This opera film features one character who does not appear in the original source Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 'Don Giovanni' opera, a Valet in Black. The screenplay described this character as "an observer whose presence must always be felt, the guardian - in metaphysical terms - of Don Giovanni's soul". The Valet in Black is present and unspoken in nearly every scene that Don Giovanni is in.
Director Joseph Losey once said of this opera film: "Opera has been filmed before, of course, but this is not opera filmed on a stage. It is not opera for television. As far as I know, it's the first time an opera has been filmed exclusively for the cinema on actual locations, with portions of it recorded live".
This filmed adaptation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera 'Don Giovanni' was made and released about four years after Ingmar Bergman's filmed adaption of Mozart's The Magic Flute (1975) and about five years before Amadeus (1984).
Publicity for this film claimed that this was the first opera film presented in eight-track Dolby stereo which was claimed at the time to be the most advanced cinema sound system available in the world.
Reportedly, when director Joseph Losey attended the Paris Opera at the invitation of producer Rolf Liebermann, Losey fell asleep after the lights went off.