No serious Opera Collection is without Mozart’s Don Giovanni, one of the most popular and often played operas, holding repertoire since its creation more than 200 years ago, no doubt because of its eternal and universal theme: (betrayed) love and death.

This CD release brings the La Petite Bande / Sigiswald Kuijken recordings of Mozart operas to its completion: issued earlier were Cosi fan tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro and die Zauberflöte. Characteristic are the freshness, zest and brilliance in these performances on period instruments, with fresh young voices as soloists. Kuijken's punchy, live version of Mozart’s fire and brimstone opera uses the Prague version of the score, now not so commonly encountered.

Kuijken recorded all three Mozart/Da Ponte operas, and cultivated a distinct style while doing so - by no means brisk and no-nonsense but full of loving instrumental detail, as one might expect from one of the great Baroque violinists of our age. His cast was young and fresh, keen always to make words tell in dialogue and repartee, but not underplaying the great dramatic climaxes such as the Commendatore’s implacable return to seize the egregious Don and drag him off to Hell.

‘Nancy Argenta's Zerlina has charm and vitality… Huub Claessens makes a firmtoned and spirited Leporello. Markus Schafer's Ottavio is authoritatively sung, a model of style and phrasing. This is altogether a performance that you are sure to enjoy.’ - Gramophone, April 1997