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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Don Giovanni Synopsis |  |
Don Giovanni Overture
Mozart sounds a deeply tragical note at the
outset of his overture. The introduction is an Andante, which he
drew from the scene of the opera in which the ghostly statue of the
murdered Commandant appears to Don Giovanni while he is enjoying
the pleasures of the table. Two groups of solemn chords command
attention and "establish at once the majestic and formidable
authority of divine justice, the avenger of crime." They are
followed by a series of solemn progressions in stern, sinister,
unyielding, merciless, implacable harmonies. They are like the
colossal strides of approaching Fate, and this awfulness is twice
raised to a higher power, first by a searching, syncopated phrase
in the violins which hovers loweringly over them, and next by a
succession of afrighted minor scales ascending crescendo and
descending piano, the change in dynamics beginning abruptly as the
crest of each terrifying wave is reached.
These wonderful scales were an afterthought of the
composer's. They did not appear in the original score of the scene,
as the autograph shows, but were written in after the music had once
been completed. They are crowded into the staves in tiny notes which
sometimes extend from one measure into the next. This circumstance
and the other, that they are all fairly written out in the autograph
of the overture, indicate that they were conceived either at one of
the rehearsals or while Mozart was writing the overture. They could
not have been suggested at the first performance, as Jahn seems to
imply. The introduction is only thirty measures long, and the
Allegro which follows is made up of new material. I quote again
from Gounod: "But suddenly, and with feverish audacity, the Allegro
breaks out in the major key, an Allegro full of passion and
delirium, deaf to the warnings of Heaven, regardless of remorse,
enraptured of pleasure, madly inconstant and daring, rapid and
impetuous as a torrent, flashing and swift as a sword, overleaping
all obstacles, scaling balconies, and bewildering the alguazils."
Don Giovanni Act 1 Summary
From the tragic introduction through the impetuous main section we
are led to a peaceful night scene in the garden before the house
of Donna Anna. There Leporello, the servant of Don Giovanni, is
awaiting in discontented mood for the return of his master, who has
entered the house in quest of amatory adventure. Leporello is weary
of the service in which he is engaged, and contrasts his state with
that of the Don. (Air: "Notte e giorno faticar.") He will throw off
the yoke and be a gentleman himself. He has just inflated himself
with pride at the thought, when he hears footsteps, and the poltroon
in his nature asserts itself. He hides behind the shrubbery. Don
Giovanni hurries from the house, concealing his features with his
cloak and impeded by Donna Anna, who clings to him, trying to get a
look into his face and calling for help. Don Giovanni commands
silence and threatens. The Commandant, Donna Anna's father, appears
with drawn sword and challenges the intruder. Don Giovanni hesitates
to draw against so old a man, but the Commandant will not parley.
They fight. At first the attacks and defences are deliberate (the
music depicts it all with wonderful vividness), but at the last it
is thrust and parry, thrust and parry, swiftly, mercilessly. The
Commandant is no match for his powerful young opponent, and falls,
dying. A few broken ejaculations, and all is ended. The orchestra
sings a slow descending chromatic phrase "as if exhausted by the
blood which oozes from the wound," says Gounod. How simple the means
of expression! But let the modern composer, with all his apparatus
of new harmonies and his multitude of instruments, point out a scene
to match it in the entire domain of the lyric drama! Don Giovanni
and his lumpish servant, who, with all his coward instincts, cannot
help trying his wit at the outcome of the adventure, though his
master is in little mood for sportiveness, steal away as they see
lights and hear a commotion in the palace. Donna Anna comes back to
the garden, bringing her affianced lover, Don Ottavio, whom she had
called to the help of her father. She finds the Commandant dead,
and breaks into agonizing cries and tears. Only an accompanied
recitative, but every ejaculation a cry of nature! Gounod is wrought
up to an ecstasy by Mozart's declamation and harmonies. He suspends
his analysis to make this comment:
But that which one cannot too often remark nor too often endeavor
to make understood, that which renders Mozart an absolutely unique
genius, is the constant and indissoluble union of beauty of form
with truth of expression. By this truth he is human, by this beauty
he is divine. By truth he teaches us, he moves us; we recognize each
other in him, and we proclaim thereby that he indeed knows human
nature thoroughly, not only in its different passions, but also in
the varieties of form and character that those passions may assume.
