The Man from La Mancha (Musical)

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Musical dates
Title: The man from La Mancha
Original title: Man of La Mancha
Original language: English
Music: Mitch Leigh
Book: Dale Wasserman
Lyrics: Joe Darion
Literary source: I, Don Quixote by Dale Wasserman and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Premiere: November 22, 1965
Place of premiere: ANTA Washington Square Theater, New York City

The Man from La Mancha is a musical by Mitch Leigh , Dale Wasserman and Joe Darion .

Origin and premieres

Based on the classic Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes , Wasserman wrote the TV piece I, Don Quixote, in 1959 . In this, the poet, imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition, plays his chivalric novel to his fellow prisoners and takes on the role of Don Quixote. In 1965, the adapted piece to a musical was premiered at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam , Connecticut . On November 22nd of the same year the New York premiere took place at the ANTA Washington Square Theater in Greenwich Village with Richard Kiley in the title role. The music was by Mitch Leigh, the lyrics were written by Joe Darion. In 1966 the musical received five Tony Awards , including for "Best Musical" and "Best Actor". The original production reached 2,328 performances.

The German-language premiere in the version by Robert Gilbert took place on January 4, 1968 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna under the direction of Dietrich Haugk with Josef Meinrad in the title role and Blanche Aubry as Aldonza and Fritz Muliar as Sancho Panza. She was a great success, was performed on several stages in the German-speaking world, and certainly in the same year as Polydor - Record published.

On October 4, 1968, the French premiere of L'homme de La Mancha took place in Brussels with Jacques Brel in the title role, who had also translated the texts. The success was so great here, too, that the production was brought to Paris in December , where it ran for another five months and was the basis of an LP production.

The play was filmed in 1972 with Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren and directed by Arthur Hiller , see The Man of La Mancha (film) .

action

The piece plays continuously without a break in a dungeon of the Spanish Inquisition . Cervantes and his servant are accused of blasphemy and await their trial among robbers, murderers and prostitutes. The inmate leader takes all their belongings, including a manuscript. In order to prove that it is his future book, Cervantes disguises himself as his character Don Quixote and plays the story with the inmates. So the prison becomes a street junk. Aldonza is a sloppy serving girl, but Don Quixote calls her Dulcinea and courted her. Meanwhile, his niece Antonia and her fiancé Dr. Carrasco kept trying to keep Don Quixote from his pointless battles against imaginary enemies. Disguised as a Knight of the Mirror, Carrasco forces him to look reality in the eye, to realize that he is not the Savior of mankind, but a poor old man. Only Aldonza, who was treated as a lady only by Don Quixote, begs him to continue the "impossible dream" and put on the armor again. Don Quixote dies in her arms. From then on, Aldonza calls himself Dulcinea and continues to dream her hero's dream. The game is over. Moved, the leader hands back his manuscript to Cervantes. A ladder goes down from above and Cervantes is called to the Inquisition Tribunal.

Well-known music numbers

  • Man of La Mancha
  • It's all the same
  • Dulcinea
  • I Really Like Him
  • Little Bird, Little Bird
  • The Quest (The Impossible Dream)
  • Golden helmet

See also

literature

  • Dale Wasserman (book and lyrics), Mitch Leigh (music), Joe Darion (lyrics): The Man of La Mancha. A musical. Text book (original title: Man of La Mancha ). German by Robert Gilbert . [Manuscript.] Lied der Zeit Musikverlag, Berlin 1972.
  • The impossible dream. Program book of the Badische Landesbühne Bruchsal for Dale Wassermann [sic!] "The Man from La Mancha". (1988/89 season) . Color book (part 22). Badische Landesbühne Bruchsal (BLB), Bruchsal 1988, 70 pp.
  • Dale Wasserman: The Impossible Musical . Applause Theater & Cinema Books, 2003, ISBN 1-55783-515-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Abbe A. Debolt: Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counter Culture . ABC-CLIO, 2011, ISBN 9780313329449 , pp. 389–390 ( excerpt (Google) )
  2. ↑ Review in the New York Times on December 6, 2002 on the occasion of the 2002 resumption
  3. ^ Joachim Sonderhoff , Peter Weck : Musical - history, productions, successes (Westermann Verlag, Braunschweig 1986, ISBN 3-07-508818-8 )