'And such sweet girls - I mean , such graceful ladies' (Don Juan, Canto II/V, Byron) - Cyprien Katsaris performs the rare Mozart Don Juan solo piano transcription by Bizet
Don Juan and Zerlina (British Library) NIFCCD 141-142 A scene from Bizet's opera Carmen A degree of vertigo overwhelms me when I begin to consider the kaleidoscopic life of Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838). He was the speedy Mozart librettist of Le nozze di Figaro (1786); Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1789). Constant unexpected reversals of fortune in his life led to massive changes of plan that plagued this intense improviser on life's stage. The insanely disconnected and illogical events of his long-lived destiny are introduced piecemeal into the opera plot. Da Ponte became immensely successful as a result of the libretto for the opera A Rare Thing (1786) by Vicente Martín y Soler (1754-1806) , one of the great musical successes of the time, comfortably outdoing Mozart in Vienna despite the success of Figaro. He wrote in his Memoires: 'We might have had more amorous a...