Download PDF Send by email. His [first,] Don Quijote, which premiered in in Madrid, is a setting of the most renowned work in Spanish literature. Halffter explains the link between the three works in this interview.
Halffter: It was chance. Some things in life are very difficult to analyse. She sent me the book, I read it in the afternoon on a free day, and the opera was finished that evening β I still had to write it down, but it was finished.
I conceived everything while I was reading. At what point did you become hooked? Halffter: You can play football alone, if you play against a wall β you can play cards alone β but it is very, very difficult to play chess against yourself. You need two brains. You have to be A and B β at the same time. That really fascinated me. That was the only way for Dr. Berger, the main character Dr. B to carry on living.
For a short time, during the Nazi interrogations, he argues even more clearly and sharply for what instills that respect [in the Nazis]. And then there is this coincidence β Dr. That is very exciting. Someone survives because he is creative. One can be a physical wreck, but mental deterioration is the worst. He struggles against that total mental deterioration by playing a game.
That is the great thing β that playing a game is so important. Yet at the same time Dr. Halffter: Of course; that was also an important reason for writing the opera. The material expresses that everyone must fight β not always with weapons; there are other ways to fight.
