integral map of the world as any other artistic form of expression. Reference list Koegler, Horst. The compendious Oxford Dictionary of Ballet, 2nd ed.Oxford, 1982. Noble, Jeremy. Legends of the Maryinsky. Dance Magazine. Vol. 73. Issue 6. June 1999, p. 57. Scholl, Tim From Petipa to Balanchine Classical Revival and the modernisation of Ballet. New York Routledge, 1994 Sedov, Yaroslav. Inside the Bolshoi. Russian Life. Vol. 47. Issue 6. November-December 2004, p. 22 , The Museum of Ballet. Russian Life. Vol. 48. Issue 1. January-February 2005, p. 38 Slonimsky, Yuri. Marius Petipa materialy, vospominaniya, stati. Marius Petipa Materials, Reminiscences, Articles, Leningrad, 1971