There are ballets in which technique can almost disappear behind the story. Don Quixote is definitely not one of them. Ever since Marius Petipa created the ballet for Moscow’s Imperial Ballet in 1869, with music by Ludwig Minkus, it has become one of the great showcases of the classical repertoire. Jumps, turns, balances, speed, stamina, precision, attitude: everything is on display. And perhaps that is precisely why the greatest challenge is making the audience completely forget how much effort is required to perform it all.

That paradox accompanies Don Quixote’s return to Rio de Janeiro’s Theatro Municipal, after more than three years. The season, which opened on August 20, brings together the company’s Ballet and Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Tobias Volkmann, in a production conceived, restaged and adapted by Hélio Bejani and Jorge Texeira.

Although it bears the name of Miguel de Cervantes’ famous character, onstage the heart of the ballet belongs to Kitri and Basilio. They are the ones who fall in love, quarrel, tease each other, run away, and drive the energy of the story. Don Quixote enters their world after mistaking Kitri for his idealized Dulcinea and eventually helps the couple overcome her father’s opposition. It is a simple plot, almost an excuse for a succession of spectacular dances — and that is precisely where the danger lies. Because Don Quixote cannot look like a competition of steps.

For Juliana Valadão, principal dancer of the Theatro Municipal and one of the Kитris in this season, the greatest challenge lies in a particularly cruel contradiction for any dancer: the harder something is, the easier it must look.

“I think the greatest challenge of dancing Kitri is precisely finding the balance between exuberance and technical control,” she says. “She is such a lively, strong, fun character, full of personality, but the choreography demands, above all, enormous stamina and confidence. So, for me, the challenge is making all that technical difficulty look natural. Kitri has to look free and full of energy 100 percent of the time.” And Kitri is rarely allowed to disappear behind the ballerina performing her. The technique has to be impeccable, but her personality must reach the audience first.

Valadão is particularly fond of Kitri’s entrance and first variation, precisely because they allow her to establish who this young woman is before the succession of technical challenges takes over the evening. But the moments she cherishes most happen when technique, for a few seconds, stops occupying her conscious attention.

“It is wonderful when, in the middle of an extremely technical sequence, I can forget the difficulty for a few seconds and simply react as Kitri would,” she says. “That happens a lot in the scenes with Basilio. She is passionate, provocative, determined, playful… and that relationship allows the character to emerge through small glances, reactions and the way she moves.”

It is an important observation because it may explain part of Don Quixote’s longevity. Audiences may not know the name of a step or fully understand its technical complexity, but they immediately understand a glance, a provocation or a love affair. Few classical ballets communicate so directly with the audience.

Valadão can feel that from the stage. “The audience response to Don Quixote is very special. It is a ballet with such contagious energy, and people react to the humorous moments and also to the relationship between Kitri and Basilio. You feel the audience with you, and that feeds even more energy into the performance.”

On the other side of that love story is Basilio, another role frequently associated with extreme virtuosity. But for dancer Wagner Carvalho, reducing the character to technique means losing precisely what transforms an excellent execution into a memorable performance.

“Narrative is extremely important,” he explains. “I chose this profession because, for me, there was nothing better in the world than being able to transform myself into a character, into someone who lived in another time, into another being, another form. I always wanted to interpret.”

That is why Carvalho emphasizes the importance of the mises-en-scène, the essentially theatrical passages connecting the great variations and pas de deux. Without them, the ballet risks becoming merely a collection of feats. “That is where you tell the story,” he says. “Those scenes humanize the character and take some of the focus away from ‘jump, open, split, turn, spin.’ Those connections are extremely important.”

It is almost the perfect definition of the challenge posed by Don Quixote: preventing one of the most technically exhibitionist ballets in the repertoire from looking like nothing more than an exhibition.

For Carvalho, the chemistry between the characters — Basilio, Kitri, her father and everyone inhabiting that Spanish square — has to feel organic. “So that it doesn’t become just a divertissement of little solos, ensembles or duets, but an actual performance from beginning to end. I think that is what really makes the difference between a collection of choreography and a story.”

There is also a third partner, invisible to anyone watching only the dancers: the orchestra. And at the Theatro Municipal, that relationship becomes particularly significant because the Ballet and Symphony Orchestra are once again sharing the production.

“Dancing with an orchestra is a gift,” Carvalho says. “The artists onstage are telling the story, but the artists in the orchestra pit are telling the story too.” Since ballet has no spoken dialogue, music becomes a kind of voice.

“The orchestra sings. The orchestra is our voice,” he says. “Just as I, as an artist, am interpreting my role, the musicians are interpreting the music. You have to keep your ears open so that everything becomes fluid, organic.”

Perhaps it is that combination that explains why Don Quixote remains beloved by dancers and audiences more than 150 years later. It is technically terrifying and, at the same time, feels like a party. It demands strength while having to look effortless. It requires absolute precision while asking for spontaneity. And it places dancers before some of the most famous sequences in the classical repertoire only to demand something even harder from them in the end: that no one watching should be thinking about the steps.

The season continues at Rio de Janeiro’s Theatro Municipal through August 30. Juliana Valadão performs Kitri opposite guest dancer Gabriel Lopes on August 21 and 23; the principal casts also include Márcia Jaqueline and Cícero Gomes, Manuela Roçado and Rodrigo Hermesmeyer, and Marcela Borges and Mateus Imperial.