On September 2, 3 and 4 2016 at the Pafos Medieval Castle
The 18th Pafos Aphrodite Festival reserved for opera lovers this year a unique audio-visual spectacular that is expected to dazzle the audience; the popular opera of W. A. Mozart “Don Giovanni”.
The spectacular performance of Mozart’s great romance, will take place at the enchanting stage of the Medieval Castle of Pafos, on 2nd, 3rd and 4th September, with the signature of established artists of opera, in co-production with the Italian agency Parma Opera Organization C.E.F.A.C. and the participation of the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra.
Comic and Melancholy
Famous director Marcello Lippi, director of the production for the 18th Pafos Aphrodite Festival, distinguishes “Don Giovanni” as Mozart’s supreme theatrical achievement. The skill of the librettist allied to the genius of Mozart at the very peak of his powers has created a work which is not only highly entertaining but reflects an incredible understanding of the human condition. What gives Don Giovanni its timeless value and makes it a superior musical work is not only the subject matter or the balance between the comic and the serious; it is Mozart’s absolutely brilliant portrayal of the inner emotional states of each character through his music.
It is as if Mozart could look directly into the soul and psyche of each person on stage and then create the melodies and harmonies to give the audience an uncanny view into this character’s most intimate feelings. Don Giovanni is pluripotent: after all, in so many senses he represents the eternal tragedy of all humanity. He represents powerful and uncontrollable irrational forces for humanity, an ambivalent and paradox world, in which he can either be viewed as a blessing or a curse. Life is seen as a farce that turns into tragedy. Only what is Dead is Alive. If you are looking for love, you really risk touching the icy peaks of the extreme solitude, only betraying you can reach the absolute love.
Don Giovanni doesn’t burn ever really, he wants to burn, promises hell, his art is theatrical, he plays so well the promise that it is impossible not to believe him. Better yet, you want to believe him. Donna Elvira is the past, the difficult conquest, the conquest of a slow time, the true love, the first woman, the love that comes back to ask for the compensation of a promise already made. Donna Anna is the deceiver love, violent, a semi-calculated error, it is love that frees us from old nightmare and makes the free woman to go down to an even more conscious nightmare, is the compulsive love, immediate, wrong by definition. Zerlina is improvisation, the dialectic of seduction, the jealous love, the desire to take the woman from her husband, the desire to rediscover the simple purity of marrying the daughter of the pharmacist.
Costumes, masks and scenes are active parts of a mysterious world, they are fully integrated in the natural setting of Pafos Medieval Castle, this wonderful Aphrodite’s Cosmo.
Everyone has its own story, Don Giovanni as well. He has not chosen to be born Myth, it happened to him, and he doesn’t shy away from being himself. That’s what’s great. Not because it accepts death: like everyone else, he can’t do otherwise. He is an Idol just because he fully accepts the necessary consequences of being himself.
For more information please contact the offices of Pafos Aphrodite Festival Cyprus in Pafos at 26822218 or visit the company’s website www.pafc.com.cy.
Ticket prices are as following: €25, €40, €50 and €70.
There will be a simultaneous translation in Greek and English via subtitles.
