De vernuftige edelman
DON QUICHOT VAN LA MANCHA

The staging and direction have also been widely praised as "a feast for the eyes", in which "office chairs turn into horses, a giant club sandwich into a bed and an island, and the archives and bookcases [that] turn out to be full of secrets". [...] It is "a matter of choices", and in the process "inevitably chips fall", but "Pintor shows with this opera his enormous talent, erudition, drive and versatility".

All reviewers reflect on the set-up of the play and the libretto. "The ambition is great" writes NRC Handelsblad. Librettist and director Stefano Simone Pintor wants to capture the original conception and thrust of Cervantes' 1,000-page book in this performance, and does so "faithfully [...] though he gives it a slight twist" according to Basia Con Fuoco. "The ingenuity of the performance lies in the Droste effect: the story of Don Quixote is a story about the writer" according to the Volkskrant.

"The new opera about the imaginative nobleman" delivers "a grand spectacle" that is "very pleasantly complex" due to its layering and richness of ideas, according to De Groene Amsterdammer. In the process, the story is set in our own time, "illustrating perceived values as relevant today as in the time of Cervantes" according to Arts Talk Magazine. 'Don Quixote's knightly fantasies collide in new opera with stock market machismo' is how
NRC sums it up in its headline. "Human fantasy [in the process] succumbs to modern reality" is how Opus Classical describes a crucial scene just before the end. "But there is The Reader again [...] opening a new book" according to De Groene. "Don Quixote is dead, long live Don Quixote".