Don Quichotte - Jules Massenet

State Opera Prague

Premiere: March 18, 2010

Staging team Conductor: H. M. Förster
Stage director: J. Nekvasil
Set designer: D. Dvořák
Costume designer: J. Jelínek
Chorus master: T. Karlovič, A. Melichar
II. conductor: T. Brauner

The protagonists of Jules Massenet’s operas and oratorios are mostly female, as is indeed implied already by the names of his works: Thais, Hérodias, La Navarroise, Sappho, Ariane, Thérese, Grisélidis, Cendrillon, Cléopâtre, Manon, Marie-Magdeleine. Setting an exception to the rule, the hero of Massenet’s last opera is a man, after all. Namely, Don Quixote, in the eponymous opera subtitled “comédie héroique.” Massenet’s librettist, Henri Cain, drew his material from a French stage adaptation of the Cervantes novel, from the pen of Massenet’s contemporary, Jacques Le Lorrain, entitled Le Chevalier de la longue figure. The role of Don Quixote was made to measure for the legendary Russian bass, Fyodor Shalyapin. The latter triumphed in the opera’s premiere, in Monte Carlo, on February 19, 1910, and it was doubtless thanks to him that the work became widely staged and known. He also guest-appeared at the National Theatre in Prague, on June 1, 1934. The premises of today’s Prague State Opera saw one previous staging of Don Quichotte, a production that ran from 1965–1967 on the stage of the then Smetana Theatre under the baton of Albert Rosen and directed by Luděk Mandaus.

More informations Prague State opera