Giovanni and Kierkegaard

Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera

What should we do with Mozart’s problematic masterpiece “Don Giovanni” in the 21st century? Vicki Zunitch joins Marc Eliot Stein to talk about the moral situations portrayed in the famous story of a sociopathic charmer and rapist brought to justice by a stone statue, with a focus on all the characters caught in his web: Anna, Elvira, Zerlina, Masetto, Ottavio, the Commendatore and the eternal wingman, Leporello. We also talk about Soren Kierkegaard’s “Either/Or”, Frank Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson in "It Happened in Brooklyn", Tirso de Molina’s “The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest”, Moliere’s “Dom Juan”, the idea of "Carmen" as a reverse gender "Don Giovanni" and a stunningly surreal new version of this opera directed by Romeo Castellucci and choreographed by Cindy Van Acker that premiered in 2021 in Salzburg, Austria.