A scoundrel and his victims

Leporello (Conal Coad), left, and Don Giovanni (Paul Whelan).

Mozart's opera about the licentious Don Giovanni was composed in 1787 and first performed in Vienna in October that year. The plot involves the sexual adventures of the Don with act one opening as he forces himself on Donna Anna, whose cries for help are answered by her father, the Commendatore. When he defends his daughter's honour, the two men fight and Don Giovanni kills him.

Donna Anna and her beloved Don Ottavio vow revenge. One of the Don's old flames, Donna Elvira, arrives in time to hear his servant Leporello reading out the "book of lists", the Don's boasting record of his 2065 lovers. Meanwhile, Giovanni barges into a peasant wedding and sets his sights on the bride Zerlina, marrying Masetto. Elvira, Anna and Ottavio arrive and warn her, then Anna accuses Giovanni of attempted rape.

Undeterred, Giovanni throws a masked party for the bridal group and again tries to seduce Zerlina. Her screams alert the avengers; the Don blames Leporello.

In act two, Don Giovanni has swapped his costume with poor Leporello and is now serenading Elvira's maid in the absence of her mistress - who has gone off with the disguised Leporello, believing him to be the Don, sorry for his actions. It gets more complicated, when a vengeful Masetto comes to punish the Don, who is still pretending to be Leporello. He attacks Masetto, then meets Leporello in the graveyard where the statue of the dead Commendatore speaks to him.

Don Giovanni, as ever uncaring, gaily invites the ghost to supper, where it drags him away to hell. The four survivors of the Don's misadventures - Elvira, Ottavio, Anna and Leporello - come to the conclusion that "evildoers always come to an evil end".