Opera on 3: Mozart's Don Giovanni

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Opera on 3

Music: Classical: Opera

Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Mozart's Don Giovanni

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Mozart's Don Giovanni

Teodor Currentzis conducts Mozart's great opera at the 2021 Salzburg Festival

Recorded live at the 2021 Salzburg Festival, Teodor Currentzis conducts a young cast and his own, hand-picked musicAeterna Chorus and Orchestra in Mozart's great morality tale

Through some of his greatest and most memorable music, Mozart's Don Giovanni tells the tale of the man who stops at nothing to get what he wants.  'It doesn't matter if she's rich, ugly or beautiful; if she wears a skirt, you know what he does,' sings his sidekick Leporello in the famous Catalogue aria.  And he's done it with 2065 of them, leaving a trail of broken promises and wrecked lives throughout Europe. But in the 24 hours portrayed here, the tally stubbornly fails to increase (despite his best efforts) and Don Giovanni at last comes up against something he can't evade, dupe or kill... 

Teodor Currentzis is one of today's most compelling period performance conductors and in this Salzburg Festival Don Giovanni, when he led a mainly young cast and his own, hand-picked musicAeterna Chorus and Orchestra, the results thrilled audiences and critics.

Introduced by Tom Service.

Act 1

8.15 pm
Interval
The behavioural indicators for antisocial personality disorder on the NHS website appear very precisely to describe the principal characteristics of Don Giovanni. For example: 'A person with antisocial personality disorder may: exploit, manipulate or violate the rights of others; lack concern, regret or remorse about other people's distress; behave irresponsibly and show disregard for normal social behaviour; have difficulty sustaining long-term relationships; lack guilt, or not learn from their mistakes'.

So, is Don Giovanni a psychopath? Tom puts the question to Sir Simon Wessely, Regius Professor of Psychiatry at King's College London.

8.30 pm
Act 2

Don Giovanni ….. Davide Luciano (bass-baritone) 
Leporello ….. Vito Priante (bass)
Donna Anna ….. Nadezhda Pavlova (soprano) 
Don Ottavio ….. Michael Spyres (tenor) 
Donna Elvira ….. Federica Lombardi (soprano)
Zerlina ….. Anna Lucia Richter (soprano)
Masetto ….. David Steffens (bass)
Il Commendatore ….. Mika Kares (bass) 
musicAeterna Chorus & Orchestra
Teodor Currentzis (conductor)

Image: © SF / Monika Rittershaus

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