Narrative Ballet Beyond the Need for Source

It is not often that a ballet is named after a secondary character in its scenario, particularly when that “secondary” character could not be more “primary” in the broader context of world literature. However, this was how the scenario for the ballet Don Quixote was first conceived by Marius Petipa in 1869; and that is how almost all subsequent stagings have treated Miguel de Cervantes “knight of the doleful countenance.” San Francisco Ballet (SFB) is currently performing this work in a version staged by Helgi Tomasson and Yuri Possokhov, drawing upon Alexander Gorsky’s 1900 revival of Petipa’s choreography.

Misa Kuranaga and Angelo Greco dancing the roles of Kitri and Basilio (photograph by Erik Tomasson, courtesy of SFB)

It would be churlish (not to mention inaccurate) to call the SFB production “a story ballet without a story.” However, the “core story” has little, if anything, to do with Cervantes. Kitri (danced yesterday afternoon by Wona Park) is an attractive young maiden in a Spanish village. She is in love with the local barber Basilio (Joseph Walsh); but her father, Lorenzo, is determined to marry her off to the aged nobleman Gamache. By the time the scenario has advanced to the third act, the village is celebrating the wedding of Kitri and Basilio.

Very little by way of narrative unfolds along the path to that third act. However, each episode seems to be packaged with its own corps de ballet and its own particular style for a divertimento of dances. As a result, this production serves up more imaginative dancing for its own sake than one is likely to encounter in any other story ballet. Indeed, the choreography was so imaginative and so deftly executed that there was little opportunity for attention to fret over the absence of plot. The only disappointment was that the program materials never took the trouble to call out by name all those dancers that delivered such splendid accounts of the Tomasson-Possokhov choreography.

Mind you, that abundance of choreography (not to mention diversity of costumes) filled the better part of the two-hour-and-40-minute performance (including two intermissions); but, for those enthusiastic about imaginative costumes and dancing, there is no doubt that this was time well spent.