Opera Theater 2009–2010
Fall 2009 Opera Information
Friday, November 6 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, November 8 at 3 p.m.
Kobacker Hall
Moore Musical Arts Center
Tickets are $12 ($9 for students and seniors)
Two operas inspired by Cervantes' Novel, Don Quixote
A Co-production with Madcap Puppets of Cincinnati
Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Comacho (Don Quixote), G.P. Telemann
El retableo de Maese Pedro (Master Pedro's Puppet Show), Manuel de Falla
(From Oxford Music Online)
G.P. Telemann (1681–1767) was a German composer, the most prolific of his time, and widely regarded as Germany's leading composer during the first half of the 18th century. He remained at the forefront of musical innovation throughout his career, and was an important link between the late Baroque and early Classical styles. He also contributed significantly to Germany's concert life and the fields of music publishing, music education and theory.
Manuel de Falla (1876–1946), a Spanish composer, considered the central figure of 20th century Spanish music, he addressed over the course of his career many of the salient concerns of modernist aesthetics (nationalism, neo-classicism, the role of tonality, parody and allusion) from a unique perspective. Like many Spaniards, he was attracted to French culture. His predilection for the French music of his time, especially that of Debussy, caused him to be misunderstood in his own country, where conservative-minded critics attacked his music for its oversusceptibility to foreign influences. Reaction to Falla's music by his compatriots often mirrored the convulstive political changes the country underwent before and during the Spanish Civil War, a period of intense cultural activity whose musical manifestations nonetheless remain relatively unexplored.
Both Telemann and de Falla's opera's reflect pieces of the story of Don Quixote, an important character of Spanish literature in the 17th century, written by Miguel de Cervantes and widely regarded by many to be one of the greatest works of fiction ever written. Each of the one-act operas tells a different part of the story of Don Quixote, Telemann's comic opera telling the story of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza stepping in on a rural wedding where a poor shepherd outwits a rich landowner to marry his bride. de Falla's opera is a unique puppet-opera, based on Quixote and Panza witnessing a puppet show presented by Mater Pedro. The work tells the story of the adopted daughter of Charlegmagne who has been abducted and subsequent rescue and escape.