Don Quichotte

L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O

November 19 - December 7, 2016

When the performance is over, try discussing it with your companions and any other opera lovers you know!

You can continue your pleasure in

Don Quichotte

for hours – even days – by exchanging ideas about it.

Here are some topics we can suggest:

• By the end of the opera, how do you feel

about the character of Don Quichotte?

Does he inspire you, or do you feel pity

for him?

• Compare Don Quichotte’s relationships

with Dulcinée and Sancho Panza. What

different elements do these relationships

provide him? How do they shape the

knight and his values? What statements do

you think this opera makes about love and

friendship?

• What elements of the set, costume, and

lighting designs are most memorable to

you in this production? How do these

elements work to convey the opera’s

shifting moods?

• How do you think Dulcinée changes in the

course of the opera how she feels about the

attentions of Don Quichotte?

• Massenet labeled this opera

as a “heroic comedy.” Do you agree

with the composer’s description?

In what ways – musically and

dramatically – do you think this

opera merges comic and heroic

elements? Can you think of other

works that do the same?

• Countless artists have breathed

new life into Miguel de Cervantes’s

character of Don Quixote – in

literature, theater, music, dance,

film, and visual art – since the

author completed the original novel

in 1615. Why do you think this

character and this story have

inspired so many reinterpretations?

Don Quichotte:

After the Curtain Falls

To continue enjoying

Don Quichotte

, Lyric dramaturg Roger Pines suggests the following performances:

• CD – Ferruccio Furlanetto, Anna Kikinadze, Andrei Serov;

Mariinsky Orchestra, cond. Valery Gergiev (Mariinsky)

• CD – José van Dam, Teresa Berganza, Alain Fondary;

Orchestra of the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, cond.

Michel Plasson (EMI)

• CD – Nicolai Ghiaurov, Régine Crespin, Gabriel Bacquier;

L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, cond. Kazimierz Kord

(Decca)

• DVD – José Van Dam, Silvio Tro Santafé, Werner Van

Mechelen; Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, cond. Marc

Minkowski, dir. Laurent Pelly (Naïve)

"Don Quixote in his story reading chivalric novels,"

painted in 2005 by the Argentine artist

Luis Scafati

COURTESY OF CUSHING MEMORIAL LIBRARY & ARCHIVES, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY