About the performance
Trailer 'The ingenious nobleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'
15 Jan 2023 - 18 Mar 2023
Cervantes’s novel The ingenious nobleman Don Quixote of La Mancha is one of the best-known works of world literature. A book that has inspired for centuries; we found at least ninety operas starring Don Quixote. But almost all those operas take only one or a few passages from the some 1,000-page book, or reduce the character to a simple fool. But those who look at the book as a whole will see that it is surprisingly modern. The work deals with themes such as the gap between a beautiful dream and harsh reality, the increasing clashes between cultures and striving to find your own place in a globalising world. Don Quixote appears to be a madman, but the question arises: does he not actively seek that role? After all, who has really gone mad: Don Quixote, or the world around him? Time for a new opera. About: the recapture of fantasy.
For this production, the New European Ensemble works together with the Italian La Fonte Musica, which specializes in medieval music. In this joint project, they turn the universe of Don Quixote into sound. Composer Vanni Moretto weaves in enchanting compositions from the Middle Ages into his score for Don Quixote’s medieval fantasies. Stefano Simone Pintor created the concept and the libretto. Both were previously part of the team that produced the highly successful ‘new baroque opera’ Vivaldi – Dangerous Liaisons. “This combination of historicising and innovative opera practice can’t be cheered on loud enough” said a rave review in Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant. Pintor is now also the stage director of the opera.
With Don Quixote, OPERA2DAY once again puts a main character from the early 17th century into the spotlights – as in their previous operas l’Orfeo, Don Giovanni and Hamlet.
Trailer 'The ingenious nobleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'
Trailer
Trailer The ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha
Book I
La Mancha Inc, one of the world’s largest international holding companies, employs people from all over the planet. Cide Hamete Benengeli, the company’s elderly and wealthy Spanish-Arab president, has had enough of his boring and useless life and seeks refuge in reading knightly books from the Middle Ages. Soon his passion becomes pure madness. That is when he becomes convinced that he is the ancient knight Don Quixote, one of the characters in his knight’s books, and everything transforms before his eyes into extraordinary worlds of the past, populated by kings, virgins and wizards, who are in fact none other than his colleagues, relatives and friends.
The journey officially begins when Miguel, the company’s clumsy archivist, discovers the president’s secret library, hidden in the underground archives of La Mancha. Benengeli, aka Don Quixote, adopts Miguel as his squire and calls him Sancho Panza. After making makeshift armour with his help and finding a few questionable horses, the two can search in and around the La Mancha office for adventures and injustices that need to be righted. A few metres outside the building, however, things turn out differently: Don Quixote mistakes a huge air conditioner for two menacing giants with huge arms, and he hurls himself at them, short-circuiting and injuring himself. Sancho then takes him back to the La Mancha canteen in search of refreshment.
Here, Don Quixote confuses Nicola, the canteen cook, with a king, and Dalisay, a cleaning lady, with the noble lady Dulcinea del Toboso: to the former he asks to be given the title of knight, to the latter he promises that he will do any feat he performs in honour of her name. Meanwhile, Sancho, exhausted and tested by hunger, also begins to have his first daydreams: these hallucinations increase when, after they resume their journey out of the palace, he mistakes a rubbish bag for a bag of money and tries to pay a hotdog vendor with it. At the same time, Don Quixote causes further unrest by conspiring with a passing nun and trying to free two pickpockets who have just been arrested by a police officer. The two are immediately arrested and thrown into jail on the spot.
In prison, Miguel, enraged by the follies into which his boss has dragged him, takes off as a squire and insults Don Quixote by calling him ‘the Knight of the Sad Face’. The two are rescued by Antonia, Lord Benengeli’s niece. While Miguel leaves Benengeli and goes his own way, Antonia, with the help of her companion Samson, takes her uncle back to La Mancha to try to bring him to repentance, but it is all in vain and she is forced to the extreme: burning all his books, the cause of all his ills.
Book II
Ten years go by. Miguel had been hired during those years to write a witness report for CEO Mr Freestone’s new La Mancha project. It turned the scandals and adventures of ex-president Mr Benengeli, aka Don Quixote, into a global success story. Having published these memoirs, the ex-shieldboy is now extremely famous and rich, but seems bored, with no clear purpose in life. When Miguel hears one day that there are apocryphal stories, unauthorised sequels to the adventures he has written, he goes to the rest home where Mr Benengeli is confined, and ‘wakes up’ Don Quixote, aiming to make him forget these sequels by writing a new part of their story.
The two leave again on their pairs. Immediately Miguel tries to write down Don Quixote’s new exploits, but they all turn out to be pathetic and unsatisfactory in his eyes. Don Quixote also notices that something is wrong when, faced with a woman whom his squire calls Sancho Dulcinea del Toboso, he does not recognise either of them as such, but sees only a complete stranger and a cleaning woman. Don Quixote then begins to doubt the authenticity of the world around him, which seems completely different to him than before. It is as if all the enchantment of the story he knew has vanished forever before his eyes and only its empty skeleton still vaguely reminds him. He feels trapped by a terrible spell and decides then to descend into the deep Cave of Montesinos, a hellish place where no mortal may descend because it is the repository of the essence of all things. Miguel, troubled by this thought, tries to stop him, but Don Quixote succeeds thanks to mysterious help.
In the cave, Don Quixote realises that he is nothing but the protagonist of a story Miguel himself invented to save himself from the emptiness of reality, and all of humanity from its madness, which has led it to trade dreams for material success.
