Don Giovanni is a 1979 film adaptation of Mozart's classic opera Don Giovanni, based on the Don Juan legend of a seducer destroyed by his excesses. The film has generally been praised as one of the finer adaptations of opera to the big screen. The movie was re-released on DVD in 2008.
In the opera the action supposedly takes place in Spain, but Mozart's librettist Da Ponte wrote in Italian, and this film successfully uses locations in Venice and ...
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Don Giovanni is a 1979 film adaptation of Mozart's classic opera Don Giovanni, based on the Don Juan legend of a seducer destroyed by his excesses. The film has generally been praised as one of the finer adaptations of opera to the big screen. The movie was re-released on DVD in 2008.
In the opera the action supposedly takes place in Spain, but Mozart's librettist Da Ponte wrote in Italian, and this film successfully uses locations in Venice and the Veneto.
The following plot summary could equally be applied to the original opera. After an unsuccessful attempt to seduce Donna Anna (soprano Edda Moser), Don Giovanni (bass Ruggero Raimondi) kills her father Il Commendatore (bass John Macurdy). The next morning, Giovanni meets Donna Elvira (soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa), a woman he previously seduced and abandoned. Later, Giovanni happens upon the preparations for a peasant wedding and tries to seduce the bride-to-be Zerlina (mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza), but his ambition is frustrated...
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