西班牙領事的信

Don Quixote is not the only universal character produced by Spanish literature but he is, along with Don Juan, the best known in the world.

Man from La Mancha is a story of the human condition, the story of the arrow that escapes from the bow when it is not held tightly by the reins of reason. The arrow is the human soul's highest aspiration for justice and generosity; it is forgetting about the entangling web of socially suitable interests and Realpolitik. Don Quixote is mad, but we cannot fail to identify with him because his madness also represents a yearning of the human soul.

However, the hero's companion, the humble, other man from La Mancha, Sancho, also represents another dimension of the human condition. His is such a careful portrait of human behaviour and his earnest loyalty to his master is treated with such tender acceptance of his simple rudeness, that we certainly learn to love him.

Seen against the background of what was being written at that time, Cervantes masterpiece is the first novel ever written in the West, that is, the first story that is at the same time a product of the imagination and wholly credible as a practical possibility.

Let us hear with enjoyment and respect the most contemporary musical version of this portrait of ourselves, as rendered by the company TNT Theatre, its Director Mr. Hardy Tsoi and the members of the company.

Camilo Alonso-Vega

Consul General

November 12, 2004