The Knight of Rueful Countenance returns to the Mariinsky Theatre

Premiere of Jules Massenet’s opera Don Quichotte at the Mariinsky Theatre
28 and 29 December 2012 and 9 January 2013

The Knight of Rueful Countenance, the heroic dreamer Don Quichotte is returning to the Mariinsky The atre. Don Quichotte is one of French composer Jules Massenet’s late operas and it was commissioned by Raoul Gunsbourg, of the Opéra de Monte Carlo specially for Fyodor Chaliapin. And whatever the composer’s contemporaries may have thought of this opera, the singer himself always adored it and the role of Don Quichotte became one of the ones he loved most in his entire repertoire. The premiere of the opera took place on 6 February 1910 at the Opéra de Monte Carlo. Already on 12 November 1910, the Russian premiere took place at the Bolshoi The atre in Moscow, where Chaliapin not only performed the title role but directed the production as well. Later came Paris, Nürnberg, London and the USA. in 1919 the opera was staged at the Mariinsky The atre (Alexander Khessin conducting with Chaliapin as stage director).

Massenet’s Don Quichotte has never been absent for long from theatre playbills. As it was created for Fyodor Chaliapin, however, the opera requires equally brilliant performers and so it is only staged when a singer worthy of the role comes along. One such is, without question, is the outstanding Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto, who has already performed the role of Don Quichotte in St Petersburg in a concert version of the opera at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky The atre. Don Quichotte with Ferruccio Furlanetto, the Mariinsky Chorus and Orchestra and soloists under the baton of Valery Gergiev was released on the Mariinsky label. The recording was named “Disc of the Week” by BBC Radio 3 and “Opera Choice of the Month” by BBC Music Magazine.

Furlanetto admits that the role of Don Quichotte is one of his favourites: “Don Quichotte is close to my heart. Everyone, albeit for three hours in their lives, should become such a person, someone who loves everything around them... He loves nature, the sun, the light, the air, people, animals... And this love is expressed very poetically, so I say that in an ideal world this is what, ideally, people should be like.”

The opera is being staged by director Yannis Kokkos, a renowned French theatre designer and stage director. Fame first came to Kokkos as a production designer, having worked together with stage director Antoine Vitez. As a stage director, Kokkos has worked on productions of operas by Wagner, Richard Strauss, Gluck, Berlioz, Mozart and Rossini at the Teatro alla Scala, the Théâtre de la Monnaie, the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, the Théâtre du Châtelet and Welsh National Opera. Inspired by St Petersburg, the stage director sees features in Don Quichotte similar to those of Prince Myshkin.

The lead roles are being rehearsed by Anna Kiknadze, Yekaterina Sergeyeva and Elena Tsvetkova (the Beautiful Dulcinée), Ferruccio Furlanetto, Askar Abdrazakov, Ilya Bannik and Mikhail Kolelishvili (Don Quichotte), Andrei Serov and Andrei Spekhov (Sancho Pança), Lyudmila Dudinova, Eleonora Vindau and Maria Bayankina (Pedro), Yulia Matochkina, Irina Shishkova and Regina Rustamova (Garcia), Carlos D’Onofrio, Andrei Ilyushnikov and Nikolai Yemtsov (Rodriguez) and Dmitry Koleushko, Alexander Shagun and Alexander Trofimov (Juan). The Stage Director and Set Designer is Yannis Kokkos, the Costume Designers Yannis Kokkos and Paola Mariani and the Lighting Designer Michael Bauer.
The Musical Director and Conductor is Valery Gergiev.

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