We attended a performance of Don Giovanni at the Estates Theater. Mozart wrote Don Giovanni for this theater and conducted the first performance here in 1787, a few years after the theater was opened.

The performance was good musically, but disastrous dramatically. The costuming for the two lead women’s roles was absurd — they looked like a cross between Darryl Hannah in “Blade Runner” and Elsa Lanchester in “The Bride of Frankenstein”. There was interpretive dance during the overture and various arias, apparently just to make noise and something to look at. Perhaps the most outlandish touch was the film of a running bison in the background of Elvira’s “Mi tradì.” I’m not kidding.

Before the opera we hung out for a while in the Old Town Square.