By beauty the real is transfigured, although at the same time it
is left entirely recognizable; he elevates it by the magic of a
superior language and transports it to that region of serenity and
light which constitutes Art, wherein Intelligence repeats with a
tranquillity of vision what the heart has experienced in the trouble
of passion. Now the union of truth with beauty is Art itself.
Don Ottavio attempts to console his love, but she is insane with
grief and at first repulses him, then pours out her grief and calls
upon him to avenge the death of her father. Together they register
a vow and call on heaven for retribution.
It is morning. Don Giovanni and Leporello are in the highway near
Seville. As usual, Leporello is dissatisfied with his service and
accuses the Don with being a rascal. Threats of punishment bring
back his servile manner, and Don Giovanni is about to acquaint him
of a new conquest, when a lady, Donna Elvira, comes upon the scene.
She utters woful complaints of unhappiness and resentment against
one who had won her love, then deceived and deserted her. (Air:
"Ah! chi mi dice mai.") Don Giovanni ("aflame already," as Leporello
remarks) steps forward to console her. He salutes her with soft
blandishment in his voice, but to his dismay discovers that she is
a noble lady of Burgos and one of the "thousand and three" Spanish
victims recorded in the list which Leporello mockingly reads to her
after Don Giovanni, having turned her over to his servant, for
an explanation of his conduct in leaving Burgos, has departed
unperceived. Leporello is worthy of his master in some things.
In danger he is the veriest coward, and his teeth chatter like
castanets; but confronted by a mere woman in distress he becomes
voluble and spares her nothing in a description of the number of
his master's amours, their place, the quality and station of his
victims, and his methods of beguilement. The curious and also
the emulous may be pleased to learn that the number is 2065,
geographically distributed as follows: Italy, 240; Germany, 231;
France, 100; Turkey, 91; and Spain, 1003. Among them are ladies from
the city and rustic damsels, countesses, baronesses, marchionesses,
and princesses. If blond, he praises her dainty beauty; brunette,
her constancy; pale, her sweetness. In cold weather his preferences
go toward the buxom, in summer, svelte. Even old ladies serve to
swell his list. Rich or poor, homely or beautiful, all's one to him
so long as the being is inside a petticoat. "But why go on? Lady,
you know his ways." The air, "Madamina," is a marvel of malicious
humor and musical delineation. "E la grande maestoso"--the music
rises and inflates itself most pompously; "la piccina"--it sinks in
quick iteration lower and lower just as the Italians in describing
small things lower their hands toward the ground. The final words,
"Voi sapete, quel che fa," scarcely to be interpreted for polite
readers, as given by bass singers who have preserved the Italian
traditions (with a final "hm" through the nose), go to the extreme
of allowable suggestiveness, if not a trifle beyond. The insult
throws Elvira into a rage, and she resolves to forego her love
and seek vengeance instead.
Don Giovanni comes upon a party of rustics who are celebrating in
advance the wedding of Zerlina and Masetto. The damsel is a somewhat
vain, forward, capricious, flirtatious miss, and cannot long
withstand such blandishments as the handsome nobleman bestows
upon her. Don Giovanni sends the merrymakers to his palace for
entertainment, cajoles and threatens Masetto into leaving him alone
with Zerlina, and begins his courtship of her. (Duet: "La ci darem
la mano.") He has about succeeded in his conquest, when Elvira
intervenes, warns the maiden, leads her away, and, returning, finds
Donna Anna and Don Ottavio in conversation with Don Giovanni,
whose help in the discovery of the Commandant's murderer they are
soliciting. Elvira breaks out with denunciations, and Don Giovanni,
in a whisper to his companions, proclaims her mad, and leads her
off. Departing, he says a word of farewell, and from the tone of
his voice Donna Anna recognizes her father's murderer. She tells
her lover how the assassin stole into her room at night, attempted
her dishonor, and slew her father. She demands his punishment at
Don Ottavio's hands, and he, though doubting that a nobleman and
a friend could be guilty of such crimes, yet resolves to find out
the truth and deliver the guilty man to justice.
The Don commands a grand entertainment for Zerlina's wedding party,
for, though temporarily foiled, he has not given up the chase.
Masetto comes with pretty Zerlina holding on to the sleeve of his
coat. The boor is jealous, and Zerlina knows well that he has cause.
She protests, she cajoles; he is no match for her. She confesses to
having been pleased at my lord's flattery, but he had not touched
"even the tips of her fingers." If her fault deserves it, he may
beat her if he wants to, but then let there be peace between them.
