There are works of art that are timeless, that you cannot get tired of, that cannot be performed too many times.

Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is no exception – it is no coincidence that it is known as the “opera of operas”. And some productions, even if they were staged several decades ago, are still relevant and worth revisiting.

One such production is Don Giovanni, directed by Claus Guth for the 2008 Salzburg Festival, which has since been staged in Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam, Paris, and in 2024, it arrived at the Hungarian State Opera. Director Claus Guth envisioned Don Giovanni in a forest.

The forest has always been an inspiring setting for dramatic action, love, death, getting lost, fear, growing up – just think of A Midsummer Night's Dream, among many other folktales!

Guth’s ever-rotating, terrifying yet wittily playful forest setting is less a dream than a nightmare, where we witness the title character's last love stories as a hallucination before his death.

Place: Opera House Budapest

Address: 1061 Budapest, Andrássy út 22