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Master Peter's Puppet Show

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Master Peter's Puppet Show (El retablo de Maese Pedro) is a puppet-opera in one act, composed by Manuel de Falla to a Spanish libretto based on an episode from Don Quixote by Cervantes. The libretto is a faithful adaptation of the Cervantes' text, from Chapter 26 of the second part of Don Quixote, with some words edited. Falla composed this opera "in devoted homage to the glory of Miguel de Cervantes" and dedicated it to the Princess de Polignac, who commissioned the work. Because of its brief length by operatic standards (30 minutes), it is not part of the standard operatic repertoire in the West. Otto Mayer-Serra has described this opera as a work where Falla reached beyond "Andalusianism" for his immediate musical influence and colour and began the transition into the "Hispanic neo-classicism" of his later works.^[1]

1 Details about the score
2 History of creation
3 Premiere
4 Sections and plot
5 Score and music sample
6 Recordings
7 References
8 External links

Details about the score

Publication: London, J. & W. Chester Duration 27 minutes, approx. Dedication: “Très respectueusement dédié a Madame la Princesse Edmond de Polignac”

History of creation

In 1919 Winnaretta Singer, aka la Princesse Edmond de Polignac, commissioned Falla a piece that could be played in her salon, at her own elaborate puppet theater. (Her other commissions included Stravinsky's Renard and Satie's Socrate, although neither of those works had its premiere in her private theater.) The work was completed in 1923. Falla decided to set an episode from Cervantes' Don Quixote which actually depicts a puppet play. He wrote his own libretto, cutting and splicing from chapters 25 and 26 of Part II. It is based on the episode in Don Quixote in which the protagonist watches a puppet show and gets so drawn into the action that he seeks to rescue the damsel in distress, only to destroy poor Master Peter's puppet theater in the process. Falla's original plan for the Princess' theater was a two-tiered, play-within-a-play approach - large puppets representing Quixote, Master Peter, and the others in attendance, and small figures for Master Peter's puppets. The three singers would be with the orchestra in the pit, rather than onstage. After a concert performance cum dress rehearsal in Seville in March 1923, that is how it was performed with the Princess' puppets in the music room of her Paris estate in June that year, with Vladimir Golschmann conducting. Hector Dufranne sang Quixote, Wanda Landowska played the harpsichord (Falla composed his Harpsichord Concerto for her in appreciation), Ricardo Viñes and Emilio Pujol were among the artists and musicians serving as stage hands.

Roles

Spanish	English	Voice
Don Quijote	Don Quixote	bass or baritone
Maese Pedro	Master Peter	tenor
Trujamán	The boy	treble or soprano
Sancho Panza	Sancho Panza	non-singing part
Ventero	The Innkeeper	non-singing part
Estudiante	A student	non-singing part
Paje	The Page	non-singing part
Lanceros y alabarderos	Men with lances and halberds	non-singing parts

Scoring

Ensemble: flute (doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais), clarinet, bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet, percussion (bell, tenor drum, rattles, tambourine, tam-tam, xylophone), timpani, harpsichord, harp-lute (or harp), strings.

Setting

Time: 1615
Place: the courtyard of an inn at an undetermined place in La Mancha, Spain (maybe Ossa de Montiel).

Premiere

Seville concert premiere (World premiere)

Date: 23 March, 1923
Place: Teatro San Fernando, Seville, Spain
Conductor: Manuel de Falla

Paris staged premiere (World staged premiere)

Date: 25 June, 1923
Place: Palace of the Princess of Polignac, Paris, France
Conductor: Wladimir Golschmann

Sets and puppets by Hermenegildo Lanz, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, José Viñes Roda and Hernando Viñes. Staging under the direction of Manuel de Falla. The premiere was attended by the poets, musicians and painters who comprised the exclusive court of the Princess de Polignac. Five days later, Corpus Barga published a report in El Sol with verbal portraits of some of those present: Paul Valery , " the poet of the day, making gestures like a shipwrecked man drowning in the waves of feminine shoulders'; Stravinsky, "a mouse among the cats " and Pablo Picasso "in evening dress, and mobbed by everybody , [who] seems as though he is resting in a corner with his hat pulled down over one eyebrow ", and the artist José Maria Sert.