Faced with this truth, Don Quixote tries to escape and free himself from his fate, which he simply recognises as a new prison, namely the one an author has created for his character. Always appearing in different worlds and leaping out and back into the story, Don Quixote’s final epic struggle thus begins. It is the struggle of a character who, by really existing, causes the author to question all his certainties. A struggle that can only be resolved with the mysterious and unpredictable help of one person: the reader.
Artistic Team
Stage director and librettist Stefano Simone Pintor
Music Vanni Moretto
Conductor Hernán Schvartzman
Scenography Herbert Janse
Costumes Mirjam Pater
Hair & make-up Nienke Algra
Technical production Ronald Tebra
Light design Uri Rapaport
Sound design Arne Bock
Cast
Mr. Benengeli / Don Quichot Mattijs van de Woerd
Miguel / Sancho Panza Manuel Nunez-Camelino
Mr. Freestone / Friston the Sorcerer Jeremiah Fleming
Dalisay / Dulcinea & Others Alena Dantcheva / Sandra Sinivälli (4 Feb and 3 Mar)
Antonia / The Nun & Others Michaela Riener / Femke Hulsman (4 Feb and 3 Mar)
Samson / The Knight of the White Moon & Others Max Bruins / Carlos Negrín López
Nicola / The Hot Dog Vendor & Others Massimo Altieri
A man / The Delivery Man & Others Samar Qahtan
Employees / Passers-by & Others Participants
Ensembles
New European Ensemble
la fonte musica
Photo's: Bart Grietens
Stage photos
Read the 1100 new stories about Don Quixote
The new stories of Don Quixote
During the tour, more than 1,000 schoolchildren and participants will write new stories about Don Quixote, inspired by their own lives. The stories will be used in the performance. After the tour, 100 of the stories appeared in an e-book, which you can download as pdf (Dutch only).
A Critics Review Digest
The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha Premieres to Enthusiastic Reviews
On Sunday, January 23, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha premiered, marking the start of its tour with performances from Groningen to Tilburg and Amsterdam to Nijmegen.
The first press reactions have already emerged. A “clever opera with beautiful music” (de Volkskrant), “a delight to watch” (Theaterkrant), and “highly entertaining, with stunning music” (NRC) are just some of the praises for this ambitious production, which seeks to do justice to Miguel de Cervantes’ renowned and multi-layered novel. “With this new work, OPERA2DAY once again lives up to its reputation,” writes Basia con fuoco.
Above all, the music composed by Italian composer Vanni Moretto for the New European Ensemble and the Italian ensemble La Fonte Musica has received high praise. “Two ensembles from different worlds unite beautifully under the musical direction of Hernán Schvartzman,” says de Volkskrant. NRC describes the music as “simply magical,” while Opus Klassiek calls the score “a brilliant blend of styles, seamlessly connecting vocal music from the Middle Ages and early Italian Renaissance with modern sounds that sometimes feel impressionistic.” And, as Theaterkrant adds, it is “performed live beautifully.”
The staging and direction have also been widely acclaimed as “a delight to watch.” Theaterkrant highlights the production’s inventive transformations: “Office chairs turn into horses, a giant club sandwich becomes a bed and an island, and archive and bookcases reveal themselves to be full of secrets.” Opus Klassiek praises Herbert Janse’s stage design for its ingenuity and aesthetic charm, particularly noting “the ‘medieval tapestries’ that introduce both acts and the costume design for the title character by Mirjam Pater.”
All critics reflect on the opera’s concept and libretto. NRC Handelsblad notes that “the ambition is great.” Librettist and director Stefano Simone Pintor aims to capture the essence of Cervantes’ 1,000-page novel in this production, staying faithful to the original “though adding a slight twist,” according to Basia con fuoco. Theaterkrant acknowledges that “it’s a matter of choices, and some sacrifices are inevitable,” but ultimately concludes that “Pintor demonstrates immense talent, erudition, passion, and versatility.” De Volkskrant praises the production’s clever structure, describing it as “a Droste effect: the story of Don Quixote within a story about the writer.”
The new opera about the imaginative nobleman delivers “a grand spectacle” that, due to its depth and richness of ideas, is “delightfully complex,” according to De Groene Amsterdammer. The story is set in our own time, “illustrating perceived values as relevant today as in the time of Cervantes,” writes Arts Talk Magazine. NRC summarizes the central theme in its headline: “Don Quixote’s chivalric fantasies collide with stock market machismo in this new opera.” As Opus Klassiek describes a crucial scene near the end: “Human imagination ultimately succumbs to modern reality.” But then, as De Groene Amsterdammer beautifully puts it: “The Reader returns… opening a new book. Don Quixote is dead—long live Don Quixote.”
Finally, there is unanimous praise for the cast of singers and actors. De Groene Amsterdammer calls Mattijs van de Woerd“a fantastic actor and singer” in the role of Don Quixote, while Arts Talk Magazine describes his performance as “an excellently rendered deluded Quixote.” Together with Manuel Nuñez-Camelino, he forms “a marvelous duo,” according to Basia con fuoco. Joep Stapel of NRC highlights their comedic timing, calling it “one of the opera’s great attractions.”Basia con fuoco also praises Michael Reiners’ performance as “empathetic,” and Arts Talk Magazine commends the “fine singing from La Fonte Musica.” Soprano Alena Dantcheva, performing as Dulcinea, delivers “a musical gem” alongside Massimo Altieri in their rendition of Gia da rete d’amor by Da Perugia (Opus Klassiek).
In short: “fantastic, at times purely medieval music, outstanding acting, and beautiful singing.” (De Groene Amsterdammer)