Alex Rosen

Don Giovanni was commissioned by the Prague Opera immediately after the success of The Marriage of Figaro: Mozart and Da Ponte wanted to build on their success and chose a subject that had triumphed just a few weeks earlier in Venice, a Don Giovanni composed by Giuseppe Gazzaniga. Revisiting the theme of the Seville Cheat – a prevalent subject in theatre since the mid-17th century, especially through Molière’s powerful incarnation, and in a ballet by Gluck in Vienna in 1761 – Da Ponte focused the work on the libertine character of Don Juan, no doubt drawing inspiration from his friend Casanova (who in fact helped make changes to Act 2, Scene 9, and attended the Prague première).

When Eurydice dies on their wedding day, Orpheus, unable to accept her death, descends into the underworld to retrieve her. But as they ascend to the realm of the living, will he be able to refrain from looking back at her, lest he lose her forever? Director Monique Wagemakers, together with choreographer Nanine Linning and artist Lonneke Gordijn (Studio DRIFT), developed the concept for this opera as a contemporary Gesamtkunstwerk that fully integrates stage direction, choreography and design. The costumes of fashion designer Marlou Breuls accentuate and enhance the effect of homogeneity.

In the magnificent rooms of the Galleria Borghese in Rome, John Eliot Gardiner and his ensembles The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists bring together the music of Claudio Monteverdi and the paintings of Caravaggio. The encounter of two works whose creators revolutionised their disciplines.

Sacred music meets the theatricality of opera in Handel's oratorio Messiah, here conducted by Laurence Equilbey and performed by the Insula Orchestra, Polish artist Jakub Józef Orliński and the Chœurs accentus at the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival.