Mozart’s first opera using a libretto by Da Ponte was first performed in 1786 in the Burgtheater in Vienna. It appeared at an early date in Hungary too, where it was first performed in German in 1795 and then in a Hungarian translation in 1858. The literary source for the libretto was Beaumarchais’s comedy of the same title. The Vienna première was only a moderate success – no doubt due to the work’s “subversive” social attitude – and was taken off the programme after nine performances. In December of the same year, 1786 it was staged in Prague where it was an enormous success. From the following year it conquered many opera houses throughout Europe.
The action is formally focused around the “ius primae noctis” (the right of the first night). Count Almaviva publicly renounces the exercise of this right, but he is enchanted by the beautiful Susanna – Figaro’s betrothed. The countess is also aware of her husband’s “manoeuvres”, together with Susanna and Figaro she sets a trap for the count to return to her. “I see the count as a substantial figure, but a decadent, disintegrating personality who is no longer able to exist in a manner commensurate to his own significance. He is a man condemned to failure (although he does not have to suffer this failure here), who foolishly always falls into the same situations.” (Balázs Kovalik). Rosina, the countess is a real diva, “with strong desires, but she tries to hide them. We must not forget the beginning of her love and marriage (The Barber of Seville). Almaviva helped her conquest with a fib (a lie), when this was revealed Rosina began to have doubts and her emotions were confused: there was something false in this marriage right from the start. In this story Figaro has become a little stupid, slower and lazier, the brilliant citoyen who could see through everything does not appear to be so bright as he used to be. He has become slower, with the heaviness of a man who has made his mark. Nevertheless, Mozart portrays him as a positive hero. Susanna’s role is very thankless. She is secondary throughout and it is only at the last minute that she can blossom (in the Rose aria), one can say nothing bad about her, she has no doubts, she is touchingly naive. There may not be any Susannas in real life, but it would be good to believe that such people do exist.”

Conductor Péter Oberfrank was born in Brussels in 1966. He studied piano and percussion at the Béla Bartók Conservatoire in Budapest then earned diplomas from the department of piano (l989) and conducting (1993) of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. From 1991-1998 he was conductor-repetiteur at the Hungarian State Opera House, from 1999-2003 he was music director of the Szeged National Theatre and Open-air Festival. From 2003 he has been permanent guest conductor of the Hungarian State Opera House and from 2004 music director of the opera department at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. He has conducted opera productions at the Szentendre Summer Festival, the Szeged Open-air Festival, the Court of Music and the Miskolc Opera Festival. He has worked as conductor with Miklós Gábor Kerényi, Balázs Kovalik, András Békés, Sándor Zsótér and Péter Valló and has made guest appearances in a number of countries in Europe, in Japan and the United.

The opera was first performed in 1790 in Vienna. The Hungarian première was in 1797, but it was not until 1930 that the Hungarian Royal Opera first staged the work (in Hungarian). “For a long while Così fan tutte was considered to be frivolous, perverse, lascivious, dirty, wicked, etc. They did not really like to perform it. It was often adapted and the Hungarian text was softened. For example, they tried to brush over the sentence “a girl must know where the devil’s tail is”– which is exactly what the original Italian says. We try to bring these back into the performance.” (Balázs Kovalik)
Così is a philosophical work, a thesis-drama. Two young men – Ferrando and Guglielmo – adore their beloveds, Dorabella and Fiordiligi. But Don Alfonso, the elderly philosopher plants the seeds of doubt by declaring that all women’s fidelity is shaken if the opportunity arises. To prove his theory he offers a bet that the young men accept. A game of disguises begins and the two young men start to court each other’s fiancée. The results are quite impressive because the pairs are changed, proving the theory. To restore the original state of affairs, the opera brings back happiness (?). The young people “think that a certain feeling is love. They are sincere, none of them is lying. The fact that they feel something at one moment and the opposite the next is natural. I don’t think that any of them should be condemned morally; Mozart does not judge them either. It is Don Alfonso and Despina who helps him in the deception who are really negative figures. For some reason they cannot tolerate the young people’s innocence. These two lonely figures cause terrible harm, even if they are not aware of it. They consciously organise the deception, but they are not aware of why they do it. Their behaviour is cynical, but it lacks the intellectuality of cynicism.”

