Estates Theatre

Turn around. See that hooded figure cast in bronze, no face beneath the cloak, just darkness? That is Il Commendatore, the stone ghost from Mozart's Don Giovanni, the opera that premiered inside this theatre on October 29, 1787. In the story, a nobleman seduces a young woman, kills her father in a duel, and mocks the dead man's grave. Later, the stone statue of the murdered father comes to life, walks to Don Giovanni's dinner, grips his hand with an icy touch, and drags him screaming down to hell.

Mozart had been writing this opera about damnation until the very last moment. When he arrived three weeks earlier, the second act finale, the overture, even some arias were still missing. He finished the overture the night before the premiere. The audience cheered him three times as he stepped to the podium, having no idea he was conducting ink that was barely dry. The performance was a triumph.

Four years later, Mozart was dead at thirty-five. Some say the opera was cursed, that writing so vividly about hell pulled him toward it. This is the only theatre still standing where he conducted. The interior has barely changed since that night. Miloš Forman filmed Amadeus here for a reason. The ghost is still waiting at the door.