Don Quixote at Comacho's wedding

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Work data
Title: Don Quixote, the Lion Knight or Don Quixote at Comacho's wedding
Original language: German
Music: Georg Philipp Telemann
Libretto : Daniel Schiebeler
Literary source: Miguel de Cervantes, El ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha
Premiere: November 5, 1761
Place of premiere: Hamburg, concert hall
Playing time: Around 1 hour
Place and time of the action: Spain in the 16th century
people
  • Don Quixote , knight (bass)
  • Sancho Panza , his squire (bass)
  • Pedrillo , shepherd (soprano)
  • Grisostomo , shepherd (soprano)
  • Quiteria , bride (soprano)
  • Comacho , groom (old)
  • Basilio , shepherd (tenor)
  • Shepherd choir (soprano, alto, tenor, bass)

Don Quichotte at Comacho's wedding (also Don Quichotte, the Lion Knight ) (TWV 21:32) is an opera in one act by Georg Philipp Telemann . The libretto was written by Daniel Schiebeler and Georg Philipp Telemann. The first performance took place on November 5, 1761 in the Hamburg concert hall .

Emergence

The novel " El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha " by Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), first published in 1605 and 1615, is still part of world literature today . It also contains the scene of the participation of the knight Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza at the wedding of Comacho. The then 20-year-old Hamburg poet Daniel Schiebeler liked this scene so much that he turned it into a singspiel under the title Basilio und Quiteria and offered it to Georg Philipp Telemann, who was 60 years older and with whom he was friendly, for a setting. He was ready to do this immediately, but not without making considerable changes to the text at hand. The original version showed too many deficiencies for a musical implementation. In the end, with considerable participation by Telemann, a libretto was created that became the basis of one of his most attractive late works.

action

While Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are out and about, remembering rather unrewarding adventures such as the battle with the windmills, they meet a group of simple country folk on their way to a wedding. After the two have found out the names of the bride and groom: Quiteria and Comacho, they introduce themselves as the famous knight Don Quixote and his armor-bearer Sancho Panza. The shepherd Grisostomo tells them that the bride actually loves poor Basilio, but that her father had promised the rich Comacho. Basilio is therefore inconsolable and desperate, which Sancho Panso, unimpressed by this, comments by pointing out that the future will turn everything for the better. Both are now delighted to be invited to attend the wedding. Then the wedding couple comes, but the bride is crying, which Grisostomo explains by saying that all the girls cry on their wedding day. Of course, Sancho Panza cannot accept this: his own wife by no means cried at the wedding, but rather made him cry herself. As soon as the wedding guests are happily celebrating, Basilio is completely unexpectedly carried in on a stretcher. With a dagger in his chest and close to death, he has only one wish: to take Quiteria's hand one last time so that he can endure death more easily. Comacho is only willing to do so at the urgent request of all bystanders. But no sooner has Qiteria reached out to the dying man and the priest blessed the covenant, when Basilio jumps up and reveals his actions as a mere clever trick to snatch his beloved Comacho away. A heated argument ensues, which Don Quixote halts with a threatening sword by declaring that heaven has made Quiteria and Basilio for one another. Comacho only reluctantly agrees to this verdict. In the end, Sancho Panza comes to his wedding feast, everyone is satisfied and praises cleverness as the most precious gift and the way to true happiness.

reception

The opera was performed again for the first time after almost 250 years at the 16th Magdeburg Telemann Festival in March 2002. Four years later, the Magdeburg Opera House put the one-act play on stage again. and 6 years later in 2012 as part of the Telemann project for schoolchildren at the same location.

See also

literature

  • Bárbara P. Esquival-Heinemann: Don Quixote in German-language opera . In: Tilmann Altenberg, Klaus Meyer-Minnemann (ed.): European dimensions of Don Quixote in literature, art, film and music . ISBN 978-3-937816-28-9 , pp. 235–261 ( PDF)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, life and deeds of the astute noble Don Quixote of la Mancha, 2nd part, 8th book, chap. 3-5
  2. Performance in the Magdeburg Opera House in 2002
  3. Performance 2006
  4. Telemann for students 2012 (PDF; 482 kB)