Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It is based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional libertine and seducer. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787. Da Ponte's libretto was billed, like many of its time, as dramma giocoso, a term that denotes a mixing of serious and comic action. Mozart entered the work into his catalogue as an opera buffa. Although sometimes classified as comic, it blends comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements.
This 1961 recording stars Eberhard Wachter, Joan Sutherland, Luigi Alva, Gottlob Frick, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Piero Cappuccilli and Graziella Sciutti. Carlo Maria Giulini concducts.
bill stars Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano and Tito Bobbi. Tullio Serafin conducts the La Scala Opera.