Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is a immensely popular opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)[1] and an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749–1838)[2].

The original text

Its full original title is Il Dissoluto Punito,ossia il Don Giovanni ("The profligate Punished, or Don Giovanni"), but it is best known simply as Don Giovanni. Based on the legends of Don Juan, Mozart himself referred to it as an opera buffa[3]. The work was first performed by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga (today the Estates Theatre) on October 29, 1787.

Translations and adaptations

Don Juan (JOO-ən; see below) is a satiric poem[1] by Lord Byron, based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womaniser but as someone easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form. Byron himself called it an "Epic Satire" (Don Juan, c. xiv, st. 99). Byron completed 16 cantos, leaving an unfinished 17th canto before his death in 1824. Byron claimed that he had no ideas in his mind as to what would happen in subsequent cantos as he wrote his work.

When the first two cantos were published anonymously in 1819, the poem was criticised for its "immoral content", but it was also immensely popular.

There are two burlesque versions of the story, both by J.H. Byron (1835–1884)[4]:

Little Don Giovanni, or Leporello and the Stone Statue is a burlesque, largely based on Mozart's opera, with an overture and incidental music by J.C. Van Maanan. First performed in London on 26 December, 1865. Published in London, 1867.

An Original, Musical, Pantomical, Comical. Christmas Extravaganza, Entitled Don Juan! is a rare text likewise written by Byron. Performed in London in 1873.