238 Years Ago, Prague Hosted the World Premiere of Mozart's "Don Giovanni"

On October 29, 1787, at Prague's Nostitz Theatre — known today as the Estates Theatre — the world premiere of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" took place, conducted by the composer himself. The theatre building has survived to this day in its original form, making Prague a truly unique spot on the world's operatic map.

The story of the opera actually began months before that October evening. Back in January 1787, Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" was a smash hit in Prague, convincing the composer that he had found a genuinely devoted audience in the city. Prague theatre impresario Pasquale Bondini seized the moment and commissioned a new opera from Mozart for the following season.

Together with his regular librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart turned to the age-old legend of Don Juan — an unrepentant seducer who defies both human and divine law. The result was a work that resists easy classification as either comedy or tragedy: the opera blends humor, romantic intrigue, violence, and dark, even supernatural, themes.

In the autumn of 1787, Mozart returned to Prague and kept working on the score right up until the final days before the premiere. Numerous legends have grown up around the preparations — one claims the overture was finished at the very last moment, with musicians receiving their sheet music practically as they took their seats for the performance. What is certain is that the run-up was far from smooth, with the premiere date pushed back several times. Yet on October 29, 1787, the opera finally had its first performance — and it was a triumph.

Mozart's success in Prague was no fluke of a lone genius working in isolation. He was surrounded by a whole circle of musicians and theatre figures who valued and championed his work. A key role was played by impresario Pasquale Bondini, whose Italian opera company performed at the Nostitz Theatre. Prague's musical circle also included composer and teacher František Xaver Dušek and his wife — the celebrated singer and Mozart's close friend Josefína Dušková, whose name is tied to the Bertramka estate, another site in Prague cherished for its Mozart connections. Organist, composer, and teacher Jan Křtitel Kuchař was another important champion of Mozart's music, being among the first to truly recognize the Austrian genius's talent and later creating piano arrangements of his operas.

The opera's title character, also known as Don Juan, is far removed from the modern image of a romantic lover. He is a noble and merciless seducer who kills Donna Anna's father at the very start of the opera, pursues other women relentlessly, and refuses to take responsibility for his actions. At his side is his servant Leporello, who alternates between admiring his master and criticizing him, desperately trying to survive the fallout from his escapades. It is Leporello who sings one of the opera's most famous arias — the so-called "Catalogue Aria," in which he reels off to Donna Elvira a long list of his master's conquests across Europe. Incidentally, the character's name later gave rise to the word "leporello," used to describe accordion-folded books and printed materials.

Despite its comic scenes, the plot grows steadily darker. One of the pivotal scenes unfolds in a graveyard, where Don Giovanni mockingly invites the stone statue of the Commendatore — the man he murdered at the opera's start — to dinner. The statue accepts, and when the Commendatore truly arrives for the meal, he offers the hero one last chance to repent. Don Giovanni refuses — and the earth opens up, swallowing the unrepentant sinner whole.

The literary figure of Don Juan is considerably older than the opera itself: he first appeared in 17th-century Spanish drama and, over time, became one of Europe's great cultural archetypes, embodying rebellion, insatiable passion, and defiance of social convention all at once. Mozart and Da Ponte transformed this familiar tale into a work that defies simple categorization — comic and terrifying, seductive and cruel in equal measure.

For Mozart, the Prague triumph marked one of the brightest chapters of his career, and he remained forever linked to Prague and its Estates Theatre — with "Don Giovanni" standing as the ultimate symbol of that bond. The historic building, opened in 1783 as the Nostitz Theatre, still functions as a working stage today. It was here that director Miloš Forman filmed his Oscar-winning movie "Amadeus." Step into the auditorium today, and you find yourself in the very spot where the first audience sat listening to "Don Giovanni" on October 29, 1787, as Mozart himself conducted the premiere of a work now celebrated the world over.

Around Prague, based on reporting by kudyznudy.cz