About the work
Der Dreispitz (The Three-Cornered Hat) grew out of Manuel de Falla's chamber pantomime El corregidor y la molinera (1917) after Pedro Antonio de Alarcón's novella; Sergei Diaghilev saw a performance in Madrid and commissioned Falla to expand the piece into a full-evening ballet for large orchestra. The complete version premiered on 22 July 1919 at the Alhambra Theatre in London, choreographed by Léonide Massine, with sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso and conducted by Ernest Ansermet, since Falla had to leave shortly before the premiere because of his mother's death.
Plot
The vain old Corregidor (district magistrate) desires the miller's beautiful wife and has the miller arrested on a pretext so he can approach her. His scheme backfires: miller and wife outwit him together, and in the end the exposed Corregidor is mocked by the village in effigy while the couple triumphs.
Cultural significance
The combination of Falla's Spanish nationalist musical language, Massine's choreography and Picasso's cubist-inflected stage curtain made Der Dreispitz one of the most influential Ballets Russes productions; Massine himself later named it the work he was proudest of. The orchestral suites drawn from it, with their fandango, seguidillas and jota, remain part of the concert repertory today.