Don Quixote

Who hasn’t heard of him: Don Quixote—or, in French, Don Quichotte—the tragic hero of La Mancha who charges at windmills on an old draft horse to win the favor of his beloved Dulcinée, also known as Dulcinea? With his imaginative detachment from reality, the knight ranks among the most significant figures in literary history. Images, adaptations, and parodies of his character have spanned the centuries.

In Jules Massenet’s opera, premiered in Monte Carlo in 1910, Cervantes’ mad knight becomes a tragic hero who must be broken by the cruel world. For Dulcinée, Quichotte sets out in search of a necklace that was supposedly stolen from the beauty by a band of robbers: a cruel joke at the hero’s expense. But: thanks to imagination! Don Quixote bravely battles giants and other delusional figures, converts the robbers, and even tracks down the imaginary pearl necklace. Despite all this, Dulcinée does not heed him. His illusions shatter against the reality of life as it is.

With French elegance and delicate melancholy, illusion and reality intertwine in this late-Romantic classic, and Quixote emerges as a brilliant dreamer. Directed by Julia Burbach, the dance and music theater ensemble of the Tyrolean State Theater jointly presents an evening full of love, wit, and sadness, which speaks lightly of the gravity of believing in the beautiful, the good, and the true even where they are not.