Leading dancers from across the Russias, along with stars of the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets, perform this ballet based on the classic Cervantes novel about errant knight so taken with chivalry that he detours into the fantastical, together with his companion Sancho Panza.

Background:
The Russian National Ballet Theatre was founded in Moscow during the transitional period of Perestroika in the late 1980s, when many of the great dancers and choreographers of the Soviet Union's ballet institutions were exercising their new-found creative freedom by starting new, vibrant companies dedicated not only to the timeless tradition of classical Russian Ballet but to invigorate this tradition as the Russians began to accept new developments in the dance from around the world.

The company, then titled the Soviet National Ballet, was founded by and incorporated graduates from the great Russian choreographic schools of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Perm. The principal dancers of the company came from the upper ranks of the great ballet companies and academies of Russia, and the companies of Riga, Kiev and even Warsaw. Today, the Russian National Ballet Theatre is its own institution, with over 50 dancers of singular instruction and vast experience, many of whom have been with the company since its inception.

In 1994, the legendary Bolshoi principal dancer Sergei Radchenko was selected by Presidential decree to assume the first permanent artistic directorship of the company. Mr. Radchenko is the founder and also artistic director of the Moscow Festival Ballet, and he has focused the two companies in slightly different directions, the Moscow Festival company undertaking vast international touring and commissioning modern works and new productions of full-length ballets. The Russian National Ballet Theatre, as its name implies, has focused under Mr. Radchenko on upholding the grand national tradition of the major Russian ballet works and developing new talents throughout Russia, with a repertory of virtually all of the great full works of Petipa: Don Quixote, La Bayadere, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Raymonda, Paquita, Coppelia and La Sylphide, as well as productions of, among others, The Nutcracker, Sylvia, and La Fille Mal Gardee.

Link to synopsis of Don Quixote: http://www.life.com/Life/essay/paloma/donquixote.html