Don Juan

Don Juan Tenorio in Seville
It’s a popular and literary tradition, which is staged in Spanish theaters, the play Don Juan Tenorio on All Saints. Due to the great success it is staged until mid-December at the San Fernando cemetery.

Don Juan the story
Don Juan is a woman's version who likes to seduce women and fight with their men. The story begins with Don Juan who meets Don Luis in a crowded wine shop in Seville to discuss who of them won the bet: Who has won more women and murdered their men? Of course Don Juan wins on both points, but Don Luis says he misses one victory: An engaged woman who is about to take her holy vow.

Don Gonzalo, the father of Doña Inés, hears this too. Don Juan just takes Doña Inés out of the monastery and takes her to his country house. That becomes a tender love night in which they say to love each other. The next day her father wants to kill Don Juan because he seduced his daughter. His friend Don Luis also wants to kill him because Don Juan also seduced his fiancée. Don Juan kneels and begs Don Gonzalo to marry him with Doña Inés because he loves her. But they do not believe him, and then Don Juan shoots Don Gonzalo and he then puts a knife in Don Luis during a duel.

Don Juan escapes the country, leaving Doña Inés behind after five years he returns to Seville and discovers that there are real life pictures of Don Gonzalo, Don Luis and Doña Inés at the place of his country house, paid by his father. Don Juan also finds out that Doña Inés died of grief not long after she had been abandoned. Don Juan regrets the statues and prays to Doña Inés for forgiveness.

But full of bravoure he invites the statue of Don Gonzalo for a dinner that evening. He doesn't expect the statue of Don Gonzalo to really pop up during dinner, but he comes. The spirit of Don Gonzalo tries to pull Don Juan to hell, but Doña Inés appears and frees him and the two lovers go together to heaven. Love really does save.

Writers of Don Juan Tenorio
The myth of Don Juan was born in the drama “El Burlador de Sevilla '' (the decider of Seville and the stone guest) of Tirso de Molina in 1630. Molina was a monk and came through the confessional to know a lot about what happened in and next to marriage and made plays of it. The most famous and romantic version in Spain is that of José Zorrilla from 1844. Zorilla told a lot about the Don Juan story of Molina.

Other famous Don Juans are the play of Molière, the great poem of the English poet Byron and of course the opera of Mozart, Don Giovanni. The Don Juan story is played in many books, plays and films and the works show a beautiful time when it is written, because one time Don Juan goes to heaven, the other time to hell or he is the born leader, but also fascinating and then scandalous.

Where is Don Juan in Seville?
In the romantic neighborhood of Barrio Santa Cruz, the former Jewish quarter, would have been the birthplace of Don Juan Tenorio. At the Plaza de los Venerables in the Hostería del Laurel, the heroic deeds of Don Juan play. The above-mentioned Casual Don Juan Tenorio hotel is just as enchanting as it was in 1844 when Don José Zorilla wrote "Don Juan Tenorio" here and Lord Byron twenty-five years earlier his great poem Don Juan.
At Plaza de los Reffinadores you can admire the decorative sculpture of Don Juan in bronze, life-size and classical seventeenth-century costume. The pedestal describes the character and the beginning of the famous scene on José Zorrilla's bank.

Don Juan walk
Start at the Royal Palace where the Barrio Santa Cruz district is next door and walk to the Plaza de los Reffinadores and admire the monument, wear out the text that stands on the pedestal and imagine Don Juan. Continue on to Plaza de Doña Elvira, where the birth house of Doña Inés de Ulloa, the impossible love of women's version Don Juan is located at number 6.

According to some, Don Juan really existed and was born in the house on Calle Justino de Neve 2. But the highlight is of course the Plaza de los Venerable where you enter the Hostería del Laurel to taste the Don Juan atmospheres and walk straight to the wide and beautiful bar, where you can have coffee depending on the time of day, wine or a cocktail or have to eat a delicious tapas. In the front of the bar you can see the most important passages in the story immortalized in ceramics. This is a typical Spanish bar where it is lovely to talk. Or sit in one of the seating areas with wicker furniture and glass tables or on the terrace, which are the ideal places to imagine your own romantic story while enjoying a glass of cool sangria.

You can also see students from the university "La Tuna" in their black capes. They bring up serenades to dawn to raise money for their school, as the students have done for centuries.
Just next to this square you will find the most romantic street of Seville, Calle Reinoso, also called Calle de Los Besos , street of the cushion. The reason behind the unusual name is that this street is so narrow that if you are on a balcony, you can kiss someone on the balcony across the street. Or go hiking here with your loved one ….
And maybe spend a night at the Casual Don Juan Tenorio hotel where each of the 21 rooms is named after a historical figure or a character from Don Juan of Zorilla.

Don Juan Tenorio the performance
Finally, you have to go to the Don Juan Tenorio performance at the San Fernando cemetery, Calle Doctor Fedriani, where due to the great success and the Don Juan commemoration month is still a show at five o'clock on December 11, 2022.
The cemetery of Seville, as the eternal resting place of the city, is one of the most suitable places to step up the relationship between love and death in Don Juan Tenorio. The place where their love ended with their death and lives on in heaven.