The Da Ponte operas, or Mozart–Da Ponte trilogy, are the three operas composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart based on libretti by Lorenzo da Ponte:
All created for the Court Opera in Vienna, they are in Italian, the language considered most suitable for opera at the time, and are Mozart’s most popular operas apart from Die Entführung aus dem Serail and The Magic Flute, composed on German libretti in the Singspiel genre.
All three are in the genre of opera buffa, with the urgency of a story covering a single day. Despite the light and comic character implied by the genre, they express an aspiration to freedom inspired by the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and deal with themes which were daring for their time, especially with regards to religion (Don Giovanni), politics (Marriage), and morality (Così).[1] Other common topics include the search for love or for sexual pleasure, disguise (especially transvestism) and the ensuing mistaken identities, the harassment of women by men, and the conflicts between master and servant.[2]