The opera was first performed in Prague, in October 1787. The Hungarian première was in 1797 and it was first performed in Hungarian in 1826. The title role is also the leading figure in the dramaturgical sense. “Everyone is measured in this centrally-focused drama by their relationship to the central figure. We find very few parallels to this interesting dramatic system in Mozart’s age.” (Balázs Kovalik)
In the extremely powerful, dynamic and condensed exposition, Don Giovanni wearing a mask enters Donna Anna’s bedroom, while his servant, Leporello stands guard outside the house. Donna Anna’s cries of alarm waken her father, the Commendatore. He challenges Don Giovanni and after a short duel he is killed. By the time Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s betrothed arrives on the scene, Don Giovanni and Leporello have fled. It is not perfectly clear what happened in Donna Anna’s bedroom. The account of the events arouses doubt in Don Ottavio: why did Donna Anna think in the first place that it was he who visited her late at night (?), in disguise (?). Don Giovanni – one way or another – has awoken something in Donna Anna.
Don Ottavio, often portrayed as the prototype of the intellectual incapable of action, in reality is a man of the Enlightenment, who believes not in revenge but “in the power of the law. His procrastinating behaviour and uncertainty are not necessarily the product of his nature. He is not simply incapable of action but rather lacks the will to act. The cause of his lack of motivation is Donna Anna herself, for it is only lovers who act with blind determination, and it is this love that had been questioned.” Donna Anna has also become uncertain and postpones the wedding. “Don Giovanni, or rather the situation where he suddenly appeared in her room, released passions in her. Her actually hysterical behaviour (perhaps excessive, perhaps to hide something) caused her father’s death. This circumstance could explain her frustration, and her desire for revenge also arises more from frustration. She does not simply behave falsely, her social environment makes it impossible for her to speak with full sincerity. She does not know whether her desires are sinful or not.”
Donna Elvira – who had been seduced earlier by Don Giovanni with a proposal of marriage – is characterised by desperation. Zerlina, the simple peasant girl, “suddenly discovers that she has greater opportunities than she had thought and her feelings towards Masetto are shaken. Don Giovanni shows her the vision of another life. Later she realises that stability is more important and she no longer seeks love but security. She wisely sees where her place is. She and Masetto survive the whole episode: they go home and have supper.”
Don Giovanni is not brought to justice, the resolution of the drama comes from outside. “In the cemetery scene Don Giovanni flirts with death. He feels that he has reached the end of life and his descent into hell is suicide. Perhaps Leporello’s famous aria in which he lists his master’s conquests refers to this. In Spain he had one thousand and three women. Could this special emphasis on “and three” refer to Don Giovanni’s last three conquests, Donna Elvira, Donna Anna and Zerlina?”

“The performance firmly refuted the notion that the director had no conception embracing the three works: it was clear that we would not experience this marathon achievement as three separate events. At the end of the 13 hours – at the moment the finishing line was crossed – the audience exploded into the kind of rave more frequently seen at rock concerts even though the great majority of those in the hall were not occasional opera-goers, not young girls and youth in search of titillation but for the most part highly sensitive consumers of opera.”
Szabolcs Molnár – Magyar Narancs

“Kovalik presents human games, he stages the theatricality of human behaviour, and in doing so he displays a very exceptional, deep and sarcastic knowledge of reality.”
Lóránt Péteri – Színház

“I don’t remember when I saw an audience in Hungary respond with such natural spontaneity or laugh so wholeheartedly at the turns in the plot of a classical opera. Probably never.”
Tamás Koltai – Hungarian Radio, New Music News


“…I have never seen such a complex, authentic and poetic, entertaining, uplifting and painful performance of the work. (…) In my opinion there has not been a comparably significant opera première in Hungary since Lubimov’s Don Giovanni in 1982.
Géza Fodor– Élet és Irodalom

According to the opera guide (György Sándor Gál), Puccini’s last opera is “mercilessly beautiful music, mercilessly new and precisely for this reason shattering in its effect.”

According to the opera guide (György Sándor Gál), Puccini’s last opera is “mercilessly beautiful music, mercilessly new and precisely for this reason shattering in its effect.”