Mozart’s three “greatest” operas to be staged at Dubai Opera in September

A "trilogy" of Mozart's finest operas will be staged at Dubai Opera. Courtesy House of Comms.

Mozart fans rejoice – three of the composer’s greatest operas will be staged at Dubai Opera in September.

The "trilogy" of operas Mozart composed alongside librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte between 1786 and 1790 – The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così Fan Tutte – are generally considered the composer's finest stage works.

Over two consecutive weekends each of the three operas will be staged nightly, in a consecutive run, as part of a specially commissioned visit from Naples’s Teatro di San Carlo.

A cornerstone of comic opera, The Marriage of Figaro will open the series, with performances on September 7 and 14.

Mozart’s third and final collaboration da Ponte oddly comes second, with Così Fan Tutte performed on September 8 and 15.

Each weekend will close with a work often hailed as not just Mozart's masterpiece, but the greatest opera ever – Don Giovanni, the brooding Don Juan adaptation which influentially blurred the-then firm lines between comedy and drama, on September 9 and 16.

If highbrow music fans have one criticism of the scene-changing Dubai Opera – and it sure isn’t the acoustics – it might be that we haven’t seen a whole of actual opera so far.

After the fanfare of the opening weekend – which saw two-night runs of both The Pearl Fishers and The Barber of Seville in September – there's been one-off gigs, family shows, and a while lot of musicals. But opera? Zilch so far – although connoisseur's will have already booked boxes for next month's Puccini double bill, of La Bohème and Madame Butterfly.

News of this Mozart trilogy was officially described as the announcement of “this year’s Autumn Opera season”, suggesting the Dubai Opera is renewing its pledge to present regular opera performance in the UAE, on some kind of seasonal timetable.

By current form, it looks like we can expect one visiting company, staging two or three works, every six months. Let’s see what they have lined up for Spring.