About the work
Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Comacho is a one-act comic serenata (Singspiel) by Georg Philipp Telemann to a libretto by the 18-year-old Hamburg student Daniel Schiebeler, setting the wedding scene from chapter 20 of the second volume of Cervantes's "Don Quixote." It premiered on 5 November 1761 at the Konzertsaal auf dem Kamp in Hamburg; only in 2002 was the work staged in Magdeburg for the first time in about 250 years.
Plot
Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza stumble into the rural wedding feast of the wealthy farmer Comacho, who wants to marry the beautiful Quiteria although she loves the poor Basilio. Knight and squire meddle in the festivities with comic zeal.
Cultural significance
The work combines folk-flavoured colouring with formal operatic convention and ranks among Telemann's last stage works; its renewed staging in Magdeburg from 2002 also made it usable for school education projects.