Act 2 of Mozart's opera from this year's Aix-en-Provence Festival
Orchestre de Paris
Conducted by Georges Semkow
Introduced by Antony Hopkins
sung in Italian with English sub-titles by Julian Budden
Recording made available by courtesy of the French Television Service

In Act 1, Don Giovanni, licentious young Spanish nobleman, with over 2,000 conquests to his credit, attempted to seduce Donna Anna. She raised the alarm, and the Don, in making his escape, killed her father, the Commendatore. Don Giovanni went blithely on to his next affair with Zerlina, a peasant girl about to be married to Masetto. Donna Elvira, a former conquest and at heart still in love with Don Giovanni, joined Donna Anna and her lover, Don Ottavio, at a ball in Don Giovanni's palace where they all planned to bring him to justice. But he escaped them again.
At the beginning of Act 2, he and his servant Leporello are having an argument. Leporello, though slightly envious of his master's amorous adventures, is threatening to leave unless he mends his ways; the chink of a coin, however, soon persuades him to remain. Don Giovanni borrows Leporello's cloak hoping this disguise will give him a better chance of success with his next 'victim,' Donna Elvira's maid. He escapes punishment yet again and eventually meets Leporello in a cemetery. They see the statue of the Commendatore and Don Giovanni jokingly invites it to supper; to Leporello's horror it agrees-with fatal results for the gay but ruthless Don Giovanni.
(Colour)