Don Quixote Pas de Deux

This “pas de deux” is the center piece of the full length Don Quixote.

This ballet has been continuously in the repertoire of the Bolshoi Ballet since 1869, and was one of the earliest triumphs of Marius Petipa when he restaged it in St. Petersburg.

It is what the Russians fondly call “a robust comedy” having little to do with the Cervantes novel, but filled with lively Spanish dances, then the rage in Russian ballet.

First danced by the famed Sobeshanskaya, all the great ballerinas including Pavlova, Karsavina, Plisestskaya, Maximova, Kolpakova, and Gregory have performed this most famous of “pas de deux.”