Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. It was premiered

Related Topics:
Opera - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Libretto - Lorenzo da Ponte

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

in Prague on October 29, 1787.

Related Topics:
Prague - October 29 - 1787

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Of the many operas based on the legend of Don Juan, Mozart's is the most famous and widely regarded as the finest. The opera was billed as dramma giocoso or "funny drama," belonging to a genre neither completely comic nor completely tragic. In the original production the actors alternated between spoken recitative and sung aria, but most modern productions use the secco-recitatives composed by Mozart in place of the spoken text.

Related Topics:
Don Juan - Secco-recitatives

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A screen adaptation of the opera was made under the title Don Giovanni in 1979, and was directed by Joseph Losey.

Related Topics:
1979 - Joseph Losey

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote a large essay in his book Either/Or in which he - or at least one of his pseudonyms - defends the claim that Mozart's Don Giovanni is the greatest work of art ever made. The finale in which Don Giovanni refuses to repent has been a captivating philosophical and artistic topic for many writers including George Bernard Shaw, who in Man and Superman, parodied the opera (with explicit mention of the Mozart score for the finale scene between the Commendatore and Don Giovanni).

Related Topics:
Søren Kierkegaard - Either/Or - George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~