Stony Guest or Reveller

Premiere: 06/09/2003
Igor in role: Don Giovanni

Musical Tragicomedy

Vincenzo Righini, a hardly twenty-year old Bolognese music composer who worked in Bohemia in the seventies of 18th century, gave to the City of Prague one of the first operas about Don Giovanni (Don Juan, if you like), doing so eleven years before Mozart. However, instead of opera this piece should be called a play with music, in which dialogues are followed by airs and chorus singing showing the tradition of the Venice comic opera a la Goldoni style. Even Nunziato Porta, the author of the libretto and a poet of the Vienna Court Theatre at that time, was much inspired by Goldoni´s comedies. An original work was thus created – Don Giovanni a la Harlequin or comedia dell´arte style, which requires an exceptional actor’s and interpreting capabilities, offering to the audience an authentic show, a par excellance play. The Czech premiere will be directed by Hana Burešová, who has experience in staging this kind of plays in Prague and abroad and who has achieved much success not only with the audience but also with expert critics. (The Barber of Seville; Mam´zelle Nitouche and Rigoletto).