by Antonio Vivaldi). The recitative used in the production was likely composed by Matteo Luchini, a minor composer attached to the Denzio company who also appeared in the production as a singer, indeed as Don Giovanni in this production. No reaction is recorded over Denzio's ironic decision to cast a castrato singer as the world's greatest seducer. In spite of the unfamiliar setting in Naples, the Denzio drama features many incidents and characters familiar to operatic audiences from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. The central character, the seducer Don Giovanni, is also dragged down to hell for murdering an aged military officer (the Commendatore) who angered Don Giovanni by trying to defend the honor of his beloved daughter. Denzio included the daughter's ineffectual fiancé and Don Giovanni's cowardly servant besides other characters that originate in the Don Juan dramas of Tirso and Cicognini. Don Giovanni's standard techniques of trying to seduce lower-class women with promises of marriage and upper-class women by appearing to them disguised as their lovers are carefully respected. Almost nothing is known about the reception of Denzio's highly innovative operatic production. One of the surviving copies of the librettos does record a mildly positive reaction to the opera, but the best measure of its success is the revival of the libretto with new music in Brno four years after its premiere. Roles References Italian-language operas 1730 operas Operas