Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança
Encyclopedia
Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança is a one-act 'tableau grotesque' or 'grotesque scene' with music by Hervé
after Cervantes
, first produced in 1847, which has been dubbed ‘the first French operetta’, and a precursor of the opéra bouffe
.
Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança was conceived as a vehicle for Desiré, a friend of Hervé, who had requested a piece for a benefit performance. Desiré, short and plump as Sancho, was pitted against the tall and thin Quichotte of Hervé.
The piece was staged the following year at Adolphe Adam
's Opéra-National
at the Cirque Olympique on 6 March 1848 (with Hervé again, and Joseph Kelm as Sancho), in a double-bill with Les barricades de 1848.
Hervé recalled that the success of his piece led to the tunes becoming very popular in the vaudevilles of Paris and hummed all around the city. The most popular couplet was:
Hervé (composer)
Hervé , real name Louis Auguste Florimond Ronger, was a French singer, composer, librettist, conductor and scene painter, whom Ernest Newman, following Reynaldo Hahn, credited with inventing the genre of operetta in Paris.-Life:Hervé was born in Houdain near Arras...
after Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
, first produced in 1847, which has been dubbed ‘the first French operetta’, and a precursor of the opéra bouffe
Opéra bouffe
Opéra bouffe is a genre of late 19th-century French operetta, closely associated with Jacques Offenbach, who produced many of them at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens that gave its name to the form....
.
Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança was conceived as a vehicle for Desiré, a friend of Hervé, who had requested a piece for a benefit performance. Desiré, short and plump as Sancho, was pitted against the tall and thin Quichotte of Hervé.
The piece was staged the following year at Adolphe Adam
Adolphe Adam
Adolphe Charles Adam was a French composer and music critic. A prolific composer of operas and ballets, he is best known today for his ballets Giselle and Le corsaire , his operas Le postillon de Lonjumeau , Le toréador and Si j'étais roi , and his Christmas...
's Opéra-National
Opéra-National
The Opéra-National was a Parisian opera company founded by the French composer Adolphe Adam in 1847 in order to provide an alternative to the two primary companies performing French opera in Paris, the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique...
at the Cirque Olympique on 6 March 1848 (with Hervé again, and Joseph Kelm as Sancho), in a double-bill with Les barricades de 1848.
Hervé recalled that the success of his piece led to the tunes becoming very popular in the vaudevilles of Paris and hummed all around the city. The most popular couplet was:
- Je sais que les filles
- Sont vraiment gentilles
- Et que tous les drilles
- En sont amoureux.
- Mais sous l'aubépine,
- La corde argentine
- De ma mandoline
- Sait me rendre heureux;
- Oui, ma guitarine
- Sait me rendre heureux.