The Conqueror

The central character of the play is Don Felipe, the conquistador, who is roughly based on the fate of Hernán Cortés, a Spanish conquistador who married a slave, the beautiful and intelligent native woman Malintzin, a member of the Tlaxcaltec tribe. It was Malintzin’s knowledge of languages that paved the way for him among the tribes of Indians who hated the Aztecs and were happy to ally themselves with the Spaniards in order to dismantle the flourishing Aztec kingdom.

We meet Don Felipe at the end of his triumphal war campaigns, when he is humbly awaiting his appointment as viceroy of the new territories. His son Baltasar, whom his father dragged around with him as a boy across the battlefields to watch, hear and smell the indescribably cruel killing sprees, loudly reminds his father that the appropriated fields are empty and futile as the enslaved natives die or flee into the mountains. At court, alongside Don Felipe’s silent wife, the native Marguerite, is the young and fiery Castilian princess Caetana, who constantly reminds Balthasar that he is but a shadow of his heroic father.

When Don Felipe learns that the Duke of Santander, a nobleman who has never stood on a battlefield, has been appointed viceroy, he sets off on a military campaign against the newcomer to take what is his due after all his victories. While he is away, Baltasar and Ceatana marry, she is pregnant and he is unhappy because his father did not take him with him so that he could finally prove himself as a warrior. When Don Felipe returns, he is only a shadow of himself, abandoned by his fellow soldiers, now local landlords. He finds his small court in ruins. Balthasar, meanwhile, goes on a campaign of his own to take revenge on those who betrayed his father, and thus finally become one of the heroes. Caetana wanders the rooms, looks for liquor, neglects her child and teases Don Felipe at every opportunity by extolling Baltasar’s courage.

The Conqueror will be directed by Sebastijan Horvat (1971), an internationally acclaimed director who has received several awards for his productions both here and abroad.

Andrej Hieng (1925-2000), whose centenary will be celebrated with this new production of The Conqueror, is considered one of the most important modernists in Slovenian literature. He received numerous awards for his work: the Sterija and the Gavella Awards for The Conqueror, and the Prešeren Award for lifetime achievement in 1988.