Mozart premieres Don Giovanni

JAN 01 1787 · 12:00

Unfinished portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by his brother-in-law Joseph Lange, 1782 or 1789. The composer's widow Constanze thought it the best likeness ever made. He was thirty-one at the Estates Theatre podium on 29 October 1787, conducting the world premiere of Don Giovanni. Place: Estates Theatre (Stavovské divadlo), Old Town Figures: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, conducting · Lorenzo Da Ponte, librettist · Pasquale Bondini, impresario · Teresa Saporiti, the first Donna Anna Mozart writes in a letter from Prague in January 1787, after Le nozze di Figaro has played there to delirium while Vienna grows bored: here they talk of nothing but Figaro, here they play nothing but Figaro, sing nothing but Figaro. The impresario Bondini commissions a new opera on the spot. The fee is one hundred ducats and the city's enthusiasm. He returns in October with Da Ponte's libretto and most of an opera. Most. Not all. The overture is famously written the night before the premiere, or the morning of, depending on the witness. Constanze keeps him awake with coffee and ghost stories. Copyists transcribe the parts wet.