Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Giuseppe Gazzaniga: Don Giovanni

The cycle of comparative titles I

Gazzaniga’s and Mozart’s operas is performed in a single evening. This most celebrated of Mozart’s operas is rightly called the “opera of operas”, so we are justly proud that it had its world premiere in Prague – in the Nostitz Theater on October 29, 1787. The libretto was written by Lorenzo da Ponte based on legends about Don Juan and above all according to Giovanni Bertati’s libretto for the opera of the same title by Gazzaniga. The Italian composer Gazzaniga, who wrote about fifty operas, attracted attention in 1786 with his opera The False Blind Man. His one-act Don Giovanni was first performed in Venice eight months before the world premiere of the opera by Mozart. To this day we don’t know whether Mozart knew Gazzaniga’s work, but the two operas agree in many musical and dramatic features.

In co-operation with Italian cultural institute in Prague and Austrian cultural forum in Prague

Premiere: Dec 13, 2001