Between December 18 and January 10, the Teatro Real de Madrid will offer 15 performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni in the celebrated production directed by Claus Guth for the 2008 Salzburg Festival. The same duo will star British baritone Christopher Maltman as Don Giovanni and Spanish/Uruguayan bass-baritone Erwin Schrott as Leporello.
Director Claus Guth places the action in a spectral forest, a place conducive to the misdeeds and hiding places of Don Giovanni, presented in the production as an agonising and wounded knave, on his hectic path of expiration. Wounded by the Commendatore at the beginning of the opera, in the paroxysm of death parades through his head the perverse games of seduction that have filled his hectic life, walking towards alienation and death without ever abandoning his impetuous, lubricious and blasphemous spirit. Parallel activities have been organised around Don Giovanni in the Royal Theatre and the Museum of Romanticism. The premiere of the opera will be preceded by a preview for the under 35s on 16 December at 7 p.m., with free admission. Photo: © Javier del Real | Teatro Real.