Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

By Carl V. Johnson & Jack Galliett

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has created many famous operas throughout his short life. Many of his operas have become some of the most performed Operas in history. Don Giovanni is one of Mozart’s darkest and most famous operas that he ever wrote. In fact it is the tenth most performed opera in the world. Don Giovanni is based on the legends of Don Juan. Don Juan was a fictional italian seducer and libertine. The Opera Premiered in the Teatro di Praga on October 29th in 1787 in Prague. The Opera was originally intended to premiere on October 14th of that year for the archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, however the score was unfinished and had to be postponed for two weeks. It is rumored that Mozart completed the score one day before the premiere of the opera. The opera wasn’t brought to Vienna until May 1788. Before the Opera was shown in Vienna Mozart made revisions to the Opera and added two Arias to it. (Here is the overture: https://youtu.be/SPvbdALoWCg)

The main characters of the opera include Don Giovanni, a young man who is viewed as extremely licentious nobleman and was played by Luigi Bassi at the premiere performance on october 29th. Giovanni is usually paired with the character Leporello who is Giovanni’s servant and was played by Felice Ponziani. Another prominent character was Il Commendatore who was killed by Don Giovanni at the start of the opera and was played by Giuseppe Lolli at the premiere. These are just some the characters and actors that performed at the premiere of the opera in Prague. With the actors also comes the orchestra. The instrumentation for the opera includes two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, and two bassoons in the woodwinds section. The brass section includes two french horns, two trumpets and three trombones. The percussion section just includes the timpani and the strings have first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. 

The story starts with Don Giovanni’s servant Leporello watching and complaining about his situation while Giovanni is inside the Commendatore’s house trying to seduce and rape his daughter while wearing a disguise. The Commendatore then finds Giovanni and challenges him to a duel. The duel ends with the Commendatore dying and Giovanni fleeing with his servant Leporello. Giovanni continues to pull off scandalous acts in the opera such as seeing a woman at her wedding and falling in love with her at first sight. He invites the new couple to his house to have a wedding celebration but secretly wants to remain behind with the bride before the celebration. When Giovanni finally gets the bride alone, he attempts to seduce her. Another person then walks in and the affair is halted. Soon after the bride leaves with the new person, the daughter of the Commendatore named Anna enters and does not recognize Giovanni. She then asks Giovanni to help avenge her father’s death and Giovanni promises that he will as he is still unrecognized. Only moments later another character named Elvira enters and explains to Anna that Giovanni is not the man he claims to be and that he is no good. With this Anna then realizes that Giovanni was the man that killed her father. This leads to more people becoming angry and frustrated with Giovanni. A few scenes later, Giovanni tries again in attempting to seduce one of the ladies, but she screams. With this scream, he panics and then blames his actions on his servant but cannot fool the ones that want him dead.

In act two, Giovanni continues in his scandalous ways and even bribes his servant to stay with him after Leporello threatens to leave him. Soon after, Giovanni gets his servant to pose as him to distract the character Elvira so that he can go off and seduce one of the maids while disguised as Leporello. Before this though, Giovanni prays a promise of repentance with his death as the result if one of the maids does not love him back. While woeing the maids, one of the past characters named Masetto shows up looking for Giovanni to kill him. But Giovanni finds him first and is able to beat Masetto up and takes his weapons. While this conflict is happening Leporello is caught disguised as Giovanni. Before his attackers kill him, he reveals that he is not Giovanni and begs for mercy. As Leporello flees the remaining people become more enraged at Giovanni and truly want revenge on Giovanni. When the master and the servant reunite, they come across a statue of the Commendatore. A voice from the statue tells Giovanni that his laugh might not make the end of the night. With this Giovanni invites the statue to join him for dinner to taunt back at the statue. With this action he confirms he doom.

Later that evening, Leporello prepares a meal for his master and any guests. The first person to arrive is Elvira and exclaims to Giovanni that she only feels pity for him and wants him to change his life. Giovanni being as stubborn as he is, refuses and leaves Elvira sad and disappointed. With this she leaves only as the next guest arrives. The statue of the Commendatore is at the door and Leporello is in shock. The Commendatore walks in and asks Giovanni to repent but he refuses multiple times and because of this, a chorus of demons appear and drag Don Giovanni down to hell (Here is a video of this scene:https://youtu.be/ONX15zva31Y ). After Giovanni is gone, the people looking for revenge show up and find that he is dead and each person then moves on and continues down their own different paths. With the concluding group they deliver the main message of the opera which is ‘Such is the end of the evildoer; the death of a sinner always reflects his life’.

This is by far one of the darkest operas by Mozart and since it was written so close to his father's death, it has been rumored that the opera was made as a reminder of Leopold Mozart. In the movie Amadeus, there is one scene where the character Salieri talks about how the commendatore might represent Mozart's recently deceased father, Leopold Mozart. He talks about how through this opera, Mozart’s father was still haunting him. Here is the video of the scene: https://youtu.be/kBXt9Bn4qns . This raises questions if this speculation is really true, or if it is pure speculation? Could Mozart’s father be haunting Mozart and asking him to repent from his wicked ways? That is for you to decide.

Works Cited

Amadeus. Dir. Milos Forman. Perf. Tom Hulce. Orion Pictures, 1984. Film.

Dennis, Luke. DON GIOVANNI Ultimate Study Guide (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

"Don Giovani." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Nov. 2015. Web. 16 Nov. 2015. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Giovanni>.

Gay, Peter. Mozart. New York: Lipper/Viking Book, 1999. Print.

Work:

Carl: Story, Writing, Videos

Jack: History, Videos, Pictures.