A very particular form of reception of the Don Quijote de la Mancha is musical reception. In transcoding from narrative prose to the language of the Opera, the librettist shows his personal knowledge of the work of Miguel de Cervantes, read in the original text or in translation. Since the eighteenth century, in some librettos written in Italian, adherence to the hypotext, albeit interpreted in a new light, leads in some passages to an authentic rewriting of the play. The aim of this article is to show the processes of transcoding de Cervantes’ novels based on significant Italian librettists.