The artful minx! Her wheedling is irresistible.
The most insinuating of melodies floating over an obbligato of the
solo violoncello "like a love charm," as Gounod says. Then the
celebration of her victory when she captures one of his hands and
knows that he is yielding.
A new melody, blither, happier, but always the violoncello murmuring
in blissful harmony with the seductive voice and rejoicing in the
cunning witcheries which lull Masetto's suspicions to sleep. Now all
go into Don Giovanni's palace, from which the sounds of dance music
and revelry are floating out. Donna Elvira, Donna Anna, and Don
Ottavio, who come to confront him who has wronged them all, are
specially bidden, as was the custom, because they appeared in masks.
Within gayety is supreme. A royal host, this Don Giovanni! Not only
are there refreshments for all, but he has humored both classes of
guests in the arrangement of the programme of dances. Let there be a
minuet, a country-dance, and an allemande, he had said to Leporello
in that dizzying song of instruction which whirls past our senses
like a mad wind: "Finch' han dal vino." No one so happy as Mozart
when it came to providing the music for these dances. Would you
connoisseurs in music like counterpoint? We shall give it you;--three
dances shall proceed at once and together, despite their warring
duple and triple rhythms.
Louis Viardot, who wrote a little book describing the autograph of
"Don Giovanni," says that Mozart wrote in the score where the three
bands play thus simultaneously the word accordano as a direction
to the stage musicians to imitate the action of tuning their
instruments before falling in with their music. Of this fact the
reprint of the libretto as used at Prague and Vienna contains no
mention, but a foot-note gives other stage directions which indicate
how desirous Mozart was that his ingenious and humorous conceit
should not be overlooked. At the point where the minuet, which was
the dance of people of quality, is played, he remarked, "Don Ottavio
dances the minuet with Donna Anna"; at the contra-dance in 2-4 time,
"Don Giovanni begins to dance a contra-dance with Zerlina"; at the
entrance of the waltz, "Leporello dances a 'Teitsch' with Masetto."
The proper execution of Mozart's elaborate scheme puts the resources
of an opera-house to a pretty severe test, but there is ample reward
in the result. Pity that, as a rule, so little intelligence is shown
by the ballet master in arranging the dances! There is a special
significance in Mozart's direction that the cavalier humor the
peasant girl by stepping a country-dance with her, which is all lost
when he attempts to lead her into the aristocratic minuet, as is
usually done.
At the height of the festivities, Don Giovanni succeeds in leading
Zerlina into an inner room, from which comes a piercing shriek a
moment later. Anticipating trouble, Leporello hastens to his master
to warn him. Don Ottavio and his friends storm the door of the
anteroom, out of which now comes Don Giovanni dragging Leporello
and uttering threats of punishment against him. The trick does not
succeed. Don Ottavio removes his mask and draws his sword; Donna
Anna and Donna Elvira confront the villain. The musicians, servants,
and rustics run away in affright. For a moment Don Giovanni loses
presence of mind, but, his wits and courage returning, he beats down
the sword of Don Ottavio, and, with Leporello, makes good his escape.
Don Giovanni Act 2 Summary
The incidents of the second act move with less rapidity, and, until
the fateful denouement is reached, on a lower plane of interest than
those of the first, which have been narrated. Don Giovanni turns his
attentions to the handsome waiting-maid of Donna Elvira. To get the
mistress out of the way he persuades Leporello to exchange cloaks
and hats with him and station himself before her balcony window,
while he utters words of tenderness and feigned repentance. The lady
listens and descends to the garden, where Leporello receives her
with effusive protestations; but Don Giovanni rudely disturbs them,
and they run away. Then the libertine, in the habit of his valet,
serenades his new charmer. The song, "Deh vieni alla finestra,"
is of melting tenderness and gallantry; words and music float
graciously on the evening air in company with a delightfully piquant
tune picked out on a mandolin. The maid is drawn to the window, and
Don Giovanni is in full expectation of another triumph, when Masetto
confronts him with a rabble of peasants, all armed. They are in
search of the miscreant who had attempted to outrage Zerlina. Don
Giovanni is protected by his disguise. He feigns willingness to help
in the hunt, and rids himself of Masetto's companions by sending
them on a fool's errand to distant parts of the garden. Then he
cunningly possesses himself of Masetto's weapons and belabors him
stoutly with his own cudgel. He makes off, and Zerlina, hearing
Masetto's cries, hurries in to heal his hurts with pretty endearments.
