Fascinated by the knight with the unfortunate physique who goes out into the world with his servant Sancho Pansa to crusade against the deplorable state of society and to perform heroic deeds, Ludwig Minkus (1826-1917) created a ballet which had a very successful premiere in the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 14 December 1869. At his side was the great French dancer and choreographer Marius Petipa (1818-1910), who was born in Vienna and worked as ballet composer at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre and at the Marientheater in St Petersburg and is considered the most important predecessor of Tschaikovsky. Our DVD presents the version choreographed by Rudolf Nurejev, which was performed in a production by the Paris opera with an outstanding cast, among whom were Aurélie Dupont as Kitri and Manuel Legris as Basile. Rudolf Nurejev had himself danced the part of Basile in Leningrad when he was barely older than 21 years. After his spectacular request for asylum in France in 1961, he endeavoured to introduce this work to the West, which was frequently performed in the East. He created a new choreography in 1966 for a performance in the Vienna State Opera. On the whole he adhered to the original Petipa concept and merely reduced the five acts to three acts and one prologue.