Abstract
With Don Giovanni, Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte reached one of the pinnacles of the opera genre. The title character they created for the stage is much more than just the irresistible ladies’ man the plot initially makes him out to be. Don Giovanni is a libertine par excellence, a champion of pleasure, debauchery, and excess. He’s a rebel, on a highway to hell. The curtain's fall raises the question: Does the loss left by the hero's downfall outweigh the satisfaction of the just punishment that befalls him? At the Opernhaus Zürich, we present Sebastian Baumgarten’s visually powerful, garishly colored production, which was controversial when it premiered eleven years ago but has since found a comfortable home in our house’s repertoire. For his interpretation, the German director has sought a way to make the eponymous hero’s rebellious potential and his objectionably scandalous way of life recognizable, even to the liberal 21st century perception. Baumgarten playfully resurrects the instructive character that the Don Juan myth had in its original form, and works with a complex collage of images, deliberate narrative breaks, and a great deal of subversive wit. The internationally sought-after soprano Golda Schultz sings the role of Donna Anna for the first time, Ruzan Mantashyan returns to the Opernhaus as Donna Elvira, and Konstantin Shushakov is Don Giovanni, as in the prior revival.
