Seducer, suborner, unscrupulous, savage, deaf to the lamentations of abandoned women, to the threats of their outraged fathers as to those of heaven, Don Juan the libertine listens only to his pleasures. But destiny is watching, and the vengeance of his victims awaits its time…

What does the myth of Don Juan still have to say to us today? For Flemish director Guy Cassiers, the whirlwind of unrelenting love, the dizzying seductions, the swooning ingenues and the lively marivaudages are all fuelled by a hint of violence – physical, symbolic, political and social… But let the party begin!

After brilliantly reviving Lully’s Xerse and Purcell’s Indian Queen in Lille, Guy Cassiers now turns his attention to the immortal seducer, tracking down the conflicts hidden behind his mask of sensual freedom. He has chosen to make her the face of a world in decline, halfway between the crudeness of a slaughterhouse and the splendour of a dazzling palace… Mirror contrasts, as Mozart and Da Ponte’s masterpiece combines the most extreme feelings with the most graceful musical refinement…

Already a partner of Guy Cassiers in 2015 and 2019, Emmanuelle Haïm returns here to a work in which her passion for Mozart and the singularity of the Concert d’Astrée’s timbres work wonders. After the incandescent memories left in Lille by her Marriage of Figaro and a memorable Così fan tutte, here, for the centenary of the Opéra, is this summit of opera.