Don Giovanni - Opera - Season 23/24 Programming - Opéra national de Paris

  • New

    Opera

    Don Giovanni

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Opéra Bastille - from 13 September to 12 October 2023

    Monika Rittershaus

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Don Giovanni

Opéra Bastille - from 13 September to 12 October 2023

Opera

Don Giovanni

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Opéra Bastille - from 13 September to 12 October 2023

3h20 with 1 interval

Language : Italian

Surtitle : French / English

  • Pre-opening for the young : 9 Sept. 2023

    Opening night : 13 Sept. 2023

About

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In few words:

The Paris Opera opens its 23/24 season with a new production of Don Giovanni. If Mozart's masterpiece has fascinated generations since its Prague premiere in 1787, it is not only because his score achieves an unparalleled convergence of comedy and drama, but also because its expressive force deepens tenfold the myth of Don Giovanni, the philanderer who defies God and society. Responsive to the score's immediacy, Claus Guth imagines that Don Giovanni has been shot during his duel with the Commendatore. From then on, the libertine devotes his last hours to savouring life, whilst his faithful Leporello, an accomplice rather than a servant, seeks to soothe his pain. Disrupting the timeline, Claus Guth offers a new vision of the characters. Like a wounded beast, Don Giovanni satisfies his predatory instincts in a sensual, nocturnal pine forest, a hunting ground or an Eden forfeited for his sins.

CHARACTERS

Don Giovanni: Libertine gentleman
Leporello: Don Giovanni’s servant

Donna Anna: Aristocrat whom Don Giovanni tries to rape by breaking into her room

Donna Elvira: Aristocrat, abandonedby Don Giovanni
Zerlina: Young peasant girl whom Don Giovanni tries to seduce on her wedding day

Don Ottavio: Donna Anna’s fiancé
Masetto: Peasant, Zerlina’s fiancé
The Commendatore: Donna Anna’s father, killed in a duel by Don Giovanni

  • Opening
  • First part 90 mn
  • Intermission 30 mn
  • Second part 80 mn
  • End

Performances

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Advantages

Full

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Audio clips

Don Giovanni (saison 23/24) - Acte 2 - Pieta Pieta

Don Giovanni (saison 23/24) - Acte 2 - Il Mio Tesoro Intanto

Don Giovanni (saison 23/24) - Acte 1

Don Giovanni (saison 23/24) - Acte 1 - Ah Chi Mi Dice Mai

Backstage

  • Beyond social conventions

    Article

    Beyond social conventions

  • Donna Elvira: a passionate and worthy heroine

    Video

    Donna Elvira: a passionate and worthy heroine

  • [DEBRIEF] Your impressions of Mozart's DON GIOVANNI

    Video

    [DEBRIEF] Your impressions of Mozart's DON GIOVANNI

© Monika Rittershaus

Beyond social conventions

Article

Beyond social conventions

06’

By Ronny Dietrich

The character of Don Juan first appeared on stage in 1613, in the religious drama "El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra" ("The Seducer of Seville and the Stone Guest") by Tirso de Molina, the pseudonym of the monk Gabriel Téllez. An exceptional literary character, Don Juan has been a constant source of inspiration for writers, musicians, philosophers and researchers for almost 400 years.

There are various theories as to the character's origin: for some, it is a myth born of the Spanish popular imagination, combining two unrelated subjects: the amorous adventures of a young daredevil and the punishment of a criminal by the appearance of a statue. Other sources refer to a person living at the time of Don Pedro the Cruel: a certain Don Juan Tenorio de Sevilla, a philanderer and a pleasure-seeker, who murdered the governor of Seville, was lured to a monastery and then secretly executed by monks, who then spread the rumour that the murderer would be punished by the funerary statue of the victim, which had come to life. From Spain to Italy, the subject was adapted for comedy, focusing on the spectacular appearance of the statue and the jokes of Don Juan's servant. The next stage followed in France, where the title role was given a new lease of life: in "Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre" (1665), Molière endowed him with new characteristics. His main character was no longer a seducer driven by his impulses, but a libertine who defied all boundaries (including class), an atheist who, not content with blaspheming, went on to deny God. The 17th century saw the birth of numerous literary works and, from 1713 onwards, a host of musical adaptations, creating a veritable fashion around the 1780s, especially in Italy. Among the precursors of Mozart / Da Ponte are Vincenzo Righini's "Dramma tragicomico", first performed in Prague in 1776, and above all Giuseppe Gazzaniga's musical adaptation, first performed in Venice in 1787, which contains many of the same elements that Lorenzo da Ponte would use in his libretto. While using the main pre-existing themes, da Ponte created a libretto for an opera in its own right, whose inherent ambiguity raises more questions than it answers.

