After last season’s Le nozze di Figaro, the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy signed by the Italian-South African director and with Martijn Dendievel on the podium continues

The new premiere production of the “dramma giocoso” stars Nahuel Di Pierro, Davide Giangregorio, Olga Peretyatko, René Barbera and Karen Gardeazabal.

He is an eternal seducer conquering the women of every age Don Giovanni, in the new production of Mozart’s masterpiece of the same name, directed and staged by Alessandro Talevi and conducted by Martijn Dendievel. With this production, premiered from Sunday 26 May at 6 p.m. until 31 May at the Comunale Nouveau, the so-called Mozart/Da Ponte “Italian Trilogy” continues, which the Teatro Comunale di Bologna has chosen to entrust to the Italian-South African director – winner of the European Opera-Directing Prize in 2007 – and to the Belgian conductor – winner of the Deutscher Dirigentenpreis 2021. Dendievel will also be on the podium of the Bologna opera-symphonic foundation on 6 June, for a concert at the Manzoni with music by Josef Suk and Ferruccio Busoni. After Le nozze di Figaro performed in the last opera season and this Don Giovanni, the opera project will conclude in 2025 with Così fan tutte.

‘I had set Figaro in modern times,’ says Talevi, ‘while maintaining the spirit and the passions that permeated the original characters. If in that first chapter of the trilogy I therefore wanted to reveal the eternity of the passions destined not to fade in time, in Don Giovanni I decided to develop this concept even further, always bearing in mind that Don Giovanni is an archetype and consequently can afford the luxury of seducing women in any century, crossing time and space’. Symbolically, he can do so on stage through a sort of ‘time portal’. For the director, the character remains ‘a great mystery. But there is a brief moment in Mozart’s opera,’ he comments, ‘in which perhaps Don Giovanni reveals his ego: in the second act with the aria “Deh, vieni alla finestra, o mio tesoro…” he reveals himself as fragile as a child, he sings not only to a woman but to all women, to the ghosts of all the women he has seduced but never held back’. The show’s costumes are designed by Stefania Scaraggi, the lights are by Teresa Nagel, the videos by Marco Grassivaro and the choreography by Danilo Rubeca.

The cast includes bass Nahuel Di Pierro in the role of the ‘dissolute punished’, bass Davide Giangregorio as Leporello, soprano Olga Peretyatko as Donna Anna, and tenor René Barbera as Don Ottavio, the sopranos Karen Gardeazabal as Donna Elvira and Eleonora Bellocci as Zerlina in the performances on 26, 28 and 30 May, alternating respectively with Vincenzo Nizzardo, Francesco Leone, Valentina Varriale, Annibal Mancini, Alessia Merepeza and Letizia Bertoldi on 29 and 31 May. Completing the vocal ensemble are Abramo Rosalen (Il Commendatore) and Nicolò Donini (Masetto). Maestro at the Fortepiano is Anna Dang Anh Nga Bosacchi. The Orchestra and Chorus – prepared by Gea Garatti Ansini – are those of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

A playful drama based on an already well-established literary myth, Il dissoluto punito or Don Giovanni – to cite its precise title – portrays a homogeneous society, cohesive in its shared values, in which the protagonist’s immorality becomes the driving force behind the whole affair. The depth and nuances that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte brought to the character further contributed to his fortune, making him able to speak to every era. After its debut in Prague in 1787, a further version of the opera was made for performance in Vienna in 1788, and today tradition has made a form that fuses both versions into practice.

Presenting partner is Rekeep. “Being at the side of the Teatro Comunale,” comments Claudio Levorato, President of Rekeep, “means for us not only supporting one of Bologna’s most important cultural institutions and, more generally, the production and diffusion of opera, but also promoting the commitment with which our theatre, through a rich and articulated programme, aims to bring opera closer to an ever wider audience.

The performances will be preceded – approximately 45 minutes before they begin – by a short presentation of the opera in the Foyer of the Comunale Nouveau.

TICKETS

Tickets – from €20 to €120 – are on sale online via Vivaticket and at the Teatro Comunale box office, open Tuesday to Friday from 12 to 6 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Largo Respighi, 1); on performance days at the Comunale Nouveau (Piazza della Costituzione, 4/a) from one hour before and up to 15 minutes after the start.

Info: https://www.tcbo.it/eventi/don-giovanni-2/