Terrific ballet!! | Don Quixote / Baryshnikov, Harvey, American Ballet Theatre

Make it Fifteen | Don Quixote / Baryshnikov, Harvey, American Ballet Theatre | Mikhail Baryshnikov, Cynthia Harvey

DVDs:


	• Don Quixote / Baryshnikov, Harvey, American Ballet Theatre Mikhail Baryshnikov, Cynthia Harvey Kultur Video, 2003 average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Cynthia Harvey is the STAR of this ballet

I have seen many other versions of this ballet, but Ms. Harvey is superb. She outshown Mikail Baryshnikov. She is wonderful. I fully enjoyed the ballet, but most especially her excellent performance!

Terrific ballet!!

This particular ballet is what hooked me on ballet. I had watched Swan Lake and was so bored that I fell asleep. Swan Lake reminds me of the philosophy "the Emperor has no clothes". I was ready to swear off ballet until I rented Don Quixote from my local library. I fell in love with GOOD ballet as danced by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Cynthina Harvey. They are magnificent. Now it's true, I may have only felt this way because I had been renting some really lousy ballets like Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Giselle danced by some not so terrific ballet dancers.

"Don Quixote" allows for lots of solos and duos choreographed by the world's best ballet dancer at the time. His version of Don Quixote is not one of a buffoon but a man who is mentally ill and he treats his character with great respect. I cannot find anywhere in the ballet where Mikhail show him as a buffoon. Sancho, yes, Don Quixote, no. I am in fact, right now reading the original Don Quixote. Cervantes shows Sancho as a buffoon and Don Quixote as mentally not all there. Mikhail loves to read and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he has read Cervantes and incorporated the personality of these two characters into his "Don Quixote" ballet.

If you want to see a serious ballet, then this ballet is not for you. Mikhail makes you smile if not down right laugh at times. This ballet IS Mikhail Baryshnikov. He has surrounded himself with the very talented ABT ballet dancers and choreographs dances that make you go "bravo!" He graciously brings out the very best in them and definitely gives you the impression that he enjoys dancing with them.

Ludwig Minkus is one of my favorite composers as his music is light and humable not discordant and noisy. I found myself wanting to dance to it instead of turning it off. I thought his music was wonderful but if you want serious, discordant music, then "Don Quixote" is not for you. I recommend for you "Cinderella" with music by Sergei Prokofiev. That was one horrible ballet for me. My nerves were a mess by the time I finished listening to it. It was very discordsnt.

To end this long review, if you like Mikhail Baryshnikov, you are going to thoroughly enjoy "Don Quixote". It's Mikhail at his most talented. It's not just his dancing which is terrific, but also his personality and artistic creation that shines. Well worth having for your ballet collection.

Also please don't miss "Baryshnikov Dances Sinatra". His apache type dance with Elaine Kudo is great. It makes me laugh out loud every time I watch the DVD. This DVD also contains "Push comes to Shove". A ballet written for Mikhail that shows his feelings that dancing is suppose to be fun.

Gloria Hutson

for more information click here

Make it Fifteen

At the time of writing, 14 viewers have rated this 5 stars and one lone sceptic a single star. Include me in with the former. I was anxious about buying a VHS version instead of a DVD ( money is short in the post-Christmas period ) but I need not have worried. The quality of this tape is excellent: bright vivid images and lovely colour tones. The orchestra sounds a little scrawny, but the music is so pedictable that it hardly matters, and I have heard worse on highly-rated DVDs. The entire cast dances with grace, panache, and remarkable technical skill. Baryshnikov's choreography as well as his personal performance bring our all the excitement that a top class ballet experience can provide. In addition to classical dancing of the highest order, there is much side play and tomfoolery that might otherwise prove irritating were it not for the infectious humour and enthusiasm of the participants. In two words, highly recommendable.

for more information click here

Ravishing performance!

Cynthia Harvey and Mikhail Baryshnikov became a brilliant and historical artistic couple. In what concerns to their memorable and exciting role in Don Quixote, the result was simply glamorous and overwhelming. Grace and technique were bounded with steeled commitment, additionally the musical support, choreography, make-up and custom design contributed notably to make one of the most legendary and successful versions ever seen on screen.

For all the lovers of this artistic discipline, this album is a must-have.

Mikhail Baryshnikov?s sparkling full-length production of Don Quixote captures all the excitement, Spanish color, and humor of Cervantes? original masterpiece. It is one of the most popular and joyful ballets surviving from the imperial Russian ballet?s repertory. The famous virtuosic pas de deux is danced in this performance by Baryshnikov "like a dream," according to the New York Post, "a madcap bravado which combined with his pure classicism gives his dancing an edge of genius." His partner, Cynthia Harvey, who takes the part of Kitri, was reviewed in the New York press as possessing "a clear line and splendid grace that grow more wonderful on each viewing." American Ballet Theatre was ecstatically received by the New York press for this performance. The New York Times described how "the dancers had the audience gasping," while the New York Post felt that the company had "never looked better. Dancing flows out of the Ballet with a boisterous beauty."

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

hot