An old nobleman who imagines himself a knight
Allegory, satire, parody and persiflage; all these ingredients are to be found in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. The tale of an old nobleman who imagines himself a wandering knight is one of the milestones of literary history. The most theatrical episode in Book I is set in the Sierra Morena and weaves a web of intrigue around Quixote’s heroic exploits for his absent love, Dulcinea. The librettists Zeno and Pariati transformed this excerpt into the tragi-comedy Don Chisciotte in Sierra Morena, which was set to music by Francesco Bartolomeo Conti. This contemporary of Handel created a furore in Vienna with his annual operas for the carnival. His inventive score is a masterly parody of opera seria and its heroic arias, and it plays on a broad dramatic spectrum. René Jacobs leads B’Rock and a cast of singing stars through this little-known gem.