El retablo de Maese Pedro

El retablo de Maese Pedro and Pulcinella represent – with nods to puppet theatre and crystalline orchestrations inspired in the music prior to Romanticism - two quintessential spectacles which history books termed as Neoclassicism. A hodgepodge etiquette, with extremely porous boundaries, but which eventually became an authentic lingua franca during the interwar period. Or, as well, an open space for musical languages which were flagrantly opposed, but which shared that nostalgia for rationality  -  clarity and beauty -  increasingly threatened by radical ideologies in the extreme along with nationalisms exclusive of different manifestations.

The luminous and carefree universe of the Commedia dell’Arte was the starting point for the ballet with voices  Pucinella, premiering in Paris in 1920, and based on the music - much of it apocryphal -  of  18th century composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. For his part, Manuel de Falla recreated a quixotic episode in his chamber opera El retablo de Maese Pedro. First seen in Seville in 1923, coinciding with the coup d’état of Primo de Rivera, this score mirrors the sounds of the Spanish Golden Age with a very personal approach.  

Musical and staged version of an episode from The ingenious gentleman Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes

Music and libretto by Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)

Premiere at the Teatro San Fernando of Seville, 23 March 1923 

Premiered at the Teatro Real, 16 January 2009

Opera in concert version

Conductor | Pablo Heras-Casado

Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Cast

Maese Pedro | Airam Hernández 

Don Quijote | José Antonio López

Trujamán | Adeline d'Aviau de Ternay

                  Héctor López de Ayala Uribe

CONCERTO FOR HARPSICHORD

Music by Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)

Harpsichord | Benjamin Alard 

Conductor | Pablo Heras-Casado 

SUITE PULCINELLA

Music by Ígor Stravinski (1882-1971)

Conductor | Pablo Heras-Casado