Ballet DON QUIJOTE

Tbilisi Z Paliashvili Opera and Ballet State Theatre (Georgia)

Music Ludwig (Léon) Minkus
Stage Directors Nina Ananiashvili (artistic director of Tbilisi Z Paliashvili Ballet State Theatre) and Aleksei Fadejetshev
Set designer Vyatsheslav Okunev
Tbilisi Z Paliashvili Opera and Ballet State Theatre (Georgia)
Orchestra of The Novaya Opera Theatre of Moscow

Nina Ananiashivi who has performed and directed on the most prominent stages of the world brings the beloved ballet Don Quijote to Birgitta festival. The honor and glory of Georgia, Ananiashvili has been named as one of the best ballerinas in the world. For the first time, the production staged by Nina Ananiashvili and Alexei Fadeyechev will be performed by Tbilisi ballet artists for Estonian audiences on August 11.

Don Quijote who is enchanted by court literature invites the audience to the adventurous world where reality and fiction interweave. The protagonist meets Kitri, an inn-keeper's daughter, and mistakes her for his beloved princess Dulcinea. In a gypsy camp, he confuses the wildmills of the puppet theatre for threatening giants from whom he wants to save the puppets. Sancho Panza who has become Don Quixote's faithful esquire accompanies his master during the whole journey full of various challenges.

The ballet, flirting with Spanish sounds, is performed by soloists of Tbilisi Z. Paliashvili Opera and Ballet State Theatre in the legendary ruins of St. Bridget's Convent. Ludwig Minkus, the Austrian-Hungarian author of the one of the most well-known piece of ballet music in the world, served for years as an official composer at the imperial theatres in St. Petersburg and Moscow, thus witnessing the beginnings of classical ballet. Marius Petipa himself created the inital choreography for numerous Minkus's works, including the one being performed in this year's Birgitta festival!