DVD + Blu-Ray:
Mozart: Don Giovanni - Nikolaus Harnoncourt

“He was out to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand.

What the conductor had to offer as he commenced his Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in the Theater an der Wien was something we “had never before heard like this” (Kurier). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “master” of period performance practice, realised a project that had long been one of his dearest wishes: For the first time, he and his “original-sound orchestra” Concentus Musicus and his personal choice of singers were presenting the complete Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and harvesting the fruits of his Mozart research – an “enthusiastically acclaimed cycle!” (news.at).

During an intensive phase of rehearsal and preparation, he was in search of a Mozart hermeneutic resting on historical sources and yet anchored in our own time, in order to stage the whole Da Ponte “trilogy” – Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – in a matter of a mere six weeks. “The culmination of Harnoncourt’s involvement with [Mozart’s Da Ponte operas] – „A Mozart drawn from historical sources and yet anchored in our own time.” (Die Presse)

PART II: Don Giovanni + Documentary: Nikolaus Harnoncourt - Between Obsession and Perfection (Don Giovanni)

Original title Mozart: Don Giovanni
Genre Opera
Recording location Theater an der Wien, 2014
Duration 248 mins (Opera: 196’ / Doc 52’)
Production Company A production of UNITEL and ORF III in cooperation with Theater an der Wien
Composer W.A. Mozart
Orchestra / Band Concentus Musicus Wien
Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Choir Arnold Schoenberg Chor
Chorus Master Erwin Ortner
Soloist Andrè Schuen, Ruben Drole, Christine Schäfer, Mauro Peter, Maite Beaumont, Mari Eriksmoen