Australian born Barry Kay (1932-85) studied painting in Paris at the Académie Julian. His interest in theatre led to a commission to design Walter Gore's ballet Soft Sorrow for Australia Ballet Theatre in 1955. In 1956 he moved to London and his career as a stage designer developed. His first work was for Western Ballet Theatre, and he went on to create sets and costumes for Britain's leading theatre, ballet and opera companies, and for opera and ballet around the world. From the mid-1960s he concentrated on designing for dance, inspired by a love of music, which he had studied before switching to painting. Kay was fascinated by the possibility for spectacle which dance afforded. With his innovative set designs he did away with painted flats to create three-dimensional settings and it is as a set designer that he is best remembered, but Kay was an imaginative designer of costumes and could devise variations on the traditional tights and tutus of classical ballet to make them entirely appropriate to each character.

Kay worked on several different versions of Rudolf Nureyev's production of Don Quixote, first for the Vienna State Opera in 1966, then for Australian Ballet in 1970. This production was filmed in 1972 and remained in the repertoire, and Kay adapted his designs for each new revival. In 1973, when the production visited London, Nureyev danced four performances as Basilio, the young lover who wins the heroine despite her father's opposition. Kay's design for Act I suggests the traditional elements of Spanish national dress - the tricorne hat, bolero and cloak - in a few simple lines which capture the essence of the costume.