Don Giovanni was the first film produced by Gaumont Italia (1978-1983), and it was the swan song of the glorious era of Italian cinema d’auteur. An impressive beginning for Gaumont Italia, it was a luxurious masterpiece adapting Mozart’s opera but innovating the film-opera tradition by setting it in real locations carefully selected from the splendid Palladian villas of Veneto. It was a grandiose endeavor also in terms of financing and production.