page_title: Maritana
section_title: Act 1
hierarchical_section_title: Maritana / Synopsis / Act 1
caption_attribution_description: The wedding of Don Cæsar and Maritana, from William Vincent Wallace's Maritana. Original caption: 'Scene from the New Opera of "Maritana," at Drury Lane Theatre'
context_page_description: Maritana is a three act opera including both spoken dialogue and some recitatives, composed by William Vincent Wallace, with a libretto by Edward Fitzball. The opera is based on the 1844 French play Don César de Bazan by Adolphe d'Ennery and Philippe François Pinel Dumanoir, which was also the source material for Jules Massenet's opéra comique Don César de Bazan. The opera premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 15 November 1845.
  The first of six operas by Wallace, the work is often cited as an inspiration for a plot device in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Yeomen of the Guard in which a man weds a woman while awaiting execution in prison, escapes and, while he is disguised, the couple falls in love.
context_section_description: Maritana is a gypsy street singer in Madrid. Charles II, the young king of Spain, lurking in the public square in disguise, is taken with her beauty. His devious minister, Don José, sees this and encourages his affections, hoping that the King will compromise himself. José intends to reveal the King's infidelity to further his own favour with the Queen. José also fills Maritana's head with visions of a wealthy life. Don Cæsar de Bazan is a down-on-his-luck but jovial nobleman who is arrested and sentenced to death by public hanging for duelling during Holy Week. Maritana admires the dashing Don Cæsar, who had fought to defend a poor apprentice boy named Lazarillo from mistreatment by his master.
caption: The wedding of Don Cæsar and Maritana
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