By transposing Mozart and da Ponte's Don Giovanni from the opera to the theatre, director Antú Romero Nunes found what he thinks is the best material to talk about freedom today. His hero isn't just a relentless seducer, he puts to the test his own limits and his own expectations in life, and invites all his contemporaries to a great celebration of freedom. Let everybody go with everybody, let's escape from what life has in store for us, and hurrah for freedom! Mozart's songs and music, freely adapted, give the actors' performances even more energy, helped by an all-female jazz-rock band. In order to enjoy life and love to the fullest, Don Giovanni knows that closeness with death is necessary, so as never to forget that everything ends and that one can therefore decide, when the time is right, that one has lived enough and should remove oneself from the world. Before it comes to that, though, Don Giovanni will have shown what happiness means to Donna Elivra, to Donna Anna, to Zerlina... and to many female members of the audience. During the last part of the play, he trades places and clothes with his faithful servant Leporello and disappears into the audience. But the party isn't quite over yet.
After the triumph of The Marriage of Figaro in Prague in 1786, Mozart is commissioned to write a new opera. His friend Lorenzo da Ponte suggests the theme of Don Giovanni. The subject isn't a trendy one, but Mozart and da Ponte will give it renewed strength and a larger scope that we can still feel today. Far from being a character fallen into debauchery, a stubborn man trying to justify his actions, Mozart and da Ponte's Don Giovanni is a generous lord, a freethinker who rejects none of the pleasures to which his station and wealth grant him access. What should he repent for, since he has no regrets? The opera premiered in Prague in 1787, and its success was comparable with that of The Marriage of Figaro.
Laurent Muhleisen, April 2014
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Distribution
Direction Antú Romero Nunes
Scenography Florian Lösche
Music Johannes Hofmann
Dramaturgy Sandra Küpper
Costumes Annabelle Witt
Assistant musique Frieder Hepting
Assistant scénographie Ute Radler
Assistante costumes Sibylle Wallum
Assistante dramaturgie Natalie Lazar
With
Bruno Cathomas Masetto, le fiancé de Zerlina
Mirco Kreibich Leporello
Karin Neuhäuser le Commandeur et la Mort
Gabriela Maria Schmeide Zerlina
Maja Schöne Donna Anna
Cathérine Seifert Donna Elvira
André Szymanski Don Ottavio, le fiancé d'Anna
Sebastian Zimmler Don Giovanni
Et les musiciennes
Anna Bauer (piano)
Carolina Bigge (percussions)
Catharina Boutari (chant)
July Müller-Greve (basse)
Natascha Protze (saxophone, clarinette basse, flûte)
Kerstin Sund (guitare)
Anita Wälti (trompette)
And
Ana Abril, Alizée Buisson, Axel Cuisin, Vanina Delannoy, Pierre Le Scanff, Mylène Richard, Fabien Saye, Kristina Strelkova
Production
Production Thalia Theater
With the support of Fondation BNP Paribas