DON GIOVANNI  (Don Juan)

Opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with libretto in Italian by Lorenzo Da Ponte based partially on The Stone Guest, an opera by Giuseppe Gazzaniga with libretto by Giovanni Bertati. There were also a number of other earlier plays about Don Giovanni.

DON GIOVANNI, a young nobleman Baritone
LEPORELLO, his servant Bass
THE COMMENDATORE SEVILLE Bass
DONNA ANNA, his daughter Soprano
DON OTTAVIO, her fiancé Tenor
DONNA ELVIRA, a lady of BURGOS Soprano
ZERLINA, a country girl Soprano
MASETTO, her fiance Baritone

Time: 17th century
Place: in and about Seville
First performance at Prague, October 29, 1787

Don Giovanni is the greatest opera ever composed. Words to this effect, at least, were written by three men with peculiarly sound equipment to pass judgment-Gioacchino Rossini, Charles Gounod, and Richard Wagner. Beethoven preferred The Magic Flute, for he thought the subject of the Don too immoral.

The intentions of author and composer were, at least on surface, completely moral; for Don Giovanni was originally only the subtitle, the real title being Il dissoluto punito [The Dissolute One Punished]. Be that as it may, Mozart and Da both classed the work as a dramma giocoso, that is, a "jolly play;" and two famous anecdotes concerning the preparation of the opera would seem to indicate that it was undertaken in a spirit of levity rather than with the ponderous metaphysical significance in mind that Teutonic critics have pretended to find.

The first of the anecdotes is told in the entertaining mem-oirs of the librettist Da Ponte (no mean rake himself). Describing the few weeks it took him to turn out this libretto, along with two others, he wrote:

"I sat down at my writing table and stayed there for twelve hours on end, with a little bottle of Tokay on my right hand, an inkstand in the middle, and a box of Seville tobacco on the left. A beautiful maiden of sixteen was living in my house with her mother, who looked after the household. (I should have wished to love her only as a daughter-but . . .) She came into my room whenever I rang the bell, which in truth was fairly often, and particularly when my inspiration seemed to cool. She brought me now a biscuit, now a cup of coffee, or again nothing but her own lovely face, always gay, always smiling, and made precisely to inspire poetic fancy and brilliant ideas."

The other anecdote concerns the composer's behavior at one of the rehearsals. Mozart was dissatisfied with the scream given by Zerlina when, at the ball, the Don is supposed to be making improper advances to her. He thereupon undertook to make the improper advances himself by slipping behind her and, at the precisely right moment, administering a sharp pinch. He expressed himself as quite satisfied with the more realistic scream.

OVERTURE
The overture (said to have been orchestrated the night be-fore the premiere) begins solemnly with the music that accompanies the fateful appearance of the stone guest in the last scene of the opera. These thirty measures are in a minor
key; but once they are over, the overture breaks into a sunny major and chatters along as briskly as the overture to any dramma giocoso should. It leads directly, without a break, into the opening scene.

ACT I
Scene 1: Leporello, Don Giovanni's low-comedy servant, is waiting for his master outside the home of a Sevillian beauty named Donna Anna, as Giovanni is courting her. Leporello complains comically about his job, but pretty soon out comes the Don followed by a maddened Donna Anna. Apparently be had disguised himself as Anna's fiance, Don Ottavio. Donna Anna runs for help, and her father, the Commendatore of Seville, comes out to challenge Giovanni to fight. The Don has no wish to take advantage of his youthfulness, but he is forced to draw his sword, and quickly disposes of the old gentleman. The Don and his servant run off and Donna Anna returns with Don Ottavio. Over the body of the Commandant the two solemnly swear vengeance.

Scene 2: On a lonely road near Seville the Don runs across an old flame named Donna Elvira, whom be had deserted. He manages to escape from this lady's upbraidings but leaves behind his servant, Leporello, to explain matters. It is a very weird sort of comfort this fellow has to offer: he lists his master's conquests in many lands-something over two thousand in number. This is the famous aria known as Il catalogo - "The Catalogue."

Scene 3: In the next scene the Don embarks on what turns out to be the last of his would-be conquests. He and Leporello run across a party of villagers celebrating the engagement of pretty young Zerlina to a stout fellow named Masetto. The Don is smitten with the pretty girl and invites her to his castle in a very charming duet (La ci darem la mano). But he is interrupted by the entrance of Donna Elvira, who takes Zerlina temporarily under her wing, as well as Donna Anna and Don Ottavio. These last two know Don Giovanni only slightly and do not yet suspect that he is the murderer of Donna Anna's father.

But his voice sounds strangely familiar to Donna Anna, and she tells Ottavio that this may be the man they are looking for. He then sings the lovely aria (Della ma pace) in which Ottavio swears to devote himself to achieving peace of mind for his beloved Anna. To close the scene (though this ending is sometimes performed as a separate scene by itself), Leporello first repeats his complaints about his service, threatening to leave his master, but cheers up when the Don congratulates him on the report of progress he gives. It seems that Leporello has managed to placate the jealous Masetto, to get most of the peasants eating and drinking, and even to get rid of Donna Elvira, who had been warning her new protogé, Zerlina, against the Don. The Don is so much pleased that he breaks into one of the bubbliest of all arias-the so-called Champagne Aria-in which he looks forward to more conquests at his party that evening.

