Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legend about a libertine as told by playwright Tirso de Molina in his 1630 play El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra. It is a dramma giocoso blending comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the National Theater, now called the Estates Theatre, on 29 October 1787. Don Giovanni is regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time and has proved a fruitful subject for commentary in its own right; critic Fiona Maddocks has described it as one of Mozart's "trio of masterpieces with librettos by Da Ponte".
Portrait of Francisco D'Andrade in the title role by Max Slevogt, 1912
The Estates Theatre in Prague, venue of the world premiere of Don Giovanni in 1787. The theatre had opened four years earlier as the Comital Nostitz National Theatre (Gräflich Nostitzsches Nationaltheater).
Playbill for the 1788 Vienna premiere of Don Giovanni
Ildebrando D'Arcangelo as Don Giovanni, Salzburg Festival 2014
The Köchel catalogue is a chronological catalogue of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, originally created by Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, in which the entries are abbreviated K. or KV. Its numbers reflect the ongoing task of compiling the chronology of Mozart's works, and provide a shorthand reference to the compositions.
Köchel-Verzeichnis, published 1975 in East Germany