DON JUAN

BALLET BY GIORGIO MADIA

MUSIC BY CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK

Choreography & Stage Direction: Giorgio Madia

Sets: Cordelia Matthes

Costumes: Bruno Schwengl

Assistant to the Choreographer: Adriana Mortelliti

Dramaturgy: Annegret Gertz

Musical Arrangements: Lidia Baich

CAST Leonard Jakovina (Don Juan), Vladislav Marinov (Zanni), Michael Banzhaf (Diavolo), Elena Pris (Donna Anna), Ilenia Montagnoli (Donna Isabella), Nadja Saidakova (Donna Elvira), Iana Salenko (Elisa), Marian Walter (Carino), Dominic Hodal (Don Ottavio), Oliver Wulff (Commandeur), Corps de ballet of Staatsballett Berlin and Lidia Baich (Violin)

WORLD PREMIERE 21. June 2014

Staatsballett Berlin | Komische Oper Berlin

CAST Alain Eric Laurent Divoux (Don Juan), Matteo Giulio Tonolo (Zanni), Brandon Alexander (Diavolo), Amy Bowring (Donna Anna), Lawrence Massie (Don Ottavio), Tarasina Masi (Donna Isabella), Janek Salvolainen (Commander), Maria Engel (Donna Elvira), Yukiko Yanagi (Elisa), Silas Stubbs (Carino), Soloists and Corps de ballet of Theater Vanemuine Estonia and Linda-Anette Suss (Violin)

PREMIERE 29 October 2016

Teater Vanemuine Estonia

CAST Musical Direction: Adam Banaszak | Orchestra of the Opera Wroclawska

Łukasz Ożga (Don Juan) | Soloists and Corps de ballet of the Opera Wroclawska

PREMIERE 19. Februar 2022

Opera Wroclawska

DURATION 90 Minutes without Intermission

MUSIC FROM RECORDING accompanied by violin

Don Juan is one of the most dazzling figures of European cultural history. His origin is uncertain, but since early baroque times the legend about his art of seduction and its inevitable punishment are at the centre of countless operas, dramas or comedies, offering his frivolous episodes also to the improvising folk and puppet theatre. Sometimes the tragedy is emphasized in the comical, sometimes his boundless desire is read as an ingenious and brilliant intellectualism.

The choreographer and stage director Giorgio Madia approaches Don Juan as a figure of “Theatre”. The cold-blooded interplay between illusion and imagination succumb not only the female “victims” of the seducer, but also his audience. The passion, he celebrates, is actually that of his viewers. His libertinage inspires, especially because of its diabolical traits, when disrespecting moral, social, intellectual or religious rules. Don Juan is a gifted player, a magician of the erotic, representing what appears deceptively, but being the measure of all things when the all world becomes a stage.

With his distinctive artistic signature Giorgio Madia unfold the motives of the legend as a sensual and intimate baroque theatre in modern shape, and as a ballet at the same time. He was inspired by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787), whose ballet pantomime DON JUAN (1761) was the starting point. The score is complemented, among others, by excerpts from Gluck’s famous ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE.

Giorgio Madia’s DON JUAN is displayed in opulent and refined sets and costumes. Conceived for a grand cast it’s celebrating the provocatively beautiful art of seduction turning it into an irresistible ballet experience. The humorous vitality of the traditional Commedia dell’Arte is gambling with the devotion to veneer, to desire and evanescence – the ‘Zeitgeist’ of Baroque Age couldn’t be expressed a more allusive way.   — SBB

REVIEWS   La sensualité reste le fil rouge de cette performance technique à la hauteur des attentes des aficionados des ballets-néoclassiques. Les variations […] touchent par leur gracieuse énergie, leur délicatesse robustesse.  […] La production est truffée de scénographies originales qui assoient le génie narratif du chorégraphe.

Jade Albasini, berlinpoche.de, 24. June 2014

Dass sich dabei Amüsement und Ernst wohltariert die Waage halten, dafür steht Giorgio Madias komödiantisches Gespür. […] Madia erzählt stringent und mit viel Sinn für winzige Bewegungsdetails, auf Spitze für die Frauen, in einem den klassischen Fundus modern weitenden Duktus.

Volkmar Dräger, Neues Deutschland, 23. June 2014  

Ein ‚coup de théâtre’ ist das erste Bild mit einem schräg gekippten, in der Luft hängenden Spiegel …

Bernd Hoppe, operalounge.de, July 2014

Eine grandiose Vorstellung.

Renate Dahms, tanzinfo-berlin.de, 22. June 2014

Giorgio Madia’s DON JUAN was one of the three most successful productions in the season 2013/2014 of Staatsballett Berlin – all performances at Komische Oper Berlin have been completely sold out.

Presseinformation Staatsballett Berlin, 7. Juli 2014