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Live for love
Die for love

The musical Don Juan was written by French composer Félix Gray in 2003 and brought to the stage by Gilles Mathieu, director of the French-language musical Notre Dame de Paris, in 2004, and has been performed with great success in France and Canada.In January 2024, the Shanghai Trust presents the original French-language musical Don Juan, which will come to China for the first time on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of its premiere, and will be performed with the Shanghai audiences in Shanghai.

Synopsis

In the ancient Spanish city of Seville, Don Juan is a handsome and cynical nobleman with a flamboyant nature and an insatiable appetite for pleasure. His image as a "playboy" contrasts sharply with the integrity of his best friend, Don Carlos.

Don Juan never believed in the so-called love, hanging around in the scent of women, until one day he met Maria, a female sculptor who made him fall in love at first sight, and fell in love with her. At that moment, Maria also falls in love with Don Juan. Rafael, an aristocrat full of romantic feelings, is Maria's fiancé. When he returns from the cruel battlefield with thoughts of Maria, he longs for warmth from Maria's embrace, but painfully discovers that his beloved Maria has fallen in love with Don Juan.

Rafael is tormented by his love for Maria and decides to take revenge on Don Juan in the form of a duel. Maria, who is deeply in love with Don Juan, and at the same time cannot let go of her old love for Rafael, is torn between them and despair. Don Juan, on the other hand, feels the power of love for the first time in his life. His intense jealousy makes him ignore the advice of his best friend Don Carlos and his father Don Luis, and he decides to go to the duel with Rafael. Fight for love, die for love!

A new interpretation of legendary characters, an exotic audio-visual feast

Don Juan is one of the "Four Immortals" in the history of Western literature, a legendary character from Spanish folklore, an aristocratic playboy known for his flirtatious behaviour, a womaniser among countless noblewomen, and a synonym for the Saint of Love. The earliest account of Don Juan's story is El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Liar and the Stoner of Seville) by Tirso de Molina. Over the centuries, more than a thousand works of literature, theatre, music, film and other artistic works have been written about Don Juan, including the French playwright Molière, the English poet Byron, the musicians Mozart and Richard Strauss, among others, all of whom have given their own interpretations of him in different genres and languages, and in different times.

At the beginning of the 21st century, after the unprecedented success of Notre Dame de Paris, the French-language musical theatre market was flooded with a large number of successful productions. Most of these productions were based on literary masterpieces or historical figures and events, and the musical Don Juan was born.

The renowned Tunisian-French composer Félix Gray has always been fond of the character of Don Juan, and in 2003 he drew on Mozart's opera Don Giovanni and Tirso de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Liar and the Stoner of Seville) to adapt the classic storyline. El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Liar and the Stoner of Seville) by Tirso de Molina and the classic Don Juan storyline by Tirso de Molina, resulting in the libretto and music of Don Juan, which was brought to the Canadian stage in 2004 by the director of the French-language Notre Dame de Paris, Gilles Maheu. The show gives a modern interpretation of the story of Don Juan, downplaying the religious overtones of previous Don Juan productions and interpreting the character and his story from a more human perspective.

Don Juan has a wealth of golden oldies worthy of a single song cycle, as well as rhythmic and dreamy flamenco dances and brightly coloured guitar syllables, as well as the occasional Spanish song interspersed with a rich and captivating Spanish flavour, through which the inner workings of the characters' lives and changes are dramatically unveiled.

A must-see French-language musical theatre classic with a 20-year run.

In 2024, Don Juan the Musical will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its premiere. Over the past 20 years, the show has been performed with great success in France, Canada, and South Korea, and the Japanese version was staged in 2016 by the renowned Takarazuka Opera Company production. Don Juan the Musical has had an audience of 600,000 people around the world, and the songs from the show, Du Plaisir (Indulgence) and Les Femmes (Women), have led the Canadian charts for weeks. In 2017, French musical star Robert Marion sang the song "Les Femmes" from Don Juan in the "French Musical Theatre Star Collection Concert", which also gave many Shanghai audiences their first live exposure to this French musical classic. 6 years later, in 2023, the "French Musical Theatre Star Collection Concert" has added more songs from Don Juan, and the audience will be able to enjoy the richness of this work in advance again. The audience will once again be able to enjoy the rich exotic flavour of this work in advance.

At the launch of the end of the 2023 season at the Shanghai Cultural Square, the three confirmed stars of Don Giovanni Gian Marco Ciarretti, Robert Marion and Laurent Ban, who have already appeared in the Shanghai leg of Don Giovanni, have sent a video of warm greetings, looking forward to meeting the Shanghai audience. The three musical actors are all top stars of French-language musical theatre nowadays, and among them, both Robert Marion and Laurent Ban have met Shanghai audiences many times in different performances. Although not yet officially on stage at the Shanghai Cultural Square, Gian Marco, the star of Don Giovanni, has already garnered numerous accolades on the 2023 French-language Musical Stars in Concert tour, making the musical's Shanghai debut a star-studded event to look forward to.

At the end of the year, let's have some fun in the theatre!

Media Review

The Palais des Congrès is abuzz with the heart-warming passion of Don Juan. --AFP

The sensual and powerful flamenco is just right here. --Evening France

"Shanghai Trust" or "SITC", founded in 1981, is one of the earliest trust companies in China and the first local financial institution after the reform and opening up of Shanghai. The company is mainly engaged in asset management and wealth management business. In recent years, Shanghai Trust has been promoting high-quality development through transformation and innovation, making every effort to promote the development of the company's three major business segments, namely asset management trust, asset service trust and public welfare/charitable trust, to enhance its ability to serve the real economy, respond to the national strategy and create a better life, and, while doing a good job in the financial industry, it has always been shouldering the mission of "Trust creates value for a better life! While doing a good job in the financial industry, we will always shoulder the mission of "trust creates value for a better life", actively serve the society, and endeavour to grow into a "global asset and wealth management service provider".