A philandering nobleman lives without a care for the consequences of his actions. But when one of his conquests ends in murder, he finds himself on the run, pursued by disgruntled ex-lovers, fiancées and a force from beyond the grave. Following his recent spectacular production of Paria, the renowned British director Graham Vick makes a welcome return to OperaVision with this new Don Giovanni from Rome. Italian baritone Alessio Arduini plays the dishonourable Don alongside Georgian soprano and Moniuszko International Vocal Competition winner Salome Jicia as Donna Elvira. This performance is part of OperaVision’s events celebrating the inaugural World Opera Day on 25 October 2019.

A huge success when it premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1900, Gustave Charpentier’s (1860-1956) “musical novel in four acts and five scenes” was panned by the critics, who considered its depiction of female desire and its heroine’s rebellion against her family to be scandalous. In this new reading, Christof Loy (Salomé) – famous for his meticulous productions, precise direction and refined aesthetic – has detected beneath the innovative theme of female emancipation an unspoken aspect of Charpentier’s libretto: the toxic family relationship in which Louise finds herself trapped, and the hold that her possessive – even abusive – father exerts over her with the complicity of her mother. Keen to tell the story without judging the characters, the director draws the audience into Louise’s subconscious, highlighting the darker side of a society that, far from emancipating its daughters, only offers them cheap romance as a deflection from the frustrations of their limited prospects.