In Kirill Serebrennikov’s latest production at the Komische Oper in Berlin, which pairs Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” with the Requiem, an evocative text appears midway through the performance projected onto an abstract set resembling a graveyard: “Here, the dead teach the living.”
At this pivotal moment, the statue of a slain man is poised to animate and confront his murderer. Yet, the phrase also carries a deeper resonance. Serebrennikov describes the piece as “a requiem for all of us,” emphasizing its universal meditation on mortality.
This staging follows a historical tradition predating the 20th century by omitting the final sextet of “Don Giovanni,” which traditionally serves as a moralistic conclusion after the protagonist’s descent into hell. Instead, the intense D minor and major chords marking Don Giovanni’s damnation flow directly into the gentle D-minor tones of Mozart’s unfinished Requiem.
Mozart’s Requiem, left incomplete at his death in 1791, is interpreted here through choreography by Evgeny Kulagin and Ivan Estegneev as a dance-theater piece lasting about 20 minutes. The character of Don Giovanni’s soul, portrayed by former Pina Bausch dancer Fernando Suels Mendoza, wrestles with and ultimately embraces death as the chorus and soloists perform the final rites.
Serebrennikov elaborates, “The Requiem is more than a funeral Mass. Like ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead,’ it serves not only those still living but also the deceased, guiding them toward a state beyond death.”
As the concluding installment of Serebrennikov’s cycle of Mozart-Da Ponte operas at the Komische Oper, this production opens with Don Giovanni’s funeral and restructures the narrative into a nonlinear sequence of scenes set in the bardo—the Tibetan liminal space between life and death. The director embraces the enigmatic nature of the central character and the opera itself, which he describes as a “dramma giocoso,” or “playful tragedy,” blending diverse genres and emotional tones.
