Don Giovanni – Ballet, Chœur et Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles

Don Giovanni – Ballet, Chœur et Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles [DVD]

Don Giovanni was commissioned by the Prague Opera immediately after the success of The Marriage of Figaro: Mozart and Da Ponte chose a subject that had just triumphed a few weeks earlier in Venice, Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s Don Giovanni. Taking up the theme of The Deceiver of Seville, which had already been very popular in the theatre since the mid-seventeenth century, Da Ponte focused his work on the libertine character of Don Juan, no doubt inspired by his famous friend Casanova. The result is dazzling, never leaving the spectator the slightest respite between murders, scenes of seduction, cunning and fantastic apparitions: here is a grand spectacle served by extraordinary music, an absolute masterpiece, to which Prague gave an exceptional triumph. Marshall Pynkoski takes the characters here in a dramatic whirlwind dressed in Christian Lacroix’s fantasies: Robert Gleadow finally takes on the role of Don Giovanni; and Gaétan Jarry makes the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal shine.