Don Quichotte
Music by Jules Massenet · libretto by Henri Caïn · premiered 1910 · at Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Don Quichotte (Don Quixote) is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Caïn. It was first performed on 19 February 1910 at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. Massenet's comédie héroïque, like many dramatized versions of the story of Don Quixote, relates only indirectly to the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. The immediate inspiration was Le chevalier de la longue figure, a play by the poet Jacques Le Lorrain first performed in Paris in 1904. In this version of the story, the simple farm girl Aldonza (Dulcinea) of the original novel becomes the more sophisticated Dulcinée, a flirtatious local beauty inspiring the infatuated old man's exploits.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Don Quichotte", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (French pronunciation: [ʒyl emil fʁedeʁik masnɛ]; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are Manon (1884) and Werther (1892). He also composed oratorios, ballets, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, songs and other music. While still a schoolboy, Massenet was admitted to France's principal music college, the Paris Conservatoire. There he studied under Ambroise Thomas, whom he greatly admired. After winning the country's top musical prize, the Prix de Rome, in 1863, he composed prolifically in many genres, but quickly…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Jules Massenet", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Jules Massenet
- Cendrillon (1697)
- Don César de Bazan (1844)
- Hérodiade (1877)
- Esclarmonde (1889)
- Grisélidis (1891)
- Chérubin (1905)
- Ariane (1906)
- Bacchus (1909)