Book Club Meeting
Don Giovanni
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
Reading: March 11, 2024 – April 11, 2024
Meeting: April 11, 2024 at 7 PM MST | Zoom Meeting Link
Mozart’s Don Giovanni, regarded by many as one of the greatest operas of all time, tells the centuries-old story of the libertine Don Juan.
Don Giovanni tries to seduce Donna Anna, which goes awry and he ends up killing her father, the Commendatore, unbeknownst to her. Donna Anna asks her fiancé, Don Ottavio, to avenge her father’s death. The opera follows Don Giovanni’s salacious escapades, aided and abetted by his servant Leporello. Giovanni makes his rounds seducing and duping numerous characters, bragging along the way and escaping accountability by obscuring his identity. In a cemetery, Giovanni meets the Commendatore’s statue, who forebodingly warns him that he will laugh no longer. When offered the chance to change his ways, will Don Giovanni repent?
Featured Book Selection:
Leporello on the lam by william stafford
Leporello on the Lam tells of the further adventures of characters from Mozart and Da Ponte’s famous comic opera, Don Giovanni. Hapless manservant, Leporello seeks a new master but, still traumatised by events, finds himself on the run from the law and falling in love. Can Leporello make peace with those Don Giovanni wronged, clear his own name and start a new life for himself? This fast-moving and funny story is brimming with adventure and innuendo, and is an entertaining read for opera fans and non-opera fans alike.