Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart "Don Giovanni, ossia Il dissoluto punito" Opera in two acts

The legend of the seductive and cynical pleasure hunter has been wandering around Western Europe for many years. In 1630, the great playwright of the golden age of Spanish literature, Tirso de Molina (aka Gabriel Telles, a monk and doctor of theology) "documented" her in the play "The Mischievous Man of Seville, or the Stone Guest". In it, Tirso de Molina developed all the main plot lines known to today's audience. Vidmantas Siliunas, a specialist in Spanish theater of the XVI–XVII centuries, noted: "Don Juan's theatrical role is ambiguous – he is similar to the "hero-lover" of high comedy and to the hero of farces, called in Spain "golden age" interludes and performed in the intermissions of dramatic works... The scenic character... grotesquely strange, or, as the Spaniards of the XVII century said, monstrous. Don Juan is not only a nobleman-a rogue, an aristocrat-a rascal, he is a theatrical monster – a mixture of "first lover" and buffoon."

The libretto, created by Lorenzo Da Ponte for Mozart, is a kind of crucible furnace, in which elements, characters, storylines from different fantasies on a given topic are combined – so, the motive of revenge arose from Moliere ("Don Juan, or the Stone Feast"), and from Goldoni ("Don Giovanni Tenorio, or the Libertine") the ideas of the Enlightenment era are taken, leveling the wrath of God to a random combination of circumstances. Giuseppe Gazzanigi's opera "Don Giovanni, or the Stone Guest" to a libretto by Giovanni Bertati also played an important role. It is not known for certain whether Mozart knew this score, but Da Ponte knew Bertati's text, followed it and even borrowed a spectacular beginning – a scene in the house of Donna Anna*.

The opera was released in 1787 on the stage of the Estate Theater in Prague. The people of Prague welcomed Mozart's new work quite furiously, but the subsequent production in Vienna did not have such an enthusiastic response – Emperor Joseph II noticed that "Don Juan" was "too tough" for his crowns. History has shown that the emperor was wrong. "Don Juan" opened the modern building of the Vienna State Opera (1869), it was also presented in the first season of the theater building restored after World War II (1955).

Age limit 16+