Wolfgang A. Mozart Don Giovanni
ossìa Il dissoluto punito
Dramma giocoso in two acts, K. 527
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Text by Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749–1838)
Renewal
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Duration of performance approx. 3 hours 30 minutes.
PREMIERE
- 20 August 2011, 15:00
- 23 August 2011, 18:00
- 27 August 2011, 18:00
- 29 August 2011, 18:00
Print programme (PDF)
Gerald Finley, Don Giovanni
Franz-Josef Selig, Il Commendatore
Malin Byström, Donna Anna, betrothed to Don Ottavio
Joel Prieto, Don Ottavio
Dorothea Röschmann, Donna Elvira, a lady from Burgos
Erwin Schrott, Leporello, Don Giovanni's servant
Adrian Sâmpetrean (23.08), Leporello, Don Giovanni's servant
Christiane Karg, Zerlina
Adam Plachetka, Masetto
Robert Nagy, Violoncello
Felice Venanzoni, Continuo Piano Forte
Antje Strömsdörfer, Mandolin
Members of the Angelika Prokopp Sommerakademie of the Vienna Philharmonic, Stage Music
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus
Vienna Philharmonic
Although Mozart and Da Ponte did not conceive them as a cycle, in our minds Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte have grown into an unprecedented trilogy, in which Mozart shows us the state of human relations, offering us concepts beyond the social conventions. With Don Giovanni, Mozart takes the possibilities of a form of life that relies entirely upon Eros – as demonstrated in Figaro – to an extreme, and at the end, Thanatos also demands his due. The acceptance that these two extremes of life belong together radiates from Giovanni to his surroundings and makes the others aware of their deficits.
While Don Juan was justly punished by being sent to hell, to the audience’s delight and satisfaction, Mozart lends his Don Giovanni a new dimension. Here, the blackguard becomes a sympathetic figure – a trail that subsequent poets and thinkers continued to tread. Of course, Mozart would not be Mozart if he had not discovered a divine spark even in this being. Is Mozart’s Don Giovanni perchance not a myth after all, or – as Søren Kierkegaard sees him – a primordial force, like Eros or Dionysus, but simply a human being who knows that his existence is not infinite, and therefore wants to make the most of his life-span?
Ronny Dietrich