Don Q Behind the Scenes: An Interview with Principal Dancer Maria Chapman




PNB principal dancer Maria Chapman as Mercedes in Alexei Ratmansky's Don Quixote.
Photo © Angela Sterling.

 
What role(s) are you learning for Don Quixote? Have you danced in other Don Quixote productions before?
This will be my first production of Don Quixote, and I am learning two roles; Mercedes and the Queen of the Dryads. Mercedes is a sassy street dancer, and she enjoys showing off by dancing around the bullfighters’ knives. The Queen of the Dryads is a beautiful nymph who appears in Don Quixote’s dream, in Act 2.


What are you excited about for this premiere of Don Quixote?
I am excited to work with Alexei Ratmansky again. I enjoyed working with him briefly on Concerto DSCH last season, and I look forward to spending more time with him working on Don Quixote.


How long have you been rehearsing for this production?
I rehearsed Don Q for a couple of weeks in August, and we rehearsed for a few weeks in December, in addition to performing the Nutcracker. Now that it is January, we'll concentrate fully on Don Q as we ramp up for the February performances.

What has the process been like, learning this ballet?
Learning the new production of Don Q has been fun because many wonderful guest stagers have visited Seattle to teach us the choreography.

What preparations do you do, outside of rehearsals, to prepare for new roles and/or performances?
When I am learning a new role, I study videos of dancers performing the roles I am learning. I can look up a lot of these clips on YouTube to see how dancers all over the world dance my roles. As always, I spend a lot of time prepping my pointe shoes!

Pacific Norhtwest Ballet Presents
Don Quixote at McCaw Hall
February 3-12, 2012
TICKETS: 206.441.2424 or www.pnb.org

The Story of Don Quixote-Act 3



Photo courtesy Dutch National Ballet

© Angela Sterling.

 Act Three, Scene 1



Kitri and Basilio are enjoying themselves with Espada, Mercedes, and a group of friends in a tavern filled with gypsies, bullfighters, and other high-spirited folk. Kitri thinks she has escaped her forced marriage to Gamache. Unfortunately, it is not so easy, as her father and his followers manage to find them this time. The lovers hide, but Kitri is found and taken home.




PNB principal dancers Rachel Foster
and Seth Orza © Angela Sterling.



Act Three, Scene 2


But then Basilio appears and stabs himself because his heart is broken. Kitri realizes straightaway that he has only pretended to kill himself. Supposedly broken-hearted, she begs Don Quixote to persuade Lorenzo to give his blessing to her and the dead Basilio. After all, she can still marry Gamache afterwards, as a widow. But as soon as the blessing has been given, Basilio jumps up. He has fooled everyone. Gamache is furious and challenges the Don to a duel. But neither of them can fight, and Lorenzo becomes reconciled to his fate. And while the wedding of Kitri and Basilio is being celebrated, the Don and his squire go off in search of new adventures. (Story courtesy Dutch National Ballet).



Don Quixote at PNB
Feb. 3-12, 2012 at McCaw Hall
TICKETS: 206.441.2424 or http://www.pnb.org/

Don Q Behind the Scenes: An Interview with Music Director Emil de Cou

How many orchestra members are in the PNB Orchestra?
It varies from program to program.  For Don Quixote, we’ll have 62-64 musicians.  It’s a pretty big symphony orchestra.  When you come to the show, it’s always fun to come and look in {the pit} because there are a lot of people down there that you don’t really see during the performance.  The fun thing with Don Quixote is that it’s like doing a live Hollywood film.  You have all the elements of a movie—a storyline, soundtrack, costumes, lights, set, actors—but it’s done live every night.

What preparations will the PNB music department undertake for the premiere of Don Q?
For me, I get the score in advance and I go to the studio during piano rehearsals. We have 3 company pianists on staff. They have to practice the music at home, and it’s a new ballet so they’ll also get a DVD of the ballet to study and make annotations about the dance steps on their score.  Then they go to the first rehearsal, and I sit by the piano and conduct the piano.

The orchestra musicians will get the score a month in advance and practice their parts at home. We only have 6 hours of orchestra rehearsal, and it’s a whole evening of music so that’s not that much time.  Then we have 3 hours of time with a stage rehearsal and then we have opening night.  So, it’s a pretty quick process with the orchestra. 

So the orchestra has 6 hours alone?
Yes, then three hours with the dancers for dress rehearsal.  So, we’ll probably run it straight through and then do notes either after each act or at the very end.  We might have 45 minutes left over to rehearse things, and whatever Peter [Boal] wants to rehearse.

