Music by Jules Massenet
Libretto by Henri Cain
Ensemble of
soloists of the Mariinsky Academy of Young Singers
Musical Preparation:
Larisa Gergieva
Chorus Master:
Pavel Teplov French
language coach:
Ksenia Klimenko
Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra
The opera Don
Quichotte – lively and light, rich in humour and the varied
natures of its characters – is devoid of that sense of tragedy and doom
that the public expect from a stage version of the classical Don
Quichotte. Massenet looked at this story with entirely different eyes and
wrote a work that is, essentially, in the style of old comic operas. Not by
chance is the genre of the opera defined as a comedie-heroique, where
love is intertwined with love games, irony with tragic suffering, hopes with
disappointment, and the scene of the protagonist’s death is laconic yet at the
same time amazingly poetic. The opera is superbly orchestrated, the
simplicity of its language shaded by the refinement of the instrumentation.
Massenet’s decision to tackle the subject was to a large extent influenced by
Fyodor Chaliapin, who had long held a dream of creating such an image on the
operatic stage. Chaliapin sang at the opera’s premiere in Monte Carlo and in its
first production in Russia at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
Chaliapin’s work on the stage incarnation of Don Quichotte has been ranked
alongside the singer’s other crowning glories in opera – Boris Godunov and
Salieri. Chaliapin’s shadow long hung over Massenet’s work – where can you
find a singer who can not only sing but who can create a suitable image as well?
There were no newspapers, either in France or in Russia, whose critics were not
delighted with the great singer’s final role. And almost all of them agreed on
one matter – “Don Quixote is not merely the bearer highly idealistic
intentions. He infects others with them… Chaliapin – Don Quichotte – a
symbol.”
Marina Godlevskaya