Review: Alberta Ballet shines with whimsy and charm in updated version of classic Don Quixote

Calgary Herald

03-05-2025

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Alberta Ballet artistic director Francesco Ventriglia promised that his 2025 season finale production of Don Quixote would be an 'over-the-top rainbow of colours' world premiere, and the company certainly delivered on that for opening night.
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The Jubilee Auditorium was alive with Spanish dance, fine handmade costumes, bejewelled traditional tutus and waistcoats, and replete with some pretty slick traditional ballet. While it has been a long and gruelling season for Alberta Ballet, requiring fine-tuning and upgrades of personnel throughout the year, the results Thursday night largely spoke for themselves. A young corps and an established group of veteran soloists took on the challenge of performing Ventriglia's re-imagining of Petipa's 1869 masterpiece with a lucidity and grace that blended well into often nuanced extravagance, thanks in large part to Gianluca Falaschi's eye-catching costumes and Italo Grassi's bright set designs.
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The goal of this splashy production was pure fun, and there was a lot to be had from the very start. Starting in the Act I square set in Barcelona, filled with as much local colour as we might expect to see, the ballet made its immediate impact on an attentive audience.
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We were plunged into more of a fantasy of Spain, one more likely to be dreamed out of a novel by a cheerfully dreamy Quixote pursuing his ideal love, Dulcinea. Don Quixote's character was danced and acted with a sympathy rarely found in a young Quixote by a remarkably evocative Yaroslav Khudych, who ably substituted the traditional 'old man' role for a young dreamer. I think I prefer it this way: A young Quixote off on his dream adventure, surrounded by a young dance company projecting a youthful and vibrant atmosphere. It worked well throughout and displayed more of Ventriglia's vision of the company's future for the next decade, one that restocks the pond with new talent.
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However, it is usual in Quixote to focus on the lovers Kitri and Basilio, danced with a practised aplomb by Alexandra Hughes and Aaron Anker. Their onstage romance is offset by a strong corps of supporters, sailors and fisherwomen, ladies and bridesmaids, matadors and, in Act II, some very nattily attired Romani (gypsies), who all seemed to collectively nurture the young lovers despite blocking figures Gamache and Lorenzo (Rikuto Kubota and Zachary Boresow). Through it all was the commedia dell'arte troupe led by Sancho Panza (Mirko Melandri) and assorted Friends (Hinata Takahara, Hotaru Maruyama).
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The action remained convincing throughout: It is a tricky matter to make the narrative thread of the lovers' story flow unbroken from start to finish, and often directors lose the thread through the labyrinth of so much choreography. By Act III, when we are presented with variation after variation and one pas de deux followed by a grand solo followed by the next at the wedding scene, it can feel overwhelming, but entirely in a way that ballet fans enjoy. What I appreciate about Ventriglia is his not making complexity feel like a burden, but rather conveying the simpler tone of an art that conceals art. There is more work and time poured into this production than meets the eye, and the grand ballets of Act III, which rounded out the love story with unexpected pith and welcomed nuance, brought the story full circle and to a satisfactory close.
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The hardworking corps de ballet seemed to respond well to this approach, paying fastidious attention to the choreography's avalanche of detail. And make no mistake – there is a lot of choreography throughout this show, enough for both the eye and ear to provide an aesthetic feast. Ludwig Minkus' music, so often looked down upon in ballet circles as too trite or supremely melodic at best, is certainly a mischaracterization. We do not pay adequate attention to the richness of Minkus' harmonic rhythm combined with lush orchestration.
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Quixote is a polished mid-Romantic era score. To hear Minkus is to hear and see pure colour, and it is that colour that moves a musically trained Ventriglia to design a show around the supremacy of light and hue in which both sonic colour and costume colour direct his choreographic intent.
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And yet, regardless of the sheer volume of dance this show has to offer, the centrepiece still fell squarely on Act II, featuring Quixote's shimmering dream within his fantasy: the Kingdom of Dryads, one of the most moving scenes in all of classical ballet. Here, the company was at its best, especially Luna Sasaki's ethereal Cupid, my favourite of the whole night. Alexandra Hughes was splendid again, playing her own double in the Dulcinea variation. While not quite the dreamy underworld of La Bayadère, the Act II Dryads scenes are a balm of soft light. Traditional yet restrained choreography created for each of the soloists, and especially a divine corps de ballet of 12, is quite an accomplishment for dancers and stagers alike. It led easily to the fun Tavern scene in Act III and the wedding scene's elegant joy, thanks to an excellent corps of bridesmaids and a very fine lovers' pas de deux.
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However, it was the overall feel of the ballet that gave us a lot to celebrate. Matadors and, in particular, a very fine Espada – danced and acted consummately by Caleb Durbin – blended fine staging with groove and engaging accent. Perhaps the best of all were the Fandango dancers who took balletic colour to a whole new height. The resplendent Fandango scene reminded us that music, literature, movement and merriment are the healing miracles acted out through dance to soothe our conflicts, especially those gargantuan windmills that exist within all our minds, waiting to be conquered with art.