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D I R E C T O R ’ S N O T E | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
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November 19 - December 7, 2016
Like children, when we open a book, we are given permission to use
our imagination to create a new world. Literature enables us to rein-
vent reality. When we enter a theater, we walk into a setting where the
imagination is made manifest. In this world of make believe, anything
is possible. And when we add music – the element that speaks directly
to the heart – we are given opera, a form that has the power to let us
dream.
Massenet’s “heroic comedy”
Don Quichotte
, written two years
before his own death, embodies the pursuit of dreams and the human
spirit’s capacity for love. Loosely based on the title character of the epic
novel by Cervantes, but more closely linked to the play, Le Lorrain’s
Le chevalier de la longue figure
, Don Quichotte (Don Quixote) is a
heroic figure whose journeys with his sidekick Sancho run deep in the
fabric of our collective myths. What immortalizes him is that despite
the ridicule he encounters for seeing the world through a different lens,
his virtue and humanity remain steadfast. His love for the ideal of
Dulcinée will always remain true.
Taking the traditional five-act mold of French classical tragedy,
Massenet creates a pastiche of 16th-century Spain. The composer is a
master of contrast, and in this work bursting musical color is juxta-
posed with extreme economy. Aligned with the dramatic action, the
music perfectly highlights the theme of illusion versus reality. Don
Quichotte’s energetic, childlike imagination is set free after devouring
the chivalrous romance novels of Amadis de Gaule, and yet the harsh
rejection of the external world creates subtle inner pains that he must
reconcile and forgive.
As Don Quichotte lives with his head in the clouds, Sancho and
Dulcinée each go through profound awakenings of their self-worth.
Sancho, the grounded and earthy foil to his master, eventually defends
his master and lives on to carry Don Quichotte’s mantle to pursue
dreams. Dulcinée, who is trapped in her lifestyle of sensuality and
pleasure, comes face to face with the beauty found in Don Quichotte’s
idealized love for her. All three characters, imperfect humans, are con-
fronted with their own mortality.
While the world sees Don Quichotte as foolish, and hence pro-
vides the audience comic interactions, the poignancy of the show is in
the beauty and childlike innocence with which Don Quichotte views
the imperfect facets of human existence: suffering, prejudice, pain,
violence, and cruelty. In a world that expects nothing from a man like
Don Quichotte, he teaches us, Sancho, and Dulcinée that life is what
we make of it. Dreams can indeed be made manifest.
—
Matthew Ozawa
Ferruccio Furlanetto and Eduardo Chama in the unforgettably touching
final scene of
Don Quichotte
, San Diego Opera, 2014.
Director’s Note
KEN HOWARD/SAN DIEGO OPERA