Don Caesar de Bazan

About Don Caesar de Bazan

This fast-paced, swashbuckling, romantic comedy is loosely based on characters from the 1838 play “Ruy Blas” by Victor Hugo. Dumnois and D’Ennery’s script foregoes both historical accuracy and adherence to the more gloomy tone of Hugo’s original. Instead, the dramatists choose to tell the story of Don Caesar, a dashing, charismatic officer in the service of King Charles II of Spain. Don Caesar is devoted to wine, women, and song. He is particularly smitten with the beautiful gypsy, Maritana. Despite the carefree and somewhat rakish impression he initially makes, Don Caesar’s scrupulous honesty, devotion to duty, and exceptional loyalty to his friends and comrades throws him into stark contrast with the perfidy and mendacious tactics employed by the more high ranking characters surrounding him. When scheming and dastardly behavior extends even to King Charles himself, how will Don Caesar escape with life and liberty intact? Multiple operas were based this script including Massenet’s 1872 “Don Cesar de Bazan” and “Maritana” by William Wallace in 1845. Don Caesar was one of Edwin Booth’s signature roles and was popular with many other leading actors of the Victorian Era. Although the play has lost cultural currency with U.S. audiences, to this day, new versions of Don Caesar and Maritana’s adventures appear in movie theatres or on television screens in Europe every decade or two.

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