Video Reviews and News : Dance : ****Excellent ***Good **Ordinary *Poor : <i> Recent videocassette releases, reviewed by Times critics.</i>
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*** 1/2 “Don Quixote”
Kultur. $39.95.
Directed by Rudolf Nureyev and Robert Helpmann, this sumptuous, studio-filmed Australian Ballet production is longer than the familiar Baryshnikov/American Ballet Theatre version (available from Home Vision). Apart from the strange new location of the Prologue, it is also more sensitive to the form and the mixture of styles of the picaresque 19th-Century original choreographed by Marius Petipa. Shot in 1973, it boasts Helpmann’s noble performance of the title role and Nureyev at the peak of greatness as Basilio. Lucette Aldous works strenuously at the spitfire attacks required of any Kitri but, for all her technical skill, the results are not fully persuasive. Subsidiary roles are strongly danced, with Kelvin Coe as exciting an Espada as Patrick Bissell (in the ABT tape). Letterbox format, excellent sound.
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