Don Quixote
Royal Opera House

CUBAN-BRITISH ballet dancer and choreographer Carlos Acosta’s sunny and energetic staging of Don Quixote returns to the Royal Opera House a decade after it was first performed.

The baffling narrative sees the noble adventures of Don Quixote (Gary Avis) and his trusted compadre Sancho Panza (Daichi Ikarashi) more or less becoming the backdrop to a soppy love story.

But that’s okay; for whatever the ballet lacks in storytelling it more than makes up for in the sheer bravura of its dancers and Tim Hatley’s stunning set that transports you from rainy London in October to a vibrant Spanish summer.

The 19th-century ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa, see young lovers Kitri (Yasmine Naghdi) and Basilio (Matthew Ball) fall for each other as they cavort around a market square in Barcelona; there’s a wonderful sequence where a fan is put to good use as a prop with which to both repel and flirt.

But Kitri’s overbearing father Lorenzo (Christopher Saunders) has other ideas and seeks to marry her off to the narcissistic nobleman Gamache (Thomas Whitehead), who seems entirely weighed down by his own dandyish attire.

No detail is overlooked in the sumptuously designed scenes; from Don Quixote’s dusky study to the atmospheric red sun-soaked gypsies camp, while the raucous square and tavern are positively Hogarthian with so much going on one does not know where to look.

The matador Espada (Nicol Edmonds) turns up the heat with several swoops of his capote, which heralds a comical scene where Sancho Panza pretends to be a bull by running through the matadors’ capes before being tossed high into the air on a blanket. It makes no sense at all, but who cares when it’s hilarious.

Our titular hero, who is recovering after attacking a windmill he mistakes for a monster, finally gets his moment during a dream sequence in the forest and the enchanted Garden of Dulcinea. 

Here he meets the Queen of the Dryads (Mariko Sasaki), Amour (Isabella Gasparini) and his beloved heroine Dulcinea (Nadia Mullova-Barley), who each perform a series of elegant variations.

But it would be remiss not to go out with a bang. Ball and Naghdi deliver with a show-stealing pas de deux and the latter’s phenomenal fouettes. All’s well that ends well.

Don Quixote runs until November 17. Box office: 02073044000, roh.org.uk