Don Giovanni

“Chi è morto, voi o il vecchio?,” jokes the servant Leporello cryptically, after Don Giovanni has murdered “Il Commendatore”. The story of the “punished debauchee” has long since been the stuff of myth. Don Giovanni plays out in a field of tension between heaven and hell, as opposites collide in this dramma giocoso, set among amorous desires and the fall of angels. In this kaleidoscope of situations and characters, there is an absolute absence of clarity, evident alone in the fact that each of these characters lies – either to each other or to themselves. The timeless comedy motifs of role and dress change assume an oppressive ambiguity here. The master of transformation Don Giovanni, this polyerotic hedonist, is hard to fathom. In endless metamorphoses, he appears just as suddenly as he then immediately disappears again. The other characters know – they need him, as a mirror of themselves. And so for Leporello it becomes clear after his master’s death that Don Giovanni leads an eternal life and will affect ours again and again. This Don Giovanni now completes the Da Ponte cycle. “Faust” winner David Hermann stages at the Bayerische Staatsoper for the first time. General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski conducts the piece, in which Mozart threw open the doors to a new world, from which there can be no return.

David Hermann has made his mark as one of the most important opera directors of his generation. He studied at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin, and in 2000 took first prize with the Ring Award in Graz. He was nominated as best director at the International Opera Awards 2018 in London for his Krenek trilogy, which won in the “Rediscovered Works” category. His world premiere staging of Gordon Kampe’s opera “Dogville” at the Aalto Theater Essen was accoladed in 2023 with the “Der Faust” German theatre award. 

He is a long-time collaborator of scenic designer Jo Schramm, most recently with Die Frau ohne Schatten in Stuttgart. 

The costume designer Sibylle Wallum studied stage and costume design in London. Her costumes for Schiller’s Mary Stuart were accoladed as costume design of the year by the theater heute trade magazine in 2021. The Hermann-Schramm-Wallum team celebrated a remarkable success with the Warten auf Heute musical theatre performance at the Oper Frankfurt in 2022, which compacted the works of Arnold Schönberg and Frank Martin into an enthralling narrative.