One of the first signs that the pandemic would impose serious consequences on Chicago dance was when the Joffrey Ballet postponed “Don Quixote,” originally slated for late April 2020. It was to be their final performance at the Auditorium Theatre before moving to the Lyric Opera House.
That postponement would become a cancellation, followed by a rescheduled “Don Quixote” in February 2022, followed by another postponement due to spiking COVID-19 numbers last winter. So, it took a while to get here, but this wonderfully gaudy ballet is finally open and getting its due.
“Don Quixote” continues through June 12 at the Lyric Opera House.
Considered among ballet’s classics, “Don Quixote” is loosely — very, very loosely — based on Miguel de Cervantes’ epic novel of the same name. The original opened the day after Christmas in 1869, when choreographer Marius Petipa was squarely in the middle of a long career with Russia’s Imperial Ballet. Petipa’s most enduring ballets — “Sleeping Beauty,” “The Nutcracker” and “Swan Lake” — would come later. “Don Quixote” shares a formula with those later works and has all the marks of a Petipa ballet: a flimsy story, a village scene, men quibbling over who gets to marry the pretty girl, a dream sequence and a wedding, which is primarily an excuse for a grand pas de deux.
But “Don Quixote” has a distinctly different feel than Petipa’s other works. In part, that is due to its Spanish setting and Ludwig Minkus’ rousing score; the schmaltzier, more hummable ballets of Petipa’s late-career were mainly composed by Tchaikovsky. The Austrian composer Minkus, on the other hand, offers a utilitarian vehicle for unabashed, largely plotless dancing with a bit of Spanish flair slapped on. Most “Don Quixotes” are some version of Alexander Gorsky’s 1900 revival of the Petipa original. Here, Joffrey repeats its breezy two-act staging by Yuri Possokhov, well-loved when it premiered in 2011.
A sprightly youngblood named Victoria Jaiani danced the lead role as Kitri on opening night 11 years ago, as she did here with Dylan Gutierrez as her love interest Basilio, a humble barber. Considering that just five weeks ago, Gutierrez was making bunny-shaped sock puppets as the lovable Lennie Small in “Of Mice and Men,” if nothing else, “Don Quixote” is a gorgeous reminder of his, and this entire company’s incredible range. Jaiani, matured, is no less magical as the still-girlish Kitri. Tribune critic Sid Smith described her 2011 performance as “sparkling, kittenish and technically on fire.” That characterization still applies.
The lead canonical roles are best known as showy, technical displays, more often excerpted as variations than performed as a full-length ballet, which is a shame since the most lovable bits are the character roles. There’s the sillily chivalrous and naive wannabe knight-errant, Don Quixote (Miguel Angel Blanco), who drifts to sleep and embarks, bed post sword in hand, on an epic journey with his beer-bellied sidekick Sancho Panza (Derrick Agnoletti). The aforementioned Kitri is betrothed to a ridiculous aristocrat, Gamache (Fernando Duarte), who struck a deal with her father, Lorenzo (Rau’l Casasola), essentially paying for Kitri’s hand (gross).
Comedy ensues, but not before group dance after group dance swirls about the Lyric’s cavernous stage. Now the villagers dance with tambourines! Now the toreadors swing their capes around! Now a few more by Kitri’s two identically-dressed friends (Amanda Assucena and Valeria Chaykina)! How about one more duet and just a few more solos for Kitri and Basilio!
Don Quixote, Sancho and their faithful puppet horse (whose lower half is formed by two Joffrey youngsters in silver unitards) happen upon the village — a brief blip in Cervantes’ novel that takes up most, but not all, of this two-hour ballet.
For what is a ballet without a dream sequence full of fairies? After a treacherous journey through a storm that literally launches Don Quixote through the air, he and Sancho arrive safely at home. In an intoxicated fever dream, Don Quixote ascends to a mythical cloudland full of dancing dryads. By this time, he is clearly in love with Kitri too, and she appears as a fairy; Jaiani joins soloists Miu Tanaka, as a Cupid-like figure named Amore, and Gayeon Jung, Queen of the Dryads, with a corps of tutued sylphs flitting around them.
This “Don Quixote” is a fun and beautiful ballet, well-danced and, by the end, bringing audiences to their feet. But I couldn’t help feeling a somewhat flat affect throughout the evening. Minkus’ score never really jumped out of the orchestra pit. Save Jaiani and Gutierrez’s death-defying overhead lifts and the ballet’s whirling signature turn sequences, the cheesy, overwrought bravura this ballet needs from all its soloists rarely bubbled to the surface, leaving much of that work to Jaiani, Gutierrez and the comedic character roles.
I can’t figure out whether that sense of fatigue was on their end or mine; even as I write this it feels picky and trite. Better to remember how much it took to get here. When I think back to 2020 and those first devastating cancellations, it feels like a luxury to over-analyze such an evening.
More significant, perhaps, than “Don Quixote” itself is the list of era-ending departures that follow its final curtain on June 12. With Agnoletti, April Daly and Temur Suluashvili and a few others’ pending retirements — those three alone having collectively spent 60 years at the Joffrey Ballet — fewer than a handful of dancers hired by Gerald Arpino remain. While such a shift was inevitable — despite what it looks like, dancers are, in fact, mere mortals — it nonetheless is a tick on the timeline of this ever-evolving ballet company.
Review: The Joffrey Ballet’s “Don Quixote” (3.5 stars)
When: Through June 12
Where: Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive
Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Tickets: $35-$188 at 312-386-8905 and joffrey.org