The Sofia National Opera Orchestra must have this particular ballet in its active repertoire since it recorded the work a few years ago for Capriccio under a different conductor in a performance not substantially different from this one–which is to say appealing, zesty, and wholly winning. Léon Minkus isn’t anyone’s idea of a great composer, but he really knew his dance music, and his career-long collaboration with the great choreographer of the Russian Imperial Ballet, Marius Petipa, is the stuff of legends, sufficient in itself to keep his music on the international stage.
Don Quixote does, in fact, contain quite a bit of colorful, charming music, more so than the better-known La Bayadère (alive today only in John Lanchberry’s arrangement). In particular the Spanish and Gypsy dances of Act 2 offer plenty of opportunities for clever deployment of orchestral color even as they provide choreographic fireworks, and while a suite doubtless would be the best way to sample this ballet’s assorted pleasures, at Naxos’ prices you might as well get the whole thing and decide for yourself what bits strike your fancy. Good sound and good playing make this easily recommendable to balletomanes.
