Hello Gentlemen,
It's Asian Nicole. Sometimes opera can shake us emotionally. Sometimes it can wrench us intellectually. But sometimes opera is just there to delight. To charm, and please. And such was the case with the latest opera – the season-ending production– from the Canadian Opera Company, which I saw with my culture professor last night at the Four Seasons Center, downtown, Toronto.
The Canadian Opera Company's production of Jules Massenet's 'Don Quichotte' is an astonishing one musically, even by their standards. Under the baton of Johannes Debus the COC Orchestra navigated the sharp corners separating the heart wrenching pathos and magnificent grandeur of Massenet's score as if born to it. The balancing act between tone colors and the work of the cast was handled impeccably and the panache with which the music was driven home was riveting. Exciting? Oh yes! This is how music should be heard.
Don Quichotte (Don Quixote), is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It follows the adventures of Alonso Quixano, an hidalgo who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to set out to revive chivalry, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthly wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Don Quixote is met by the world as it is, initiating such themes as intertextuality, realism, metatheatre, and literary representation.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
"I know who I am and who I may be, if I choose.”― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Don Quichotte is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Caïn. It was first performed on 19 February 1910 at the Opéra de Monte Carlo. Massenet's comédie-héroïque, like so many other dramatized versions of the story of Don Quixote, relates only indirectly to the great novel by Miguel de Cervantes.
Hardly ever performed today, Massenet’s 1910 retelling of the famous Quixote story, complete with windmills and love affairs and mock battles, produced a COC production that was winning, lively and charming. With superb singing from its principals, this Don Quichotte reminded us that not every experience in the opera house needs to storm the emotional heavens. There’s plenty of artistic joy to be had much closer to Earth.
Don Quichotte is on a quest to recover a pearl necklace stolen from his Lady Love, Dulcinée, by a dastardly group of bandits.
"It’s not until the third act of Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte that the good knight starts to become a good night."
It was so enjoyable to watch this opera....better than I expected!
Wow, what a great night! Thank you so much, my friend!
It's Asian Nicole. Sometimes opera can shake us emotionally. Sometimes it can wrench us intellectually. But sometimes opera is just there to delight. To charm, and please. And such was the case with the latest opera – the season-ending production– from the Canadian Opera Company, which I saw with my culture professor last night at the Four Seasons Center, downtown, Toronto.
The Canadian Opera Company's production of Jules Massenet's 'Don Quichotte' is an astonishing one musically, even by their standards. Under the baton of Johannes Debus the COC Orchestra navigated the sharp corners separating the heart wrenching pathos and magnificent grandeur of Massenet's score as if born to it. The balancing act between tone colors and the work of the cast was handled impeccably and the panache with which the music was driven home was riveting. Exciting? Oh yes! This is how music should be heard.
Don Quichotte (Don Quixote), is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It follows the adventures of Alonso Quixano, an hidalgo who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to set out to revive chivalry, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthly wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Don Quixote is met by the world as it is, initiating such themes as intertextuality, realism, metatheatre, and literary representation.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
"I know who I am and who I may be, if I choose.”― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Don Quichotte is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Caïn. It was first performed on 19 February 1910 at the Opéra de Monte Carlo. Massenet's comédie-héroïque, like so many other dramatized versions of the story of Don Quixote, relates only indirectly to the great novel by Miguel de Cervantes.
Hardly ever performed today, Massenet’s 1910 retelling of the famous Quixote story, complete with windmills and love affairs and mock battles, produced a COC production that was winning, lively and charming. With superb singing from its principals, this Don Quichotte reminded us that not every experience in the opera house needs to storm the emotional heavens. There’s plenty of artistic joy to be had much closer to Earth.
Don Quichotte is on a quest to recover a pearl necklace stolen from his Lady Love, Dulcinée, by a dastardly group of bandits.
"It’s not until the third act of Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte that the good knight starts to become a good night."
It was so enjoyable to watch this opera....better than I expected!
Wow, what a great night! Thank you so much, my friend!
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