Saturday, 25 February 2012

2012 02 25 - Don Giovanni @ Esplanade

SYNOPSIS
Don Giovanni written by Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte is the most dramatic and flamboyant of their collaborations. A score bursting with musical invention, beautiful arias, charming duets and dramatic ensembles all offset by wit and comic irony which bring a unique brilliance to the drama.

The Opera opens with a murder. During the course of the day the murderer, Don Giovanni, goes on to a wedding, several attempted seductions, a masquerade, a mugging and an encounter with an apparition whom he then invites to dinner. His luck finally runs out when the spectre of the man he murdered appears. Though offered heavenly redemption, Don Giovanni remains unrepentant until the flames of Hell consume him. If all this drama seems unrelenting, it is offset by the humorous and ironic comments of his servant Leporello.

Is Don Giovanni a comic or serious opera or both? The most convincing answer was given by Alfred Einstein “… it is an “opera buffa” with “seria” roles … a work of genius … incomparable and enigmatic from the evening of its first performance to the present day”.