ABT Gives ‘Don Quixote’ 3 Incarnations at Pavilion

Whatever “Don Quixote” looked like in 1869, when it had choreography by Marius Petipa and a score by Ludwig Minkus , it has come down to us as ballet’s oldest hodgepodge.

Petipa himself began the tradition of wholesale tinkering, and long before American Ballet Theatre’s first full-length version in 1978, the ballet filled up with dances and music the original collaborators would never have recognized. Indeed, what everyone calls “Don Q” usually exists today not as a 19th-century choreographic text but a jerry-built pretext for retailing whatever virtuoso steps the star-dancers want to perform.

Over the weekend, three Ballet Theatre casts brought to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion a graceless, often crude new staging by artistic director Kevin McKenzie and Susan Jones, one full of dumb-and-dumber comic pantomime and pumped up opportunities for both the lead couple (Kitri and Basilio) and a secondary matador and his mate.

You could also spot vagrant attempts to evoke the central quest of a certain novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and to incorporate Santo Loquasto set-pieces and costumes in use since 1978. New Loquasto sets offered such marvels as an Ottoman-style mosque in old Seville. But with such wonders on view as Paloma Herrera’s balances, Julie Kent’s lyric line and Susan Jaffe’sblend of fire and elegance, Pavilion audiences could be pardoned for not wasting time cruising the landscape.

Given its emphasis on speed and staccato attack, the role of Kitri made a perfect vehicle for Herrera--though on Friday it sometimes seemed less appropriate to applaud her than to award a numerical score. However, she suddenly assumed gracious, prima-ballerina manners in the last act and always packed so much power into every phrase that she simply took your breath away.

Opposite her, the boyish Angel Corella proved clueless as an actor and far from fully developed technically. Yes, he added magnificent multiple pirouettes every chance he could--but with cabrioles, Corella suddenly became a minimalist. And, despite their similarities in age, height, temperament and focus on fireworks, he and Herrera danced with far greater freedom separately than together.

On Saturday afternoon, Kent ventured Kitri in a full-length “Don Quixote” for the first time, looking as reluctant to speed up as Herrera had been to slow down. Gilding the choreography with a silken refinement, she even managed real tears when forced away from Basilio in Act 1 and threw herself into the mock-tragedy of the Tavern Scene with great charm.

She also met bravura challenges diligently, often relying on the superb partnering of Guillaume Graffin as Basilio. New to this production, he seemed too sophisticated for the silly hide-and-seek of the opening scenes but brought maximum heat and sensuality to the ballet even when overtaxed technically.

Arguably the sexiest, most brilliant “Don Q” came on Saturday night with a saucy Jaffe teasing a sweet Jose Manuel Carren~o into a performance infinitely more vibrant than either his Romeo with this company or his Oberon with the Royal Ballet. Of course, he won the grand prix in the 1990 International Ballet Competition in exactly this role, but from his spectacular whipping turns in the first act to the impromptu jump onstage during the curtain calls, this was dancing of very special freshness and generosity.

As for Jaffe, she had played Kitri in every Ballet Theatre production--plus the Kirov Ballet--and her experience showed in the detail of her acting and the polish of her technique. As in her performance of the previous ABT version four years ago in Costa Mesa, she brought an eerie gravity to the Vision Scene that took it beyond formula lyricism into high-Romantic glory.

Among the subsidiary dancers, nobody outclassed the impeccably stylish Maxim Belotserkovsky as the matador Espada on Friday night and, especially, Saturday afternoon. Everything from placement to rapport with his partners (the serene Christine Dunham and the tempestuous Sandra Brown) announced the arrival of a classical paragon.

On Saturday night, a sleek Kathleen Moore danced skillfully opposite the rough Espada of Ethan Brown. In the title role, Victor Barbee seemed deeply haunted by his dream of Dulcinea on Friday, while Mark Grothman made a more enigmatic and capricious knight at both Saturday performances.

Cast, for once, as an unattractive character, Graffin had fun with Gamache on Friday but Christopher Martin provided an unbeatable sense of petulance and ideal comic timing twice on Saturday. The crustiest Lorenzo of the weekend: Michael Owen. The most majestic Dryad Queen: Dunham. The fleetest, most delicate Amour: Yan Chen.

Since he arranged the musical patchwork ABT used, you’d expect Jack Everly to conduct it with authority, as he did on Friday and Saturday afternoon. But David Briskin coaxed the orchestra into genuine intensity (if not exactly burnished tone) Saturday night.