Monday 11 Jun 2007

Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London WC2E 9DD; Box Office: 020 7304 4000
Tickets: £7-£175

11, 13, 15, 20, 26, 30 June at 19.00; 17 June at 15.00; 23 June at 18.30

Some of these performances are now sold out. Please contact the box office for customer returns on 020 7304 4000.

Don Giovanni is back. And what an amazing cast is lined up across the board for the return of this popular and lavish staging of Mozart’s opera of dissolution and retribution.

Francesca Zambello’s production itself brings out all the drama and movement of Don Giovanni’s world, using the rich period designs of Maria Bjornson’s sets and costumes. And as you might expect for a story that ends in the flames of Hell, fiery heat is a real presence on stage to match the smouldering emotions.

Maria Bjornson was a great theatre and opera designer of Romanian descent. Her mother, Mia Prodan, was part of an old Romanian family. In a career of over thirty years Maria designed for theatre, opera and ballet all over the world, working for some of the most prestigious stages. In 1990 her fellow stage designers designated her ‘the Designer’s Designer’ for the London Observer. Maria’s greatest fame came with her glamorous and minutely researched sets and costumes for ‘The Phantom of the Opera’. In production for twenty years, it has played on stage to over 100 million people in 21 countries. She worked tirelessly, designing over 120 productions in a career which exceeded most of her contemporaries in scope and quality. The Prodan Romanian Cultural Foundation (www.romanianculture.org) is a recently-formed charitable body endowed by the Estates of the late Mia Prodan and her daughter, the late Maria Bjornson.

More details on www.royaloperahouse.org.