I understand that, in addition to his famous Mass in b minor, Bach also
wrote a mass in A.  But Massenet never wrote Bach.

There.  I got the only Massenet joke I know out of my system and I hope
that the handful of readers who hadn't heard it before found it mildly
funny.

My opera season this year started with Massenet's *Don Quichotte*.  As I've
had earlier occasion to make clear, opera is an art form that, with maybe
20 exceptions, underwhelms me.  Why do I keep renewing my subscription?
Well, because this year it will give me the chance to attend some of those
20 or so, viz., *Parsifal* (I'll attend any Wagner), *Il Trovatore*, *Don
Carlo* (yes two Verdi operas), *The Marriage of Figaro*, *Turandot*, and
*The Consul* (which I'm curious to hear based upon some of the favorable
comments I've heard about it).  There's also *The Barber of Seville*, about
which I'd be a bit more excited if I hadn't attended a performance of that
opera at the Kennedy Center a few New Year's Eves ago w/ my wife and would
rather have heard something else than this repeat.

And then there was *Don Quichotte* (French spelling of Don Quixote).
It was Piero Faggioni's production (I understand the only one in the
repertoire) and under his direction.  Ruggero Raimondi sang Don Quichotte.
Alain Vernhes (who apparently has made the role his own), Sancho Panza.
Denyce Graves, The Fair Dulcinea.  Clearly, if the opera failed to enthrall
it couldn't be the fault of the cast.

The notes describe *Don Quichotte* as Massenet's *Tempest* even though he
wrote four more operas before he died two years later.  To me, if opera is
to be judged by its music, this was no *Tempest* just as Massenet is no
Shakespeare.

It was excellent spectacle.  Faggioni apparently took what the program
notes describe as the "'Prelude to Death' overture to Act 4 [Act 5?] of the
opera...as an overture to the opera itself."  It's a pantomime to music w/
DQ immersed in his books and whisked off on a winged horse (which I learned
in a backstage tour today that I've described in another post requires 9
people to manipulate).  The scene changes to a public square where people
in early 20th century dress watch a troupe of performers enact Cervantes'
tale (sort of) in 16th century dress.  (This is a deliberately confusing
ambiguity as I understand Faggioni's explanation in the notes.  The opera
can hardly be describing the 16th century Don of Cervantes recalling his
earlier days in a flashback if these earlier days are here presented
merely as a performance before a 20th century audience.  But maybe it
is a flashback which Faggioni sought to present as viewed by a "modern"
audience.  The notes say that this "'play within a play'...links the modern
age with Cervantes' period, symbolizing the enduring nature of the legend
of Don Quixote.")  We hear Dulcinea sing an aria (Quand la femme a vingt
ans) which I had already forgotten until I replayed it sung by Berganza
on an EMI recording excerpted on the promo CD the opera had sent me w/
its request that I renew my subscription.  It's actually quite nice.  The
other piece from this opera on the promo CD is his famous fight with the
windmills.  The orchestral part is great.  I think I prefer it to Strauss.

Don Quichotte appears like an Alyosha Karamazov.  A Jesus or a Gandhi
except that, unlike them, he escapes martyrdom.  His invincible innocence,
obliviousness to pain and humiliation, and consistent adherence to the
principles of chivalry softens the hearts of the bandit leader and his
henchmen to whom Dulcinea had sent him on a fool's errand to retrieve a
stolen necklace and he secures its return.  Triumphantly, he brings back
his trophy to Dulcinea and requests her hand in marriage, only to be
shattered when she turns him down.  Pitying him in his sorrow, she gives
him the "you're too good for me but we can still be friends" routine and
he falls for it with regained dignity.  This is actually a touching duet
and I wish the promo CD had included it.  The final scene is back to that
of the pantomime in the beginning where the dying Don explains to Sancho
(whose role deserves more mention than I have given here; he could have
been a Papageno to the Don's Tamino if *Don Quichotte* had been *The Magic
Flute*.) the riches of the mind and dies standing up, as a knight should,
with the voice of Dulcinea beckoning him.

No, I'm not going to race to buy a recording of this opera, but as a
spectacle it was fine.  Some of the scenes in the subdued light reminded me
of the Gustav Dore illustrations in my copy of the book.  There was such an
overwhelming variety of crowd scenes.  The initial curtain calls seemed to
be for wave upon wave of crowd groups, townsmen, townswomen, bandits,
players, acrobats, children...it never seemed to end. The ovation for all
was thunderous and long.

Next Saturday, *Parsifal*.

Walter Meyer