Sections and plot

The opera consists of a prologue, one act, and an epilogue. The setting is the courtyard of an inn. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza witness a puppet show presented by Master Peter, with narration by his apprentice (the Boy or Trujamán). The parts of Don Quixote, Master Peter, and the apprentice are taken by large puppets.

El Pregón (The announcement): Master Peter, the puppeteer, announces the performance of "The Tale of Melisendra", a story about the adoptive daughter of Charlemagne who has been abducted by the Moors and taken to Saragossa. The show, performed by smaller puppets, enacts the following.

"Vengan, vengan, a ver vuesas mercedes..." (Come, come and see, mylords).

La Sinfonía de maese Pedro (Master Peter's symphony)
Historia de la libertad de Melisendra (Tale of the rescue of Melisendra, introduction): The boy begins the show, introducing the subject. "Esta verdadera historia..." (This true story...).
Scene I. La corte de Carlomagno (Charlemagne's court): The palace of Charlemagne. Melisendra, the emperor’s adoptive daughter, is held captive in Saragossa. Charlemagne appeals to her husband, the knight Gayferos, to rescue her.
Scene II. Melisendra. A tower at Saragossa. A Moorish soldier steals a kiss from Melisendra, and is to be punished by the king, Marsilius. "Ahora verán la torre del Alcázar de Zaragoza..." (Now, you are seeing the tower of the castle of Zaragoza").

The apprentice, narrating, is chided by Don Quixote and Master Peter. "Niño, niño, seguid vuestra historia en línea recta..." ("Boy, boy: follow your tale in straight way").

Scene III. El suplicio del moro (The Moorish's punishment): The Moorish soldier is punished.
Scene IV. Los Pirineos (The Pyrenees): Don Gayferos rides to Saragossa. Disguised, talks to Melisendra and finally she recognizes him.
Scene V. La fuga (The escape): Melisendra is rescued by Gayferos. They ride off toward Paris. The Moors realize the escape and raise the alarm. Don Quixote interrupts the show to correct a mistake from the boy ("Eso no, que es un gran disparate": "That is not, it is a great nonsense"). Master Peter apologizes and the show is continuing.
Scene VI. La persecución (The pursuit): The Moors soldiers are pursuing them. Don Quixote is enraged to see Moors in pursuit of the Christian couple. At this moment, Don Quixote can't distance himself from the violence onstage: convinced the puppets are real, he attacks them, destroying the puppet theater. "Alto, malnacida canalla, non les sigáis" ("Stop, damned fool, don't pursue them").
Finale: He declares himself a knight errant in thrall to the fair Dulcinea. ("Y vosotros: caballero Don Gaiferos, hermosa y bella señora Melisendra..." ("And you: knight Don Gaiferos, beautiful lady Melisendra"). He sings his love for Dulcinea: "Oh, Dulcinea, señora de mi vida" ("Oh, Dulcinea, lady of my life"). The poor Master Peter bemoans the beheading of their puppets.

Score and music sample

The musical idiom abandons the Andalusian taste of Falla's earlier work in favor of medieval and Renaissance sources; for his narrator, Falla adapted the sung public proclamations, or "pregones", of the old Spanish villages. Falla borrowed themes from the Baroque guitarist Gaspar Sanz, the 16th-century organist and theorist Francisco Salinas, and Spanish folk traditions (but Castilian folk music, not Andalusian), in addition to his own evocative inventions. His scoring, for a small orchestra featuring the then-unfamiliar sound of the harpsichord, was lean, pungent, neo-classical in a highly personal and original way, and pointedly virtuosic. The output is a completely original music, apparently simple, but of a great richness. The match of music and text is one of the greatest achievements of the work: as never before Spanish language finds here its genuine musical expression. The work is surprisingly theatrical. It bristles with wit and limitless panache. It percolates with such subtle details as Don Quixote's long and ungainly legs - the only part of him which remains visible once Master Peter's production begins; "during the show," Falla specifies, "they will remain in view, sometimes at rest, sometimes crossed over one another." Beyond praise is Falla's juxtaposition of his two puppet casts and the pacing that propels their climactic convergence when Don Quixote rises to intervene for Melisandra (at which point the other puppet spectators crane their necks to better observe the action). This peak, cunningly scaled, recedes to an equally precise denouement: Don Quixote's closing salutation to knights errant (culled from a different chapter of the novel), with which he finally and fully pre-empts center stage. Falla toured the piece quite successfully all over Spain with the Orquesta Bética, a chamber orchestra he had founded in 1922 as an ensemble of soloists. Indeed, Master Peter's Puppet Show was a great success for Falla, with performances and new productions all over Europe within a few years of the premiere. In 1926 the Opéra Comique in Paris celebrated Falla's 50th birthday with a program consisting of La Vida Breve, El Amor Brujo, and Master Peter's Puppet Show, with new designs by Falla's close friend Ignacio Zuloaga, and new marionettes carved by Zuloaga's brother-in-law, Maxime Dethomas. For this production singers and extras replaced the large puppets, and Falla and Zuloaga took part personally, the painter as Sancho Panza and the composer as the innkeeper.

