With the premiere of Don Quixote the theatre celebrates the anniversary of one of the most popular ballets in history. 150 years ago Marius Petipa created this ballet-capriccio, the ballet-festival based on the Spanish theme: after spending three years in Madrid at the beginning of his career he thoroughly studied local customs and dances. The characters of the ballet are barber Basilio — the ballet twin of Figaro — and the inn-keeper's daughter Kitri, who celebrate the wedding after a series of merry predicaments. So what has Don Quixote to do with it? The knight was invited to bless the lovers and tell a few stories before the wedding, for example, about how he fought with the mills.
In 1900, Alexander Gorsky created a new version of the ballet based on the Petipa's ballet, and it became the basis for all the Don Quixote ballets in the world. For the Ural Ballet Gorsky's production was renewed by a connoisseur of historical choreography Yuri Burlaka, and the production directors used the original sketches by the great Russian painters Konstantin Korovin and Alexander Golovin.
