Love against temptation

04/04/11 15:04
(http://www.klassa.bg/)

by Petar PLAMENOV

6 April (Wednesday) 2011
"DON GIOVANNI" - W.A.Mozart
Opera Premiere
Opera in two acts
Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte
Stage director-Alexander Tekeliev

Opera and Philharmonic Association
State Opera Bourgas
Address:
Bourgas, 2 Kliment Ohridski str.
Phone: 056 84 07 89
Start:19.00

Cast:
Don Giovanni-Aleksander Krunev
Leporello-Delyan Slavov
Donna Anna-Maria Zvetkova
Don Ottavio-Georgi Sultanov
Donna Elvira -Nona Krastnikova
Masetto-Diman Panchev
Zerlina-Milena Minkova
Il Commendatore-Tosho Gerdjikov

Critics always unanimously acknowledged that the opera as it is Don Juan belived that tests quality of an opera company. This opera has the whole range of voices: mezzo-soprano, lyric soprano, baritone, bass ... There is an unwritten rule that if a theatre can perform Don Juan it can go ahead with any opera. Today what interests opera`s fan most is not Don Juan himself but those who surround him and collisions he finds himself in because of them.

The year 1786 saw Mozart team up with respected librettist Lorenzo da Ponte for the comic operas that were to become his most famous works; these included ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ and ‘Don Giovanni’. However, these years also saw a substantial decline in health for the classical composer, and he died on December 5th, 1791. The attendant physician recorded Mozart’s death as fever, a somewhat vague notion that led to widespread speculation as to the real cause behind the composer’s demise; some attributed it to rheumatic fever, whilst others believed (and some still do believe) that Mozart had been poisoned.

"Don Giovanni" was presented for the first time in Prague, because Mozart, satisfied with the manner in which Bondini’s troupe had sung his "Marriage of Figaro" a little more than a year before, had agreed to write another work for the same house.

The story on which da Ponte based his libretto -- the statue of a murdered man accepting an insolent invitation to banquet with his murderer, appearing at the feast and dragging him down to hell -- is very old. It goes back to the Middle Ages, probably further. A French authority considers that da Ponte derived his libretto from "Le Festin de Pierre," Moliere’s version of the old tale. Da Ponte, however, made free use of "Il Convitato di Pietra" (The Stone-Guest), a libretto written by the Italian theatrical poet Bertati for the composer Giuseppe Gazzaniga.

Mozart’s status as an innovative classical composer stems from his ceaseless exploration and experimentation with musical genres. He developed his style throughout his lifetime and did not simply stick to the major trends of the Baroque period; in particular, he made the piano concerto his own, bringing it to popularity through sheer hard work. Mozart’s music can best be described as containing natural order and balance (a typical by-product of his Enlightenment, or rational, beliefs), and having a focus on harmony and uncomplicated-yet-unforgettable melody. His later works concentrate on expressing human emotion and psychology through music and to this end, he developed a degree of subtlety rarely found in any classical composer.