Les Arts presents its first opera for family audiences: Falla's 'El retablo de maese Pedro'

Les Arts és Òpera

• Pablo Rus Broseta conducts singers from the Centre de Perfeccionament and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in a double performance this Friday the 10th
• Enrique Lanz and the Etcétera Company present this opera for giant puppets in the Main Hall, inspired by an episode from 'Don Quixote'

Valencia (November 8, 2023). The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía presents this Friday, November 10, the first opera aimed at family audiences to be performed in the Main Hall: 'El retablo de maese Pedro' by Manuel de Falla. To commemorate the centenary of the work's premiere in Paris, Les Arts presents this chamber opera for puppets in Valencia, based on a chapter from 'Don Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes.

Pablo Rus Broseta from Valencia directs the singers from the Centre de Perfeccionament Iria Goti (Trujamán), Max Spósito (Maese Pedro) and Daniel Gallegos (Don Quixote) and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in this attractive proposal, which also includes the 'Concerto for harpsichord' by the brilliant composer from Cadiz with Diego Ares as soloist.

The Etcétera Company, winner of the National Performing Arts Award for children and young people (2014), and its director, Enrique Lanz, are responsible for the impressive staging of 'El retablo de maese Pedro', produced in co-production with the Teatro Real in Madrid and the Granada Festival.

Enrique Lanz is the grandson of Hermenegildo Lanz, the artist who created the original puppets for the premiere of Falla's work in Paris. One hundred years later, the puppeteer and set designer presents a theater-within-a-theater performance, with puppets inspired by the original production, some over seven meters tall, in a tribute to two giants of Spanish culture: Miguel de Cervantes and Manuel de Falla.

Les Arts has scheduled two performances of the play for this Friday, November 10. The 10:30 a.m. performance is exclusively for members of the Educational Program. The 7:30 p.m. performance is open to families, with tickets priced at €15.

Argument

'Master Peter's Puppet Show' is based on the twenty-sixth chapter of the second part of 'Don Quixote'. In this episode, Cervantes recounts the knight's encounter with Master Peter and his assistant, Trujamán, who are presenting a puppet show in which they perform 'The Puppet Show of Melisendra's Freedom', a medieval romance that narrates the liberation of the Frenchwoman Melisendra, wife of Don Gaiferos, who is being held captive by the Moorish king Marsilio. The knight-errant, unable to distinguish between fiction and reality, ends up destroying Master Peter's puppets to save the fugitives.