That’s not much time at all.
It’s not!  That’s why you have to be really prepared in advance. People think rehearsals are where you learn the music.  But rehearsals are where you know the music and you rehearse the musical part of it, not the note part.

How much time will orchestra members spend at home rehearsing?
It depends on the instrument. The first violins play most of the music and most of the melody, also the woodwinds, flutes, and oboes have more melodic music so it’s harder for them. They could spend anywhere between 2-4 hours practicing their parts in advance.  Not all of it is hard, so you focus on the parts that are the most demanding. 

Is it different because it’s a premiere?
I go to more rehearsals than I would otherwise because it’s not just new to me; it’s new to the dancers too.  Alexei Ratmansky was here for rehearsals in December, and I went to all them because it’s his ballet.  It’s very interestingwatching him work with our dancers.  He’s very, very detailed. He stops a lot but it’s always really encouraging and very kind, positive, and upbeat. It’s his ballet and you also want to get his point of view—why he’s doing this, how he develops the characters and what the characters are supposed to feel.  It has a subtle influence, but an important influence, on how you look at music. 

Did he have specific tempo requests?
He does; he likes it fast. I’m used to following the dancers incredibly closely, and was trained to watch the dancers and follow every step.  In this version {Alexi} wants the music to lead and to go quickly.  I have to divorce myself from just following toe shoes and waiting for someone to balance and then catch up.  It’s about showmanship too, but it’s more about storytelling. 

Have you conducted this score before?
I have conducted two other productions of Don Quixote. It’s always different.  The famous dance parts are pretty much the same, but every version of this ballet puts it in different order or adds some other pieces, take other pieces out.  It’s not like Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty where it’s pretty much standard and the music is left alone. Don Q is really more like a film score than it is a symphony.  Tchaikovsky ballets are more like a symphony. Stravinsky’s Petruschka or Firebird are more like a tone poem.  This is more like a film underscoring or like a musical.  Like with a production of Carousel or Sound of Music, people take things out and move things around a little bit to make it your own.  This will be new for me because I’ve never done this particular production.

What is the hallmark of the Don Q score?  What comes to mind when you think of the score?
It’s very Spanish.  It sounds like one of the great Spanish composers.  Which is funny, because Minkus was an Austrian living in Russsia.  He was writing music to sound purposefully exotic.  Because in the mid 1800’s in Russia, to have a ballet about Don Q set in Spain, it was very exotic because people couldn’t travel that far.

What is like having the dancers play instruments on stage?
Well, it’s tricky because we have some of the same instruments in the pit.  It’s really hard to dance and play the castanets; it’s hard to play the castanets period. For the dancers, the castanets are two pieces of wood cupped in your hand and you hit them in your hand.  Castanets in orchestras are taken apart.  They’re dissected and the two parts are there suspended above about an inch {side by side} and they’re hit on metal. When Kitri comes on stage she has to run, think of her steps, and jump and do all of this crazy stuff, AND play the castanets.  So, what we will do is play the castanets with her in the pit, just in case she misses a beat.   

One of my favorite parts of Don Quixote is in the 3^rd act, when Basilio lifts Kitri with one hand and holds her in the air sideways while she’s holding a tambourine.  And, she’s supposed to shake it really, really loud because the music has a pause.  It’s really hard to shake a tambourine when you’re being held 20 feet in the air by a guy with one hand, and you don’t want to fall.  So, we’ll double the tambourine there so she doesn’t have to do all the work.  She’ll play too; the dancers have very good rythm--they have to.

The Story of Don Quixote-Act 2

Production photos courtesy of Dutch National Ballet © Angala Sterling.

Act 2, Scene 1
On a plateau in the mountains, a troupe of traveling actors has set up camp. Kitri and Basilio appear and ask the actors to help them escape. While the group performs, Kitri and Basilio put on costumes and join in. When Lorenzo and Gamache arrive at the camp, they are told Kitri and Basilio have left and are pointed in the opposite direction. Their departure is followed by the arrival of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The Don watches the performances and sees the characters in the play as real; however, he does not realize that Kitri is part of the performance. When he sees the princess is being beset by the devil, he destroys the whole camp. Everyone leaves except for a battered Don Quixote, attended to by Sancho Panza. The dazed Don thinks the windmills on the plateau are monsters and he sees Dulcinea in the moon.

Production photos courtesy of Dutch National Ballet © Angala Sterling.