Don Giovanni, a character long condemned to a descent into hell in order to satisfy the public, was to take on a new dimension in Mozart's "Don Giovanni". The eternally punished villain would become a sympathetic figure, a notion later pursued by other poets and thinkers. But Mozart would certainly not be Mozart if he had not managed to discover, even in this being, the divine spark. So let us ask the question: is Mozart's "Don Giovanni" the expression of a myth or, as Søren Kierkegaard puts it, of a primitive force like Eros or Dionysus - or is he purely and simply a human being aware of the finitude of his existence and seeking to make the most of his life?

It is this latter dimension that Claus Guth's production sets out to examine, exploring the degree to which it is real, thus extending the work already done on Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro". For it seems that in these two works, as in "Così fan tutte", Mozart wanted to draw our attention to the state of human relationships while suggesting concepts that went beyond the social conventions of his time and, ultimately, of our own. In "Don Giovanni", Mozart pushes to the extreme the possibilities already demonstrated in "Figaro" of a form of life that entrusts itself entirely to Eros, at the end of which, by the same token, Thanatos will also assert his rights. It is the acceptance of the coexistence of these two poles of life that is transmitted from "Giovanni" to those around him, that constitutes his power of seduction, and makes others aware of their own inadequacies.

It is quite feasible to consider that this opera, in terms of its duration, takes place in real time. The few precise indications on this subject allow us to assume a time interval ranging from 11.30pm to 2.15am; this observation is admittedly marginal considering the range of interpretative angles proposed by Mozart and Da Ponte in each of their operas, but it could also be an interesting avenue. After the "crazy day" of "The Marriage of Figaro", the time available seems to have shrunk even further - just like Mozart's time?

In this context, let us mention the remarkable research work carried out by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross who, in her book "The Last Moments of Life", describes five phases of mourning that anyone facing imminent death must go through:

1. Denial and isolation,
2. Anger,
3. Bargaining,
4. Depression and
5. Acceptance.

These phases, "defence mechanisms" in the psychiatric sense of the term, are used to cope with situations of extreme difficulty. Occurring over periods of varying length, they may take place one after the other or occur simultaneously. Each of these phases almost always contains an element of hope. (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross)

The extreme situations created by Don Giovanni throughout the opera all correspond to these phases. However, analysing the last of these phases - in which the dying man must necessarily separate himself from everything and everyone, risking the most profound offences in order to find his peace - once again arouses amazement at Mozart's extraordinary insight into the human psyche. This is what led us to choose for this production the version without the final sextet, approved by Mozart himself and, incidentally, preferred by Gustav Mahler.

Ronny Dietrich

Donna Elvira: a passionate and worthy heroine

01’

Video

Donna Elvira: a passionate and worthy heroine

Interview with Gaëlle Arquez

By Isabelle Stibbe

Mezzo-soprano Gaëlle Arquez sings Donna Elvira for the first time in Claus Guth's new production of Don Giovanni. This role of a woman in love and wounded requires maturity and resilience to express the full range of emotions so subtly portrayed by Mozart.  

© Bernd Uhlig / OnP

[DEBRIEF] Your impressions of Mozart's DON GIOVANNI

01:26’

Video

[DEBRIEF] Your impressions of Mozart's DON GIOVANNI

By Octave

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