The three-act ballet Don Quichotte was the result of a collaboration with Charles-Simon Favart and was to involve material derived from Boismortier's own encounters in the salons of Paris. There, according to De La Borde, he was to be seen decked out in his finest golden costume, speaking eloquently, flirting with women, impressing everyone with his verses. This would have earned him the friendship of Favart, who raised vaudeville to new heights and participated in the birth of the French opéra-comique. The writer had won particular popularity in 1741 with La chercheuse d'esprit (The Seeker after Wit) at the Foire St-Germain. In 1743 he was engaged as stage manager and répétiteur by the Paris Opéra-Comique and in the same year Boismortier became assistant conductor for the orchestra of the Foire St-Laurent, with which Favart was allowed to work after the closure of the Opéra-Comique, an event that took place as a result of the jealousy of the Cornédie-Italienne.

Performed at the Royal Academy of Music on 12th February 1743, in a double bill with a revival of Jean-Joseph Mouret's Ragonde ou la soirée de village (Ragonde or the Village Evening), Boismortier's ballet was staged before Le pouvoirde l'Amour (The Power of Love), by Pancrace Royer, which had its first performance on 23rd April. Boismortier had, in consequence, competition from the most distinguished of his contemporaries. The tragic moral themes of Cervantes, however, became, under Favart, a true comédie-lyrique, with a plot that mingles the comic and the sad, much as had Le carnaval et lafolie (Carnival and Folly) by Destouches in 1704, de la Barre's La vénitienne in 1705 or Rameau's Platée in 1745. The production involved some of the best known performers of the time, with Marie Fel as Altisidore, Bérard and Cuvillier as Don Quichotte and Sancho, and the dancers Dumoulin, Lany and Dupré, with Mesdemoiselles Dallemand and Camargo. Voltaire wrote the following lines on Camargo and her rival Sallé, who danced in Boismortier's Les voyages de l'Amour:

Oh Camargo, how brilliant you are,

But Sallé, good heavens, how ravishing!

How light are your steps and how sweet are hers!

She is unmatched and you are new.

Nymphs leap in your fashion,

But the Graces dance like her.

The colourful and brilliant overture is followed by three acts, moving at a rapid pace, in which Boismortier makes use of some Rameau effects, triplet crotchets, short rhythmic passages, accompanied recitatives and distinctive orchestration. Rameau himself was to recall this work when, ten years later, he wrote his Boréades, in which two of the finest arias bear a striking resemblance to arias from Don Quichotte. The musical interludes ail have the pastoral characteristics of the period and, although Boismortier does not make use of the musette, the French shepherd bagpipe, to enhance them, he makes full use of the gavottes, bourrées, passepieds and other airs and dances that he happily reproduces in his compilation of sonatas. Naturally some arias provide an excuse for moralizing on love and war and some instruments have the finest pages of the score assigned to them, as with the flute solo in Act II, Scene 3, with Altisidore's Eh, pourquoi mourir de changer and the oboe part in Act I, Scene 5, with the peasant girl's comic Je n'entends point le caquet d'un muguet.

Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse prefigures the success of Boismortier's pastorale Daphnis et Chloé, with a libretto by Laujon, which was first performed on 28th September 1747, forming the climax of his career, to be restaged and even parodied in 1752 by the Comédie-Italienne as Les bergers de qualité (The Shepherds of Quality). Numbered 102, Daphnis et Chloé ends Boismortier's catalogue of works, one of the most voluminous ever produced by an eighteenth century French composer.

The ballet-comique Don Quichotte, ordered by the King for the 1743 carnival, was something new, light and dazzling. Its immediate success brought abundant support and ensured the participation of great performers, Mademoiselle Fel and Camargo herself, the greatest and undisputed stars of the time. The originality of the libretto is striking. There is no mythology, no shepherd goings-on, no love-story, and no endless display of high- flown sentiments or silliness either. The story of Don Quichotte was skillfully adapted by Favart from Volume II of the novel by Cervantes and deals with a cruel mystification that ends with the unintended apotheosis of the hero. The story-line is incisive, quick and ironic and there are events where all hell breaks loose. The whole work gives the impression of a series of unexpected events, hence the dizzying rhythm, skillfully interrupted by pauses occasioned by the sudden turn of events.

Boismortier reinforces the general mood delightfully, with an abundance of varied themes, skilful transitions from one scene to the next and a constant shifting between brief arias and recitatives, with sudden soaring poetic moments, as in the final Chaconne. Here Favart is a Feydeau who has read Clélie and Boismortier is a Rossini who knows the work of Perrault. In short, Don Quichotte is a very comic and true false ugly fairy-tale.

