This Italian-language opera is considered one of the most masterful works of Western opera, with its virtuosic score by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Designated by Mozart as a "comic opera" ("opera buffa") despite its heavily dramatic overtones, the story is a tale of revenge and repentance, whose title character is an amoral libertine meeting his downfall at the hands of two of the women he has wronged. Mozart's score has been hailed as a pure orchestral realization of Don Giovanni's fateful downfall. Highly influential on subsequent generations of artists, philosophers and critics, the legend of Giovanni has stirred audiences since its 1787 premiere, and is one of the 20 most-performed operas to this day.