Act 2, Scene 2
At night, Don Quixote is plagued by dreams. Gradually his nightmare turns into a heavenly vision. He dreams of seductive wood nymphs and charming cherubs. And the radiant central figure in all this bliss is his Dulcinea. As the Don has saved her and vanquished the monsters, the queen of the wood nymphs crowns him with a laurel wreath. Sancho Panza appears and tries to revive his master with wine. When the Don finally wakes up, Sancho Panza, Joanna, and Carasco take him back to his home.

Don Quixote at Pacific Northwest Ballet

February 3-12, 2012 at McCaw Hall
TICKETS: 206.441.2424 or http://www.pnb.org/

Don Q Behind the Scenes: An Interview with Larae Hascall, Costume Shop Manger

Q: How large is the production? In comparison to other ballets in our repertory?

There are about 300 costumes, but many of them are duplicates. [Dutch National Ballet] had more people on stage than we will. They also built a lot of extra costumes, some of which haven’t been worn yet. It is a big, complicated show. I think it a lot of ways it’s equal in size to Sleeping Beauty, but not in complexity. We also know Sleeping Beauty, and we don’t know this one, so it seems huge.

Some things are fairly simple, like the Seguidillas. They have a blouse and a skirt, and accessories. So, they have many pieces, and they take a piece off for the first act, and add something for the 3rd act. We’ll have really tight casting, so there won’t be a lot of changes.

Q: How did we get the costumes?
They were shipped. The first shipment came in the summer along with many of the props. They came by ship from Amsterdam and we got over 80 boxes. They’re different sizes, and some of them are huge. The contract was that we had the Dutch National Ballet wardrobe supervisor come over for our first fittings. When we opened the boxes, he was here to help explain what things were, show us how they work, and help with the first fittings. We did a week of fittings with him and we tried to do one of everything. Then we put everything away. Now we’re going through and having fitting with dancers and learning the costumes. I knew I couldn’t do it all on my own, so Pauline Smith (First Hand) has been assigned early on to learn this show.

Whenever we have a rental, we take basic measurements of the costumes so you have a place to start—that skirt will be too short for that dancer or that waist won’t fit. So we can go to rack and have an idea of where to start with the dancers. That’s been working so far.

Q: How many staff members will work on this production?
In the shop, everyone will work on it—12 or 13 of us. Then, we’re hiring a specialty wig and makeup crew of 9 people for each show, including someone for the children’s hair. We don’t know how many dressers we’re going to need yet; we haven’t counted. Nutcracker uses 13 dressers and 2-3 maintenance on every show. So, it’s going to be around 25 people in the theater for each show of Don Q. It’s a lot, it’s a big show. Sleeping Beauty is close to this- huge dressing crew, huge maintenance crew, and a wig crew of 6. So, it’s kind of like a SB. It’s a monster—but bigger!

Q: What happens after the show? 
We have on day to clean everything that’s washable and put it back in the boxes and send it back. They will do the dry cleaning and charge us for it, which is standard for costume rentals. We also have to restore any major alterations we’ve done. We’ll feel like we’re done with the show on Sunday, but we’ll have a full day’s work to get it back in the boxes to ship on Tuesday.

We got the shipment in July and opened the boxes in August. We haven’t gotten the wigs yet and we have a few other extra costumes coming soon. We did a lot in the summer and then put it away. Pauline’s been continuing to work on it, and we’ve had to order shoes ahead of time.

When they first stared rehearsals, Pat Stovall (Men’s Wardrobe) and I made rehearsal capes. They didn’t want us to use the real capes. We unpacked a real cape, Pat made a pattern off it, and we didn’t have any to make them so I did!

Q: Anything else?
We’re pretty excited. I think it’s going to be fun and beautiful. And maybe it won’t be as hard as we think. I mean, some people look at what we do with our Nutcracker. It’s a hard show. It’s a complicated show. And I know it is, but at the same time I know it really well so it doesn’t seem that bad. So that’s what I expect with this, we’ll really get it and then we’ll have to send it back.

Don Quixote at Pacific Northwest Ballet

February 3-12, 2012
TICKETS: 206.441.2424 or http://www.pnb.org/

Click here to watch the Don Quixote trailer.
Click here to watch a the photoshoot webcast.

The Story of Don Quixote-Act 1

Principal dancer Batkhurel Bold with Company dancers.
Photo © Angela Sterling.

Act One, Scene 1

In Don Quixote’s study, his niece Joanna is talking to Carasco, his servant. They are worried about the Don, who is slowly but surely being driven mad by all his reading. They therefore decide to hide the Don’s books.

