Roberto Gerhard and the ballet Don Quixote

Extending the myth

Abstract

According to David Drew, for Roberto Gerhard Cervantes’ Don Quixote was “like his Bible”, and it is significant that when he went into exile at the end of the Spanish Civil War one of the first works he composed was based on the novel. Gerhard re-imagined the work in such a way that it suggests that his line of thought was in tune with that of such writers as Miguel de Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset and Salvador de Madariaga, all of whom used the novel as a means of addressing Spain’s problems in times of stress. Of these philosophers Miguel de Unamuno was the first, creating his own faith of quijotismo in 1905. He was followed by Ortega y Gasset in 1914 and Salvador de Madariaga in 1926. Cervantes’ (or Benengeli’s) novel was re-interpreted in the work of such men and others until it acquired the attributes of an ancient myth. The evidence for Gerhard’s relationship with the selected writers is based on the fact that he owned their books and that ideas from their work drift in and out of the ballet scenario, through which, together with the music, his own quixotic faith was articulated via a system of serialism created for the ballet. A thread of Spanish Catholicism is invoked through the appearance of Dulcinea as a paso procesional and the religious connotations are further highlighted by the use of a cantus firmus. In the creation of the ballet, therefore, Gerhard added further mythological (and philosophical) concepts to those accruing to Cervantes’ heroes, including the possibility that Sancho, with Rocinante, may take up the quest.