The confrontation of the two separate worlds to which the Duchess and Don Quichotte belong is a new idea in the context of the dramatic tradition of the period. Cynisicism is everywhere fashionable in the eighteenth century, turning grand principles and so-called noble sentiments into mockery. This tierce division between cynicism and idealism, where those who laugh at the expense of others are judges and executioners, remains of striking relevance today. Constantly underlined in the libretto and the score, this conflict gives the work its genuine tension. In the face of the cruel mockery of the courtiers, among whom the Duchess and her lady-in-waiting Altisidore are prominent, and, by contrast, Sancho's self-indulgent awkwardness, Don Quichotte is astonishing in the relevance and profundity of his remarks. In this way his character is developed gradually during the course of the plot. At first amusing, he becomes charming, then turns into a truly admirable character and inspires a complete change of attitude from his persecutors. By honouring Don Quichotte in the final scene, they all praise the hero who remains true to his ideals and who alone, above all, gives reality to his dreams and brings magic to life.

The audience is invited to follow the same path, to decide whether Don Quichotte wins at the end or not: when the hero is honoured, the spectator may choose to see this final scene as yet another scheme set up by the Duchess or as the mysterious flight of the hero to the land of dreams. An open end of this kind makes of Don Quichotte a very modern work.

Synopsis

Prologue
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, in the wanderings, happen to pass through the estate of the Duke and Duchess. The noble couple, enthusiastic readers of Cervantes, recognize them and plan a hoax at their expense. To this end they invent a plot in the purest tradition of chivalry, which turns into the grandest entertainment for themselves, their guests and their household. All this takes place while the valorous Don Quixote firmly believes that he is taking part in a true adventure. The sport takes place in the Duchess's theatre, decorated as the enchanted forest of the wizard Aspharador. The first trial for Don Quixote and his squire is to deliver from her bondage Altisidora, who is to be devoured by a monster. The young lady is determined to show that she can replace the famous Dulcinea of Toboso, Don Quixote's imagined lady (in fact a tavern girl), in the heart of the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, and resolves to achieve this before the end of the adventure.

Act I
The farce begins with the appearance of a monster, in fact two of the Duchess's valets grotesquely disguised. Don Quixote fights it and manages to kill it. Altidisora declares her gratitude, but, to her dismay, the Knight, his duty performed, can think of nothing but continuing his journey. To make him change his mind, she offers him entertainment in which dwellers in the enchanted forest, birds, dryads and satyrs appear.

Don Quixote is resolved to leave. Much to everyone's surprise it is Sancho who, relishing the wine and food offered, devises a solution to the predicament. He seizes one of the Duchess's maids and declares her to be Dulcinea and when Don Quixote fails to recognize her, claims that this is the result of enchantment. The peasant-girl protests vigorously, but Altisidora and all the guests corroborate Sancho's tale, not without punishing him for making their life complicated. Indeed, by devising this new scheme, he forces them to improvise in a way they had not foreseen.

The Duke appears in the guise of Merlin, while the peasant-girl is discreetly removed. He indicates to Don Quixote that he will find Dulcinea in the cave of a certain Montesinos, where, as everyone knows, many famous lovers are kept under the spell of this hateful character. The Duke tells Don Quixote he must leave for this cave, in spite of all the dangers that may confront him. As for Sancho, he is condemned to receive a thousand strokes to undo the spell that made Dulcinea appear as a vulgar peasant-girl.

Act II
Having reached the cave, a new scene in the Duchess's theatre, Don Quixote declares his determination to brave whatever dangers he is about to face. Altisidora joins him and attempts to dissuade him from pursuing such a purpose, claiming to be the Queen of Japan, who is madly in love with him. Don Quixote nobly declines her love and Altisidora goes away disappointed.

Don Quixote now fights successfully with a dwarf and a giant, both of them puppets. The mysterious cave now lies open before him. Montesinos welcomes him with a noble air, while the lovers, no longer spell-bound, rise from their long sleep to celebrate their deliverance in a series of dances.

Dulcinea, of course, is close at hand, still in the guise of a peasant-girl. Merlin (the Duke) intervenes once more to explain this state of affairs: Sancho did not submit to the thousand strokes, so he must be beaten in public, a task undertaken with great delight by twelve devils.

Much to everyone's surprise the beating does not change the appearance of Dulcinea. Altisidora appears a sorceress as much as the Queen of Japan, and claims that she has maintained the spell to punish Don Quixote for rejecting her. Furthermore, to demonstrate her might and her anger, she orders the devils to abduct Dulcinea and carry her to the faraway land of Japan, while changing Don Quixote into a bear and Sancho Panza into a monkey. They alone will still be able to recognize their true identities.

Act III
The guests pretend to see Sancho as a clever monkey and they all run away in horror when they hear the terrible growling of the bear, Don Quixote. Left alone, the two lament their predicament.

Altisidora, who has still failed to win the Knight's heart, risks a final attempt. She promises death, if he resolves to reject her. Don Quixote remains unmoved by her threats. She threatens to kill Dulcinea, but Don Quixote remains steadfast. Altisidora has lost. Appearing one more time in the guise of Merlin, the Duke announces the end of the game. Don Quixote has surprised everyone by his courage and steadfastness.

Caught in their own trap and seized by the emotions stirred by the character of Don Quixote, all join together to crown him King of Japan and, in a final divertissement, to see his apotheosis and flight for the land of his dreams.

Vincent Tavernier
Edited by: Michael Nafi