Flammen (Schulhoff)

The opera had its world premiere at the old National Theatre (Národní Divadlo na Veveří) in Brno on 27 January 1932 in Czech under the title Plameny.

Not long after Schulhoff's return to Prague in 1923, he met Leoš Janáček's friend and biographer Max Brod, and discussed with him the possibility of writing an opera based on the Don Juan legend.

Schulhoff's detailed stage directions called for sets with an "all-pervading darkness, punctuated by revealing shafts of light and colour".

[4] The rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and its campaign against so-called degenerate music (Entartete Musik) prevented the German premiere which was planned for Berlin with Erich Kleiber conducting.

Interest in the work was revived at Leipzig Opera in 1995 conducted by Udo Zimmermann, performed as Flammen using Brod's German text, with some cuts in the music.

That production, directed by Keith Warner and conducted by Bertrand de Billy, opened on 7 August 2006 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.

The Shadows sing of a woman whose desire for Don Juan burns so intensely that he envisions her body aflame, colored with the hues of blood.

During Carnival Night, a commedia dell'arte troupe invites the crowd to witness the return of the title character in Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Don Juan, now aged and dressed in period attire as if stepping straight out of legend, dances a foxtrot with Donna Anna, ignoring her warnings about her husband's presence.

Just as he is about to embrace La Morte, who extends her arms to him as the only man to pass her test, the distant statue of the Commendatore raises its fist and curses him to eternal life.

Driven mad, Don Juan shoots himself with a Browning, but instead of dying, he transforms into an even younger man, accompanied by the background sound of a jazz band.

Doomed to desperately repeating the cycle of his life over and over again, Don Juan enters the same darkened house where the opera began, accompanied by the same solo flute, to seduce yet another victim.

[12][13] The principal singers were: Kurt Westi (Don Juan), Jane Eaglen (Donna Anna/Nun/Marguerite/Woman), Iris Vermillion (La Morte), Johann-Werner Prein (Commendatore), and Gerd Wolf [de] (Arlecchino).