The three operas Mozart co-wrote with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte are undoubted milestones of the operatic repertoire: the Count’s failed seduction plans in Le Nozze di Figaro; the rake Don Giovanni’s final and eternal downfall; and finally the tried and failed fidelity of young lovers in Cosi fan tutte. The Royal Opera House currently presents all three masterpieces with outstanding conductors and casts as part of the Olympic Programme celebration through February and March. Click here for further information – special deals to attend all three operas as a package are available.
Francesca Zambello’s productionof Don Giovanni teems with energy as the Don loves, charms, lies and fights his way through life on his way to final retribution. The flames of Hell take truly tangible form in a production with the heat turned right up in the music, the drama and on stage! This production is available from Opus Arte with Simon Keenlyside in the title role and the late Sir Charles Mackerras conducting. Also available on Opus Arte is David McVicar’s clever staging of Le Nozze di Figaro set in the 1830s which – with sumptuous and realistic designs – provides the perfect backdrop for the unresolved tensions between the classes of Revolutionary Europe. Erwin Schrott stars as Figaro alongside Gerald Finely’s Count.
During the last decades, there have been several attempts to present the three Mozart / da Ponte operas as a cycle, setting the operas as part of an imagined trilogy and highlighting ideas and concepts apparent in all three dramas. Most famous must be Peter Sellers’ revolutionary vision of the operas set in 1980s US. Director duo Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito’s contemporary take on the three operas at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam with conductor Ingo Metzmacher present an equally visionary take full of wit and astute theatrical awareness – a specially priced DVD box set is available from Opus Arte.