The ballet “Don Quichotte du Trocadéro”: concerning the question of the identity of the classical ballet performance

HISTORY OF ART · ИСКУССТВОВЕДЕНИЕ · 2023

Mikhaltchenkova-Spirin Elena
Михалченкова Спирин Елена Александровна

Practice Oriented Science: UAE – RUSSIA – INDIA
Part 3 · 25 August 2023 · Pages 95–107

Purpose of the study – analysis of the ballet “Don Quixote of the Trocadéro” (“Don Quichotte du Trocadéro”), staged in 2013 at the National Theater Chaillot in Paris by choreographer José Montalvo, which received a prize at the NFTI festival in Naples as being the best foreign theatrical production. The article determines the degree of identity in relation to the original source — the academic ballet “Don Quixote” by Minkus-Petipa. The scientific novelty of the work lies to the fact that the author of the article outlines the general main approaches resulting the relationship of “ballet-reference” of the classical production, which is part of the golden fund of the classical choreographic heritage, and the “updated” production of the present time of the academic performance. Thus, in the ballet “Don Quixote of Trocadero” is going on a complete transformation of the classical original and at the same time it retains a connection with the original source. The study is carried out on the basis of determining the universal constants of a ballet performance and the degree of their modifications. Attention is paid to the aesthetics of “metissage” at all levels of the production, which in the choreography is manifested in the coexistence of the urban dances of today’s Paris with world ballet classics. As a result of the study, which is also carried out through an interdisciplinary approach with the involvement of literary studies on the French medieval theater, the ballet “Don Quixote of Trocadero” can be defined as a ballet-farce staged in the traditions of the democratization of culture inherent in the theater of Chaillot, and manifesting the trends of the 21st century ballet in connections with the heritage of choreographic culture.