Amour Fou

Saturday night, I went to the Four Seasons Centre to see Don Quichotte, a relatively minor opera by Jules Massenet. In popular culture, it is certainly less popular than Man of La Mancha. Based on Cervantes' Don Quixote, the main impetus for this version of the knight errant is his chivalric love for the fiery Dulcinée. No doubt because the 67-year-old Massenet was also madly in love with mezzo Lucy Arbell.

The opera opened in a small village where 4 suitors attempted to win Dulcinée (Anita Rachvelishvili). There was a small gender-bending subtext as two of them were played by women. As for the bachelorette, her aria "Quand la femme a vingt ans" made it clear it was the chase and excitement that thrilled her. Elderly Don Quichotte (Ferruccio Furlanetto) and his fat squire Sancho Pancha (Quinn Kelsey) arrived to the delight of the villagers. They were gently mocking of his knightly delusions but were also moved by his generosity and warmth. Quichotte fell for the young girl and promised to prove his devotion by retrieving her stolen necklace. And so the old knight and his squire would embark on journey to travel long distances, tilt at giants, and brave bandits and thieves. Unfortunately, despite keeping true to his word, Quichotte would not find love as his reward.

To reflect the fantastical dreams of the knight, based not in reality but his immersion in literature and text, the set was composed of giant books (and sometimes quill pen and inkwells) rearranged to suggest a villa, windmills, or some perilous woods. The addition of live animals, a horse for the knight and a donkey for his rotund companion, as well as professional dancers for the flirty village dances gave a lively realism to the scenes. But none of the arias were particularly memorable, except for Quichotte's exhortation to stand firm against the windmills, which he thought were marauding giants. As for his infatuation for a girl 40 years younger, I couldn't help but think (as a warning to myself): "there's no fool like an old fool."