Operaclassical

Mozart Essentials

Six operas that define the Mozartian imagination

4 selections · Stage Door Society Editorial

Le Nozze di Figaro is the most perfectly constructed opera ever written. Don Giovanni is the most unsettling. Die Zauberflöte is the most mysterious. Così fan tutte is the most honest.

Opera

Don Giovanni

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · 1787

Mozart's masterpiece of seduction and damnation follows the libertine Don Giovanni as he pursues conquest across Seville, leaving a trail of betrayed women and vengeful suitors in his wake. When he mockingly invites the statue of a murdered nobleman to dinner, the supernatural reckoning arrives—a darkly comic meditation on desire, honor, and divine retribution that blends comedy with existential terror.

Opera

Die Zauberflöte

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · 1791

A young prince embarks on a perilous quest to rescue a maiden from the clutches of darkness, guided by a magical flute and an unlikely bird-catcher companion. As Tamino penetrates the mysteries of an enlightened temple, he discovers that truth and virtue demand trials of fire and water, while the forces of night conspire to reclaim what they have lost. A transcendent fusion of fairy tale enchantment and Enlightenment ideals, where love, wisdom, and brotherhood triumph over chaos and deception.

Opera

Le nozze di Figaro

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · 1786

A valet and maid outwit a lecherous count on their wedding day, exposing his infidelities through disguise and intrigue in this masterpiece of comic opera.

Opera

Così fan tutte

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · 1790

Two officers bet their fiancées are unfaithful and disguise themselves to seduce them, leading to romantic chaos and philosophical revelations about love and constancy.

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