Isle of Wight What's On Guide: 2024 Events OnTheWight

Don Giovanni (12A)

Sunday 29 2.30pmNovember
2015

Film

This event has now finished

Don Giovanni (12A)

Source http://ramshacklecinema.co.uk

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Director Joseph Losey's classic 1979 production of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni.

Tickets for the screening (including a splendid full afternoon tea by Ryde Lions) are £10 each. As there are only 40 tickets available we kindly ask that you pre-book and pre-pay. Please call Judith on (01983) 875738 or email her on [email protected] to reserve seats. Half of all proceeds go to Ryde Lions to support their local charities.

I first caught this at the cinema in the early Eighties at University and was blown away. Even if you are not an opera fan it’s worth coming just for the scenery…shot on location in and around the Palladian villas of Vicenza and Venice. The opera tells the tale of the notorious Lothario and serial seducer Don Giovanni, who believes he can outwit everyone. But destiny awaits. The scene in which Leporello reveals the extent of his master's infidelity is just sublime. And Kiri Te Kanawa's singing will send a tingle down your spine.

We can’t describe it any better than this Amazon reviewer:

"Not only is this the best production of “Don Giovanni” that I have ever seen; it is the best opera production that I have ever seen and (even) one of the best films in any genre I have seen.

Mozart’s greatest opera, directed by the magnificent Joseph Losey – it’s hard to imagine how it could go wrong, but factor into this the fact that the film looks simply stunning: it is set in the Palladian villas around a mist-shrouded Venice and costumed in elaborate black and white.

And the cast is straight out of an opera lovers’ dreams: Raimondi, Berganza, Van Dam, Moser and Te Kanawa exhaust superlatives (even if Teresa Berganza looks a little long in the tooth to play the fresh-faced Zerlina) and act as well as they sing: a rare thing in opera.

I cannot commend this highly enough: I first saw it over twenty years ago and it remains fresh, exciting and exhilarating. I am by no means an “opera buff” but this is an experience that cannot be missed. It will stay with you forever.” Loveberg

Total runtime is approximately three and a half hours, including interval.