(Air: "Vedrai carino.") Most unaccountably, as it will seem to those
who seek for consistency and reason in all parts of the play, all
of its actors except Don Giovanni find themselves together in a
courtyard (or room, according to the notions of the stage manager).
Leporello is trying to escape from Elvira, who still thinks him Don
Giovanni, and is first confronted by Masetto and Zerlina and then by
Ottavio and Anna. He is still in his master's hat and cloak, and is
taken vigorously to task, but discloses his identity when it becomes
necessary in order to escape a beating. Convinced at last that Don
Giovanni is the murderer of the Commandant, Don Ottavio commends his
love to the care of her friends and goes to denounce the libertine
to the officers of the law.
The last scene is reached. Don Giovanni, seated at his table, eats,
drinks, indulges in badinage with his servant, and listens to the
music of his private band. The musicians play melodies from popular
operas of the period in which Mozart wrote--not Spanish melodies of
the unfixed time in which the veritable Don Juan may have lived.
Mozart feared anachronisms as little as Shakespeare. His Don
Giovanni was contemporary with himself and familiar with the
repertory of the Vienna Opera. The autograph discloses that the
ingenious conceit was wholly Mozart's. It was he who wrote the words
with which Leporello greets the melodies from "Una cosa rara," "I
due Litiganti," and "Le Nozze di Figaro," and when Leporello hailed
the tune "Non piu andrai" from the last opera with words "Questo poi
la conosco pur troppo" ("This we know but too well"), he doubtless
scored a point with his first audience in Prague which the German
translator of the opera never dreamed of. Even the German critics
of to-day seem dense in their unwillingness to credit Mozart with a
purely amiable purpose in quoting the operas of his rivals, Martin
and Sarti. The latter showed himself ungrateful for kindnesses
received at Mozart's hands by publicly denouncing an harmonic
progression in one of the famous six quartets dedicated to Haydn as
a barbarism, but there was no ill-will in the use of the air from
"I due Litiganti" as supper music for the delectation of the Don.
Mozart liked the melody, and had written variations on it for the
pianoforte.
The supper is interrupted by Donna Elvira, who comes to plead on her
knees with Don Giovanni to change his mode of life. He mocks at her
solicitude and invites her to sit with him at table. She leaves the
room in despair, but sends back a piercing shriek from the corridor.
Leporello is sent out to report on the cause of the cry, and returns
trembling as with an ague and mumbling that he has seen a ghost--a
ghost of stone, whose footsteps, "Ta, ta, ta," sounded like a mighty
hammer on the floor. Don Giovanni himself goes to learn the cause of
the disturbance, and Leporello hides under the table. The intrepid
Don opens the door. There is a clap of thunder, and there enters the
ghost of the Commandant in the form of his statue as seen in the
churchyard. The music which has been described in connection with
the overture accompanies the conversation of the spectre and his
amazed host. Don Giovanni's repeated offer of hospitality is
rejected, but in turn he is asked if he will return the visit. He
will. "Your hand as a pledge," says the spectre. All unabashed, the
doomed man places his hand in that of the statue, which closes upon
it like a vise. Then an awful fear shakes the body of Don Giovanni,
and a cry of horror is forced out of his lips. "Repent, while there
is yet time," admonishes the visitor again and again, and still
again. Don Giovanni remains unshaken in his wicked fortitude. At
length he wrests his hand out of the stony grasp and at the moment
hears his doom from the stony lips, "Ah! the time for you is past!"
Darkness enwraps him; the earth trembles; supernatural voices
proclaim his punishment in chorus; a pit opens before him, from
which demons emerge and drag him down to hell.
Here the opera ends for us; but originally, after the catastrophe
the persons of the play, all but the reprobate whom divine justice
has visited, returned to the scene to hear a description of the
awful happenings he had witnessed from the buffoon who had hidden
under the table, to dispose their plans for the future (for Ottavio
and Anna, marriage in a year; for Masetto and Zerlina, a wedding
instanter; for Elvira, a nunnery), and platitudinously to moralize
that, the perfidious wretch having been carried to the realm of
Pluto and Proserpine, naught remained to do save to sing the old
song, "Thus do the wicked find their end, dying as they had lived."
Mozart Facts and Information
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