A pivotal moment in Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" is when sex fiend Giovanni's servant tells one of his master's conquests how many women he has had over the years. In Europe and Turkey, the total tops 3,000 and, upon hearing this, the girl swears vengeance.
"Don Giovanni" — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's two-act work that premiered in Prague in 1787 — has all the hallmarks of a farcial comedy, but its undertones are brutal and dark.
For centuries critics have cited this as Mozart's best and most ambitious opera, crammed with psychoanalytical insights and explorations of Giovanni's sense of guilt, self-loathing — and a massive Oedipus complex. The tragic last act confronts the viewer not with the complexities of sexual love, but the dangerous repercussions of giving in to lust.