Don Quixote: Character and Symbol in Five Musical Representations (i): J. Massenet – Opera „Don Quichotte”

Abstract

As one of the most compelling and rich themes in the history of art, Don Quixote de la Mancha is the central character of the eponymous novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Published in two parts (1605 and 1615), it features one of the most important figures in world literature: the ultimate symbol of boundless idealism. His defining trait is the way he reinterprets reality, absorbing its negative energies and converting them into a light that emanates from his very soul. The Knight of the Sorrowful Face placed supreme value on freedom: the freedom to live his ideal and the freedom to be himself. These noble but unrealistic ideals—which ignore practical consequences and situational absurdity—form the ideological axes that have inspired numerous musical works based on this masterpiece. The paper extensively addresses the investigation of the theme in tonal and modern classical music, but - being only the first part of a more comprehensive study, which goes beyond the scope of this publication - we will focus on analyzing the first of the proposals: opera “Don Quichotte” by Jules Massenet.