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 (now called the Estates Theatre) 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.
EMI recording 1959
Conductor – Carlo Maria Giulini
Cast:
Eberhard Wächter – Don Giovanni
Giuseppe Taddei - Leporello
Joan Sutherland - Donna Anna
Luigi Alva – Don Ottavio
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf – Donna Elvira
Graziella Sciutti - Zerlina
Piero Cappuccilli - Masetto
Gottlob Frick - Commendatore