Last week I went to the local cinema and watched the live stream of the Royal Ballet’s production of Don Quixote.
The ballet was choreographed and produced by Carlos Acosta and the leads of Kitri and Basilio were danced by Akane Takada and Alexander Campbell.
It’s a wonderfully colourful ballet with a lot of character work, bright colours, a splash of flamenco and the usual ballet pas de deux and corps de ballet dances that you would expect. The dancing was so well done and kept me engaged throughout. The matadors were great as were the dryads, in fact, it was all fantastic!
Whilst it’s nice to go to the theatre and experience the live performance, watching it on a large screen was almost better because you could really see it, something that’s not so easy when your seat is far from the stage! You get the same intervals and the added bonus of getting home within 10 minutes rather than the 2 hours it would take to get home from the Royal Opera House.
It reminded me that I had done a water-colour painting of Kitri. The painting was one of my favourites and I loved how the red flowed in the skirt. I added some real gold leaf on the skirt and across the top of the bodice.
The original painting has since been sold to a lovely lady in the US. Below is the picture and you can see more paintings here – some originals are still available and some are available only as prints.
