Christian Bowers plays Don Giovanni.Teatru Manoel is staging a brand new production of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni on March 5, 7, 9 and 10. The opera also features three other concerts as part of the Teatru Manoel BOV Opera Week.
Don Giovanni is the second in the trilogy of operas Mozart wrote to libretti by Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838). The first of them, Le Nozze di Figaro (which Teatru Manoel produced last year) was premiered in Vienna on May 1, 1786 while Don Giovanni’s was in Prague on 29 October 1787. Così fan tutte (which Teatru Manoel will produce next year) was to follow with a premiere in Vienna on January 26, 1790. This collaboration was to be one of the most famous in the history of opera and Da Ponte’s name is now forever linked with Mozart’s.
The opera features a stellar cast of top local and foreign opera singers: Christian Bowers as Don Giovanni, Pauls Putnins as Leporello, Amy Corkery as Donna Anna, Richard Wiegold as Il Commendatore, Tommaso Barea as Masetto and the Maltese sopranos Claire Debono as Donna Anna and Nicola Said as Zerlina and tenor Cliff Zammit Stevens as Don Ottavio. It will be conducted by the renowned Philip Walsh with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra.
This Don Giovanni at the Manoel will be a completely new, daring and exciting production with Jack Furness as Director and Designer who cleverly captures all the comic and dramatic elements of this most popular opera. Audiences are in for a real treat.
Don Giovanni is part of the Teatru Manoel Opera Week, which is being dedicated to the memory of Maestro Joseph Vella. The Opera Week includes concerts by the renowned pianist Vassilis Varvaresos, flautist Rebecca Hall with pianist Lucia Micallef Hunt, both at the Manoel and a concert by soprano Miriam Gauci with the Goldberg Ensemble conducted by Michael Laus at St. Augustine’s Church, Valletta.