Don Giovanni

The opera of all operas celebrates its premiere in Bregenz

The Kornmarkttheater in Bregenz is putting "Don Giovanni" on the program.(Bild: A,. Savin )

Mozart's "Don Giovanni" celebrates its premiere on March 9 at the Theater am Kornmarktplatz in Bregenz (Vorarlberg). The production is directed by Andreas Rosar and conducted by Daniel Linton-France. 

Who hasn't heard the famous "register aria" in which Don Giovanni's servant, Leporello, tells the shocked Donna Elvira about his master's restless love life: "...but in Spain a thousand and three". The sex-obsessed nobleman conquered women not only in Spain, but also in Italy, France and Germany. Director Andreas Rosar and conductor Daniel Linton-France also did the maths and came to the conclusion that this Don Giovanni must be a mature man and cast Alejandro Marco-Buhrmester, born in Switzerland in 1964, in the role.

The other consideration that led to this decision was that Don Giovanni never reaches his goal with any woman throughout the opera and ends up dying. "The thousand and fourth no longer exists," says Linton-France, but Rosar points out that we don't know what happened in Donna Anna's bedroom at the very beginning: "That's left to the audience's imagination."

However, Mozart's Don Giovanni has all the ingredients you could wish for in an opera: love, eroticism, fun and profundity, a murder, sensuality and the supernatural. And criticism of the existing social order, because "Don Giovanni" was first performed in 1787, two years before the French Revolution. An exciting example of this is the finale of the first act, when peasants, commoners and aristocrats party together at Don Giovanni's castle.

Mozart expresses this musically by having the dance belonging to each class played. He bizarrely superimposes these three dances, namely a minuet, a contra dance and a "Deitschen", and they are played simultaneously. The music could fill pages, as could the characters. For example, Donna Anna (Marta Kristín Friðriksdóttir), who is completely distraught by her encounter with Giovanni and constantly puts off her caring fiancé Ottavio (Ilia Skvirskji), or the fearlessly moral Elvira (Réka Kristóf), who wants to save Giovanni from his doom, hellfire. Or the peasant woman Zerlina (Martha Matscheko), who goes back to business as usual without much fuss after her experiences with the nobleman Giovanni.

An unsurpassable masterpiece
Mozart's "Don Giovanni" is definitely an unsurpassable masterpiece. E.T.A. Hoffmann called it the "opera of all operas", and many subsequent thinkers have studied it. The opera was also performed at the Kornmarkttheater in Bregenz in 2001, conducted by Christoph Eberle and staged by Tobias Moretti, as part of the Bregenz Festival Opera Studio. Directed by Andreas Rosar, we will experience Mozart's masterpiece on March 9, with further performances following throughout the month. The Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra will perform, conducted by Daniel Linton-France.Anna Mika