• PRODUCTION → OPÉRA ROYAL DE WALLONIE-LIÈGE

LIBRETTO BY LORENZO DA PONTE BASED ON GIOVANNI BERTATI’S WORK

“Two days before the performance, Mozart told his wife that he was going to write the opening during the night and asked her to make some punch and remain by his side to keep him awake. […] However, Mozart fell asleep so soundly that Constanze only managed to wake him at five o’clock. By seven o’clock, the opening had been set down on paper. The scribes struggled to have the text ready on time, but the opera’s orchestra played it perfectly at first glance”. — GEORG NIKOLAUS VON NISSEN, BIOGRAPHER OF W.A. MOZART

The second collaboration between Mozart and Da Ponte was intended for Prague where the success with which Nozze met was so great that a new commission was made in 1787. The result was this absolute masterpiece, Il dissoluto punito ossia il Don Giovanni, the opera which, along with Die Zauberflöte, would go on to uniquely illuminate the future. It tackles the question of love, a permanent theme in Mozart’s work. Don Giovanni is different because it does not include real couples of lovers. The charming “catalogue aria” is merely a comic and countable inventory. There is no love duet. Even the famous “La ci darem la mano” is closer to an erotic promise than a declaration. In this work, love is unrequited. Ottavio loves Anna who does not repay it in return. The young Masetto loves the brazen Zerlina and Elvira loves Don Giovanni who loves none of them, but desires them all! It is a meditation on love and seduction…

THURSDAY MAY 26 AT 8PM → PALAIS DES BEAUX-ARTS (PBA) DE CHARLEROI (CONDUCTOR: AYRTON DESIMPELAERE)