Recordings

1950. Ataúlfo Argenta, cond.; E. D. Bovi (baritone), E. de la Vara (tenor), Lola Rodríguez de Aragón (sop.). Orq. Nacional de España. Columbia RG 16109-12 (1 disc 78 rpm). 1953. Charles F. Adler, cond.; Otto Wiener (baritone), Waldemar Kmentt (tenor), Ilona Steingruber (sop.). Wiener Staatsopernorchester. SPA-Records 43 (1 LP). 1953. Eduard Toldrà, cond.; Manuel Ausensi (baritone), Gaetano Renon (tenor), Lola Rodríguez de Aragón (sop.). Orc. National de la Radiodiffusion Française (Théatre Champs Elysées). Angel 35089 (2 LP); Columbia FXC 217 (1 LP); Fonit 303 (1 LP); EMI 569 235-2 (4 CD, 1996). 1954. Ernesto Halffter, cond.; Chano González (bass), Francisco Navarro (tenor), Blanca Seoane (sop.). Orc. Théatre Champs Elysées. Ducretet 255 C 070 (1 LP); MCA Classics MCAD 10481 (1 CD). 1958. Ataúlfo Argenta, cond. Raimundo Torres (bass), Carlos Munguía (tenor), Julita Bermejo (sop.). Orquesta Nacional de España. Decca TWS SXL 2260 (1 LP). RCA, London. 1961. Pedro de Freitas Branco, cond.; Renato Cesari (baritone), Pedro Lavirgen (tenor), Teresa Tourné (sop.). Orq. de Conciertos de Madrid. Erato; Grande Musique d'Espagne GME 221 (1 CD) 1973. Odón Alonso, cond.; Pedro Farrés (baritone), Julio Julián (tenor), Isabel Penagos (sop.). Orq. alla Scala of Milan. Zafiro (1 LP). 1977. Charles Dutoit, cond.; Manuel Bermúdez (bar.), Tomás Cabrera (ten.), Ana Higueras-Aragón (sop.). Instrumental Ensemble. Erato STU 70713. 1980. Simon Rattle, cond.; Peter Knapp (baritone), Alexander Oliver (tenor), Jennifer Smith (sop.). London Sinfonietta. Argo ZRG 921 (1 LP); Decca 433 908-2 (2 CD). 1990. Josep Pons, cond.; Iñaki Fresán (baritone); Joan Cabero (tenor), Joan Martín (boy treble). Orq. de Cambra del Teatre Lliure (Barcelona). Harmonia Mundi HMC 905213 (1 CD). 1990. Charles Dutoit, cond.; Justino Díaz (baritone), Joan Cabero (tenor), Xavier Cabero (boy treble). Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal. Decca 071 145-1 ½ CDV (Film 27’51). 1991. Robert Ziegler, cond.; Matthew Best (bar.), Adrian Thompson (ten.), Samuel Linay (treble).Matrix Ensemble. ASV CDDCA 758 (1 CD). 1994. Eduardo Mata, cond.; William Alverado (bar.), Miguel Cortez (ten.), Lourdes Ambriz (sop.). Solistas de México. Dorian DOR 90214 (1 CD). 1997. Diego Dini-Ciacci, cond.; Ismael Pons-Tena (baritone), Jordi Galofré (tenor), Natacha Valladares (soprano). I Cameristi del Teatro alla Scala (Milan). Naxos 8.553499 (1 CD). 2007. Jean-François Heisser, cond.; Jérôme Correas (baritone), Eric Huchet (tenor), Chantal Perraud (sop.). Orch. Poitou-Charentes. Mirare.