LUDWIG MINKUS

INTERVIEW WITH ALEXEI RATMANSKY
“This ballet lets dancers show off their best qualities.”
“Maybe”, suggests Alexei Ratmansky”, Don Quichotte is such a favourite in
Russia because it’s so cold there, and this temperamental ballet has so many
‘heated’ goings-on”. From the first time he breathlessly watched the ballet,
danced by Vasiliev and Maximova, as a young ballet student, to recently
watching one performance after another as artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet,
he has never tired of Don Quichotte! And that fact alone means working on his
own version of this ballet has been a very special and challenging experience.
After creating new versions of the nineteenth-century ballet Le Corsaire
(2007) and the Soviet ballet Flames of Paris (2008) for the Bolshoi, Don
Quichotte was the next project on Ratmansky’s ‘wish list’. As he says, he
grew up with the ballet, and besides being familiar with many companies’
versions, he knows the productions of the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky Ballet
back to front. “And the interesting thing is that both companies claim
to dance the Alexander Gorsky version, yet there are many differences
between the two productions”.
For his version for the Dutch National Ballet, Ratmansky decided to return
to the origins of Don Quichotte in Russia. In other words, to the first version
created by Marius Petipa in Moscow in 1869, which was revised by Petipa
himself and also adapted twice later on by Gorsky. He had placed his hopes
in the Harvard University library, where the choreographic notations of
several nineteenth-century Russian ballets are kept (having been smuggled
out to the West by ballet régisseur Nicholas Sergeyev shortly after the
Russian Revolution). But unfortunately, Ratmansky discovered that no
written record survived of either the two Petipa versions of Don Quichotte
or those dating from 1900 and 1902 by Gorsky. However, there were some
other sources, such as the original libretto by Marius Petipa, annotated
music scores, old programmes, reviews, memoires and historical books.
“Putting all these sources together sheds some light on the subject and
clarifies here and there what was originally by Petipa, what changes Gorsky
made, and what alterations and additions were made later on. But…”,
stresses Ratmansky, “we can’t really be certain who did what and whether
the choreography of the various scenes also remained the same. The
productions of Don Quichotte that are danced today are the result of 140
years of performance history, during which each generation has changed,
That is why, says Ratmansky, the version he has made for the Dutch
National Ballet should not be seen as ‘an original choreography’, or as a
reconstruction of the original version. “We simply don’t know what was
original”. Despite several of his own additions, however, his production
remains a traditional work. “I’ve made use of all the information I’ve been
able to find, all the versions I know, and all the famous dances and steps
traditionally associated with the ballet. And using that as the basis, I make
my own decisions, with great respect for tradition”.
“Despite Tchaikovsky’s wonderful music, I can sometimes get too much of
Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty – but so long as it’s danced by the right
cast, Don Quichotte works every time”.
THE DUTCH NATIONAL BALLET
The Dutch National Ballet was founded in 1961 and has been led by artistic director
Ted Brandsen since 2003. The company has a strong international orientation and
is the largest dance company in the Netherlands, employing 80 dancers.
Since 1986, the Dutch National Ballet has been housed in The Amsterdam
Music Theatre, one of the largest and best equipped theatres in Europe.
The company gives over 70 performances a year in Amsterdam, plus at
least 25 performances in other theatres in the Netherlands and on international
tours abroad.
The majority of performances are accompanied live by the Holland Symfonia
orchestra.
ALEXEI RATMANSKY (Production and additional choreography)
Alexei Ratmansky (St. Petersburg) was trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School
in Moscow. He has danced with the Ukrainian National Ballet, the Royal
Winnipeg Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet.
He has choreographed ballets for the Mariinsky Ballet (formerly the Kirov
Ballet), the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, New York City Ballet,
American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, the State Ballet of Georgia and
the Dutch National Ballet. He received a prestigious Golden Mask Award from
the Theatre Union of Russia for Dreams of Japan (1998). In 2005, he was
awarded the Benois de la Danse prize for his production of Anna Karenina.
Ratmansky was appointed artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet in January
2004. Under his leadership, the Bolshoi Ballet was nominated ‘Best
Foreign Company’ in 2005 and 2007 by The Critics’ Circle in London,
6 added or cut things”.
who also presented him with a National Dance Award in 2006. In 2007,
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