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especially popular. Indeed, between 1680 –
when the now-lost
Il don Chisciot della Mancia
by Carlo Fedeli received its first performance
in Venice – and the beginning of the 20th
century, more than 60 different operas inspired
by
Don Quixote
were performed in Europe.
Dozens of composers, including
Telemann, Salieri, and Paisiello, tried their
hand at operas based on
Don Quixote
, but none
of their efforts enjoyed any degree of long-
term popularity. In Massenet’s own time, the
Austrian composer Wilhelm Kienzl created an
adaptation of
Don Quixote
(1898) so disastrous
that he would not compose another opera for
13 years. The large number of forgotten stage
works that have accumulated in the centuries
since Cervantes’s death might suggest that the
true genius of
Don Quixote
lies in its resistance
to adaptation.
The prospect of obscurity didn’t deter
Jacques Le Lorrain, who may have recognized
something of himself in the gaunt, dream-
bound figure of Don Quixote. The son of
a shoemaker, Le Lorrain learned the family
trade in his youth, but moved to Paris in
1881, seduced by dreams of the literary life.
Despite publishing several volumes of poetry,
he struggled to make a living as a writer and,
in 1896, opened a shoe repair shop; in his
spare time he worked on
Le Chevalier de la
longue figure
, a verse drama based loosely on
Cervantes. Respiratory problems eventually
forced him to leave Paris for the healthier air
of the south, but he returned to the capital
ILLUSTRATIONS COURTESY OF CUSHING MEMORIAL LIBRARY & ARCHIVES, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
Jules Massenet and the legendary bass who created
Don Quichotte
in 1910, Feodor Chaliapin.
after receiving word that his play was to be
performed. On April 3, 1904, he was carried
to the premiere at the Théâtre de Victor Hugo
on a stretcher. Two days later, he died.
Le Lorrain’s play was no adaptation:
although he retained the famous windmill
episode and makes passing reference to other
events from the novel, the characters are
notably different, and the story of a pearl
necklace stolen from Dulcinée by a group
of bandits seems to have sprung from Le
Lorrain’s imagination. Despite a generally
warm reception from the public, both the
play and its author seemed destined to follow
the countless other stage versions of
Don
Quixote
into obscurity. Had it not been for
Raoul Gunsbourg, who saw the play during its
initial run, Le Lorrain’s name might have been
forgotten completely.
Gunsbourg, the charismatic director of
the Opéra de Monte Carlo and a friend of
Massenet, had been searching for a vehicle
for the internationally celebrated Russian bass
Feodor Chaliapin and immediately saw the
potential in Le Lorrain’s drama. He gave
the play to librettist Henri Cain, who had
collaborated with Massenet most recently on
the Beaumarchais-inspired
Chérubin
(1905).
Massenet himself didn’t seem to mind that
the story diverged so greatly from Cervantes.
Indeed, he was especially taken with Le
Lorrain’s decision to replace the novel’s
Aldonza – the woman Quixote idealizes as
“Dulcinea” – with the beautiful, inwardly
melancholic Dulcinée. No doubt he found
the latter more suited to Lucy Arbell, the
vocally and dramatically captivating Parisian
mezzo-soprano (
née
Georgette Gall) who had
spent the past five years acting as Massenet’s
unofficial muse.
Chaliapin, for whom Massenet created
the title role, was especially enthusiastic. After
hearing some of the music during a visit to
Massenet’s apartment in Paris, he wrote to
his friend and biographer, Maxim Gorki, that
the opera promised to be excellent. So great
was Chaliapin’s commitment that he spent
hours devising the correct hair and makeup
for his character. Arbell also went above the
call of duty, learning to play the guitar so she
could accompany herself in the Act Four aria.
Gunsbourg, meanwhile, devoted his time to
developing the stagecraft necessary to bring the
Illustration by Antonio Carnicero of
Don Quixote and Sancho encountering
the bandits, published in a 1947 edition
of the novel in Buenos Aires.
1950 illustration by Edy Legrand
of Don Quixote, mounted on his horse
Rocinante, and Sancho, on foot.