The Australian Ballet’s 60th season has opened in a grand flourish, delivering a magnificent new take on one of the company’s mainstay works, Don Quixote.

Known for its patchwork of styles and indulgent levity – elements that shouldn’t endure but somehow do – the ballet has long been a repertoire staple and audience favourite. And here, in this thoroughly fresh rendering of Rudolf Nureyev’s classic, we are reminded why.

Ako Kondo and Chengwu Guo in The Australian Ballet’s Don Quixote. Photo © Rainee Lantry/The Australian Ballet

In a moment of stage-to-screen-and-back-again, this version is an adaptation of The Australian Ballet’s 1973 film of the same work, choreographed by Nureyev when he was a guest of then Artistic Director Sir Robert Helpmann.

Filmed in an empty hangar at Essendon Airport, the famous salty Spanish coastline was recreated in extravagant detail, complete with extras and live animals rounded up from the local Queen Victoria Market.

Fifty years later, fresh life has been breathed into Nureyev’s choreography, together with Barry Kay’s original set and costume designs (with updates by Richard Roberts). Rich textures and alluring detail, equally present in both the movement and design, are...