Meanwhile, Don Quixote comes into the study, totally absorbed in his umpteenth novel about knights in armor. He identifies with the knights who roamed the world long before his time and fought for a lady’s honor at tournaments. He discovers that his books have disappeared, which he believes to be the work of an angry archenemy. In his imagination, he wages battle against this enemy. There, he sees the beautiful Dulcinea, who is held captive by monsters and is crying for help. Don Quixote imagines rescuing her.


Suddenly, the household is startled by a loud noise. It is coming from a group of women chasing a yokel who has stolen a cockerel from them at the market. The irritated Don doesn’t understand what they want and sends them away. Then he discovers the thief, Sancho Panza, who has crawled in through the window during his escape. In Sancho Panza, the Don sees the squire he needs so badly as a prospective knight errant. And together, the “knight” and his squire set off into the wide world.

Principal dancer Maria Chapman with Company dancers.
Photo © Angela Sterling.

Act One, Scene 2


A huge crowd is milling around on a square in Barcelona. Kitri, the daughter of the innkeeper Lorenzo, is having fun with her friends, Juanita and Piccilia, and flirting with the young barber Basilio. The couple is in love, but Kitri’s father won’t hear of their marriage. He wants his daughter to marry a rich suitor, the rather ridiculous Gamache, who lives opposite the inn. But Kitri ignores his advances and, to her father’s fury, haughtily rejects him.


As it is a public holiday, there are performances on the square. First comes Mercedes, a street dancer, followed by a group of bullfighters, including the famous torero Espada, who swing their capes and dance bullfighting scenes. Then two strange-looking characters arrive: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. While the latter is teased and taunted by the women on the square, Don Quixote is overwhelmed by the beauty of Kitri, in whom he recognizes his dream woman Dulcinea. To make Basilio jealous, she plays up to the Don’s advances. But when the square erupts in commotion because Sancho Panza has stolen food again, she and Basilio seize their chance to escape together, hotly pursued by Lorenzo and Gamache.

Don Quixote at Pacific Northwest Ballet

February 3-12, 2012 at McCaw Hall
TICKETS: 206.441.2424 or http://www.pnb.org/

Don Q Behind the Scenes: An Interview with Norbert Herriges, PNB's Technical Director



Norbert Herriges.
Photo © Angela Sterling.

Q: How large is this production of Don Quixote in terms of sets, backdrops, props, etc.?
A: The sets and props filled seven 40’ high cube containers; costumes filled another container. These are the large containers that you see at the port coming in on ocean-going ships. For most of our story ballets the stage is set to create between 1700-1800 square feet of dancing space. Don Quixote is so expansive that there will be 2200 square feet of dancing space. There was more lumber and building material used to construct this ballet than Coppelia, Cinderella, and The Sleeping Beauty combined.The set and costumes together has been said to be of a value of $3,000,000.



Q: What considerations will be made in order to recreate the production at McCaw Hall?

A: We normally set the stage to 50’ wide. For Don Quixote we will open it up to 52’. For this production that is small, however, it will be set to that size due to the limits of our stage. Considering its size and multiplying that with the fact that it is new to us will make mounting the show challenging to say the least. Many more theatre hours will be required than usual.

 

Q: How did the scenic elements arrive at PNB?

A: Last July the props and costumes arrived in two of the 40’ containers. These arrived early because alterations had to be made to costumes. The props were needed for early rehearsals that were held in July and August.The set arrived in the remaining six containers at the end of November to McCaw Hall. This was scheduled so that some of the set could be assembled early to eliminate the need to do everything during January.



Q: How much time will be needed to prepare the production?

A: We have been preparing for Don Quixote on and off since last July.

Q: How many staff members/technicians will work on Don Quixote?

A: A total of 60 different people will have worked on the technical aspects of the production, including production staff, crew, and designers. Approximately 52 production staff and technicians will load it in to McCaw Hall; 3 staff members from Dutch National Ballet will assist with load in and technical rehearsals; 34 crew members will work during the performances.

Q: Anything else you’d like to share about the production?

A: I will be excited to open it!



The Tavern - Act III



Pacific Northwest Ballet is honored to present the American Premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s spectacular, full-length Don Quixote. The largest production ever presented in PNB’s history, Don Q runs from February 3 through 12, 2012 at Seattle Center’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Tickets start at $28 and may be purchased by calling 206.441.2424, in person at the PNB Box Office at 301 Mercer Street, or online at www.pnb.org.