A New Production in the Making: Don Quichotte

Preparations are in full swing for an exceptional operatic event: the first
night, on March 18, 2010, of a new production of Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte.
It is being staged by Jiří Nekvasil, for whom the occasion marks a
comeback to the State Opera after eight years. Alternating in the title role
will be Rubén Amoretti, a bass of Italian-Spanish extraction, and Serbian bass
Ivan Tomašev; Sancho Panza will be performed by Mexican baritone Noé Colín,
alternating with Jakub Kettner; and the two ladies cast as Dulcinée are Galia
Ibragimova and Andrea Kalivodová. The staging is conducted by Heiko Mathias
Förster of Germany, who made a successful debut at the Prague State Opera with
the revived premiere of Verdi’s Otello in May 2009. The coming premiere is
dedicated to the memory of an outstanding Czech interpreter of Don Quichotte,
the bass Eduard Haken, the centenary of whose birth will be marked this coming
March. He created the part in the last previous production of the Massenet opera
in Prague, on the stage of the then Smetana Theatre (today’s Prague State
Opera), between the years 1965 and 1967. Rehearsal photos: Luděk Novák.