Jules Massenet was born in Montaud, St. Etienne in 1842, the youngest of twelve children. His mother was his piano teacher and he decided early on that his life’s work would be in music; at the age of 11 he was accepted into the Paris Conservatoire’s piano class. By the age of 18 he was on his own, teaching private piano lessons, playing in a string of Paris cafés and working as a percussionist in some of the city’s theatres. Continuing in composition at the conservatoire in 1860 he came under the influence of the theatre composer Ambroise Thomas, who was to appoint Massenet to the post of professor of composition some years later. Under Thomas’ tutelage, Massenet won the highly coveted Prix de Rome, the national prize for composition, which afforded him two years at the Villa Medici in Rome to study and work. He didn’t begin producing opera until the late 1860s with La grand’tante at the Opéra-Comique in 1867 and Don César de Bazan, also at the Comique, in 1872. His most successful early opera, however, was the exotic Le roi de Lahore which was presented by the Paris Opéra’s new Palais Garnier in 1877. This was a large, sprawling work in the Meyerbeer tradition with a large chorus and orchestra and oriental-Indian touches that made it an instant hit.
Georges Bizet, composer of Carmen and The Pearl Fishers was a friend of Massenet’s but the only contemporary whose work could possibly have challenged his own in the public sphere. With Bizet’s death in 1875, Massenet had clear sailing to the premiere position of chief French composer of opera in the late 19th century. A string of operatic hits followed Le roi, among them Hérodiade (1881), Manon (1884), Le Cid (1885) and Esclarmonde (1889). Werther appeared in 1892, but not in Paris; it was first performed at the Vienna Hofoper and was well received. This was followed by Thaïs (1894) and La Navarraise (1894), Massenet’s attempt at a verismo style. Later works did not fare so well as these ‘middle-period’ operas but revivals of Werther, Manon and Thaïs established him as one of the great French opera composers, bringing him considerable international attention and wealth. Like other composers of the time, Wagner, Verdi and Puccini among them, Massenet had a soft spot for lovely female singers. The soprano Sybil Sanderson, for whom Esclarmonde and Thaïs were written, and the mezzo Lucy Arbell, for whom the role of La Belle Dulcinée was created, were very influential in his life if not romantically entwined with him.
Don Quichotte (1910) was part of a commission of six operas by the impresario Raoul Gunsbourg of the Monte Carlo Opéra (director of the company from 1893 to 1951…58 years!), giving the composer an important source of new work towards the end of his life in 1912. No lack of funds was lavished on these operas (including Thérèse [1907, another vehicle for mezzo Arbell], Le jongleur de Notre-Dame [1902], Chérubin [1905], Roma [1912] and Cléopâtre [premiered posthumously in 1914]) and they were given spectacular productions with stellar casts. The creation of the title role of Don Quichotte for the reigning Russian basso Fyodor Chaliapin was enough to bring in the international audience for its premiere on February 19, 1910. Chaliapin was regularly found on the cast lists at the Monte Carlo and he had an outstanding international reputation even if Massenet seems to have been rather dismissive of his gifts. For the singer, the role seems to have been a perfect fit. On his first encounter with the work at a read-through with the composer and librettist Henri Cain in 1909, he burst into tears at hearing the beginning of the last act. Massenet had to calm him down before he could continue playing the piece on the piano. Of the event, Chaliapin wrote in his memoir: “I could of course mention many other composers who have written more profound music than Jules Massenet. Yet I must confess that I never remember being more intensely moved than by his interpretation of the score as he played it to me that day for the first time”.
Massenet wrote Don Quichotte under trying circumstances. He was coming off the colossal failure of his opera Bacchus at the Paris Opéra in 1909, but more seriously he was dealing with a severe bout of rheumatism that kept him in bed for weeks. It was during this difficult period that he wrote the new opera. So confident was he in its eventual success that he had the score and parts printed entirely even before the first rehearsal.