Minkus, Mirth and Merry Making
"Don Quixote"
San Francisco Ballet
War Memorial Opera House
San Francisco, CA
January 25, 2019
Everyone should see “Don Quixote” at least once. After all, comic ballets are more than rare. Especially if it’s as fine a production as the San Francisco Ballet’s 2003 version (mostly) by Helgi Tomasson and Yuri Possokov. Much of the dancing is spectacular, much of the Minkus score definitely less so. “Don Quixote” is also fine ensemble work, offering welcome opportunities for Kitri’s friends (Julia Rowe and Isabella DeVivo, excellent throughout ); a fierce Gypsy Queen (Kimberly Marie Oliver) and a delightful Cupid (feathery Norika Matsuyama). It’s the kind of entertainment that the 1869 Moscow audience wanted and appreciated. Though we have little of the original choreography, SFB’s version fulfills similar expectations. Still, such unremitting cheerfulness is tiring to watch even though rarely do these dancers receive such enthusiastic feedback through the evening long and during the curtain calls.
Today Mathilde Froustey just may be SFB’s most elegant and refined dancer. Her Kitri was spectacular in allegro, with knife-short staccatos, travelling pirouettes, back-kicks just about to her head and cambrés to the floor. There is charm, wit and such fine épaulement to her dancing; what I missed was a dose of earthiness and spunk. Greek-God handsome Angelo Greco’s Basilio has speed, height — and he makes sure that we notice it — and rock-solid one-handed lifts. So what if some of his whipping turns and descents could have better tighter. Charming in his partnering, in the variations he sometimes just stepped out of character. This production added a tender, non-Minkus Pas de Deux to the gypsy scene. It was one these two dancers’ finest moments. You believed that they were in love.
The opening cast also had a superb Jennifer Stahl’s Mercedes with long lines, assertive strides and floor-caressing cambrés. She was, however, not ideally paired with Daniel Deivison-Oliveira’s properly macho and cape-swinging Espada, but what a dour characterization. His cohorts showed plenty of attitude, though somewhat less military precision.
“Minor” parts — there really is no such thing — contributed their share to this colorful tapestry. Super-tall Jim Sohm’s Don is a poetic dreamer, a little moon-struck but not a fool, blessed with a scene-stealing roly-poly Sancho Panza (Pascale Molat). However, this duo was just about upstaged by corps member Alexandre Cagnat’s premiere performance as the ever-so French, foppish Gamache. What a showman!
A bouquet also belongs to Anita Paciotti, Ballet Master and character dancer extraordinaire, who joined the company fifty years ago. These days she is everyone’s mother from “Nutcracker” to “Giselle” to “Salome” and “Don Quixote.” May she age gracefully for years to come.
copyright © 2019 by Rita Felciano
