


The subject may have been chosen because the sub-genre of Don Juan opera had originated in that city. The opera was commissioned after the success of Mozart's trip to Prague in January and February 1787. The Estates Theatre in Prague, venue of the world premiere of Don Giovanni in 1787 when it was four years old and called the Comital Nostitz National Theatre (Gräflich Nostitzsches Nationaltheater) Don Giovanni is regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time and has proved a fruitful subject for commentary in its own right critic Fiona Maddocks has described it as one of Mozart's "trio of masterpieces with librettos by Da Ponte". It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the National Theater (of Bohemia), now called the Estates Theatre, on 29 October 1787. It is a dramma giocoso blending comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements (although the composer entered it into his catalogue simply as opera buffa). Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legend about a libertine as told by playwright Tirso de Molina in his 1630 play El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra. 527 Vienna (1788) title: Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni, literally The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni) is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.