Scene 4: Outside the Don's palace Zerlina and her fiancé are having a quarrel about the Don's attentions, but it ends with a most charming apology, Zerlina's little aria Batti, batti. This does not prevent the villain, Giovanni, from trying to pursue the girl, but temporarily, at least, Masetto stops him. Soon we hear the strains of the famous Minuet from inside the palace. Leporello, standing on the balcony, sees some masked figures approaching, and he hospitably invites them to the party. But before they go in, they sing a solemn and exceptionally beautiful trio (Protegga, il giusto cielo). For these three maskers are Don Ottavio and the Ladies Anna and Elvira, calling on heaven to aid them in bringing Don Giovanni to justice.

Scene 5: At the party itself things are going along joyously, with three sets of dancers dancing to three different orchestras playing simultaneously in three different rhythms! While Leporello distracts Masetto by insisting on having him as partner in the dance, Don Giovanni manages to get Zerlina off into an inside room. She screams for help, runs out, and suddenly the Don is threatened by all his enemies at once. Yet the Don is no coward. He draws his sword, and in the exciting finale he makes good his escape.

ACT II
Scene 1: In the opening scene of Act II, the Don is up to his old tricks. He persuades the reluctant Leporello to change cloaks and hats with him so that he may woo Donna Elvira's maid. But it is Elvira herself who appears on the balcony to be serenaded; and when she comes down, it is Leporello who, in his master's clothes, makes love to her and takes her off. Now, wearing his servant's clothes, the Don sings his serenade, Deh vieni alla finestra [O come to your window], as he accompanies himself on the mandolin. However, he is interrupted by Masetto and a group of his friends searching for the Don to beat him up. In the dark they take the disguised man for Leporello, and the Don manages to send off all of Masetto's helpers on a wild-goose chase, while he beats up the poor fellow himself. The scene closes with Zerlina finding her aching swain on the ground, and she sings him the sweet and comforting aria Vedrai carino [If you'll be good, my dear]. Her loving heart, she says, will cure his wounds.

Scene 2: Into the garden where the Commendatore lived stray Leporello and Donna Elvira, she still thinking him to be Giovanni. Donna Anna and Don Ottavio also stray into that garden, as do Zerlina and Masetto. Leporello, to save himself from all his master's enemies, gives up his disguise and manages to make his escape. Now Ottavio feels certain that it must have been the Don who murdered the Commen-datore (though his reasoning is none too clear), and he resolves to consult the local police. First, he delivers himself of one of the finest-and most difficult-tenor arias ever written, Il mio tesoro.

(A low-comedy scene, almost always omitted in modem productions, follows, in which Zerlina catches up with Leporello, drags him around the stage, ties him up in a chair, and even threatens him with a razor. But again Leporello manages an escape. This is followed by Donna Elvira's fine aria Mi tradì quel alma ingrata-"All my love on him I lavished," which does get sung in modern productions, usually before a drop curtain.)

Scene 3: At two o'clock in the morning, Don Giovanni and Leporello meet in a churchyard before an equestrian statue of the Commendatore. There is some banter about the possibility of the Don's having made love to his servant's wife, when the two are interrupted by a ghostly voice saying, "Before dawn your joking will end." It is the statue speaking; and Leporello, trembling, reads the inscription on its base: "Here I await vengeance on the impious man who killed me." Braving it out, Don Giovanni instructs his servant to invite the statue to dinner. Twice the stone figure accepts, once by nodding its head and once by uttering the word Si-"Yes." Assuming indifference, the Don merely remarks that it is all very bizarre.

Scene 4 is a very short one. Don Ottavio tries to persuade Donna Anna that, as Giovanni will soon be brought to justice, she should agree to marry him. Her reply is the aria Non mi dir. With great tenderness she tells him that she does love him but that while her sorrow for her father is still so fresh she cannot think of marriage.

Scene 5: The last, frightening scene opens in a quite jolly way. The Don is feasting by himself and, amid jests with Leporello, recognizes the various tunes his private dinner orchestra plays for him. One of them is the Non piu andrai, a popular march-like aria from Mozart's opera of the previous year, The Marriage of Figaro. This tune was still high on Prague's hit parade for 1787.

Donna Elvira brings in the first serious note when she begs Don Giovanni to change his way of life, but she is gaily disregarded. Suddenly there is a solemn knock at the door. Donna Elvira goes to the door and then rushes back badly frightened. Despite his master's order Leporello refuses to open it; and when the Don does so himself, he finds the stone statue standing there, having indeed come to dinner. The statue grasps the hand of Don Giovanni; and when the Don refuses to repent his way of life, the Don and all his palace disappear in supernatural flames.

But the opera closes on a sweeter note. The Don is dead and, presumably, in hell; but all the other characters have learned a lesson from him, and they tell us of their future plans in a very tuneful finale. Anna promises to marry Ottavio at the end of the year; the nuptials of Zerlina and Masetto are to take place much earlier; Elvira will enter a convent; and as for Leporello-he will seek a better master. Solemn Teutonic opera intendants, still assuming that Don Giovanni is a profoundly serious philosophical treatise, often omit the finale as too light to be appropriate. Rather an arrogant criticism of the very stage-wise Mozart!