Don Giovanni

Anna’s English version of Da Ponte’s racy libretto for Mozart’s Don Giovanni is both translation – in that mainly it sticks closely to the meaning in the original – and adaptation – in that it updates the story and context to the City of London 1998.

In keeping with the modern day setting, the language is the language of 1998, and is used to create eight vivid and distinct but familiar and believable modern characters. Thus behaviour and relationships, which were real in the 18th Century, become believable and understandable in the very different society of the recent past.

In 2007 Anna directed a production of Don Giovanni for Oxfordshire based Opera Anywhere. The production was a great success. Anna is currently in discussion with Oxford University Press with a view to their taking on the management of the libretto. A more extensive tour of Don Giovanni is planned for 2009.

The adaptation remains true to the spirit of the original Opera not only in terms of the characters portrayed but also the close attention Anna paid to Da Ponte’s libretto: not only structures of rhyme but internal rhymes, assonance, word play are faithfully replicated. Anna was described as an anorak by one of the singers involved in Opera Anywhere’s production, on one occasion when she pointed out that the rhyme she had used was the same sound as in the original text and must be respected!