Io, Don Giovanni (2009)

Venice, 1763: Lorenzo Da Ponte converts to Christianity and becomes a priest. He is a Freemason and is acquainted with Casanova. While gambling at the casino, Da Ponte meets a wealthy Venetian who wants to give him his daughter, Annetta, in marriage. For writing freethinking works, blasphemy, and concubinage, Lorenzo Da Ponte is banished from Venice for 15 years. Armed with a letter of recommendation from Casanova to Antonio Salieri, Da Ponte sets off for Vienna, arriving there in 1781. He presents himself to Salieri in the hope of working for him as a librettist. Joseph II arranges for Da Ponte to write the libretto for an Italian opera by Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, which becomes a success. The emperor commissions another opera from Mozart, for which Lorenzo Da Ponte writes the libretto, weaving his own private life into the story: Don Giovanni. After her father’s death, Annetta is also living in Vienna with her aunt. She takes music lessons from Mozart, through whom she meets Da Ponte again. The opera singer Catarina Cavalieri, jealous because of this, gets from Casanova a list of all Da Ponte’s past lovers and passes it on to Annetta. As a result, Annetta grows distant from Lorenzo, but through the opera Don Giovanni she recognizes parallels between Da Ponte’s life and her own, and the two find their way back to each other.