DON GIOVANNI AS DRAMA: THEN AND NOW
Mozart’s Don Giovanni is such a cultural landmark that it is easy to forget that it emerged from a sea of frenetic compositional activity in a Viennese landscape already crowded with Italian opera, including other versions of the same story.
In 1787, Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, had just enjoyed spectacular success with their comic opera, Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), which had gone down well in Vienna and, particularly, in Prague. The impresario Pasquele Bondini commissioned a follow-up, and it was Da Ponte who happened upon the story of Don Juan or Don Giovanni, the reckless libertine whose career of seduction is cut short by a fatal visit from a stone statue of the man he killed. The story had probably already existed as a legend, but the first written version was published around 1630 by the Spanish playwright (and monk) Tirso de Molina. El burlador de Sevilla inspired a host of other versions, including a play by Moliere, a ballet by Gluck and – in that same year of 1787 – an opera in Venice by the composer Guiseppe Gazzaniga and librettist Giovanni Bertati.
By the late 18th century, the Don Giovanni story was regarded by intellectuals as a vulgar, bawdy farce, and had the opera been intended for the sophisticates of Vienna, Mozart and Da Ponte might have chosen a different tale. But for Prague, they felt, something populist was in order, and Da Ponte set to work on the libretto, following Bertati’s version quite closely (in the days before copyright laws) but changing subtle elements of the plot and contributing his own poetic gifts to the text. Italian opera had until that point broadly been divided into opera seria, involving stately, noble characters and an emphasis on vocal display, and opera buffa, faster-moving comic entertainment.
Opera buffa was the fashion in Vienna and Prague, and the serious elements of Don Giovanni should not distract us from the fact that it was presented as a comedy, a dramma giocoso. However, Mozart and his librettist were also trying to introduce elements of seriousness and social criticism. The different characters in Don Giovanni thus inhabit slightly different worlds, both socially and in terms of the tradition from which they come. At one end of the spectrum, the servant Leporello is clearly a comic creation, while at the other, the haughty, dignified Donna Anna owes much to opera seria. Other characters lie at different points on the spectrum, with Don Giovanni himself perhaps equidistant between comedy and tragedy.
Although Don Giovanni was received rapturously at its Prague premiere, its reception in Vienna was lukewarm, perhaps because it did not fit comfortably into what audiences wanted from a comedy. Even so, it received 15 performances in the city in 1788 and has never left the repertoire. During that time, it has been subject to different interpretations. Da Ponte’s title was Il dissoluto punito, o sia Il Don Giovanni (“The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni”) and its moralistic conclusion, with the other characters expressing satisfaction at Giovanni’s fate, means that, arguably, its spirit remains true to the purpose of Tirso de Molina’s original play.
On the other hand, the character of Giovanni is invested with energy, humour and seductive power, and some have seen his refusal to repent as the act of a Romantic hero who will not bow to the tyranny of social convention. But one can equally argue back the other way that the opera’s subtle social criticism – present from the start in Leporello’s grumblings about his lowly state – suggests that it is Don Giovanni himself who is the abuser of power (although, it must be said, during the course of the opera he is pretty unsuccessful at getting what he wants).
What, then, apart from the splendours of the music, can a modern audience make of Don Giovanni? For all its greatness, it is not necessarily a flawless piece of drama. Even today, the mixing of comic and serious elements can sit a little uneasily. And the supernatural intervention by the Commendatore’s ghost at the opera’s climax means that the other six characters are deprived of any real role in the denouement – something which, in modern terms, might be regarded as unsatisfactory. On the other hand, by mixing up the social and dramatic registers of their dramatis personae, Mozart and Da Ponte managed to bring unusual subtlety into characterisation: Zerlina and Masetto may be basically comic, but they are also touching; Anna, Ottavio and Elvira take themselves very seriously but still become involved in farcical situations, to the extent that although they provoke our empathy, they may also at times seem ridiculous.
And rather like modern, long-form TV dramas (think Mad Men or The Sopranos), Mozart and Da Ponte pay attention to sub-plots: the relationships between Zerlina and Masetto, and Anna and Ottavio are given room to breathe within the context of a bigger story. Rather than expecting a driven, utterly consistent piece of drama, we should perhaps see Don Giovanni more as a subtle, capacious dramatic organism which allows us to laugh, be moved and take in the social and human scenery on the journey towards its inevitable conclusion.
Stephen Cviic (with acknowledgement to Rodney Bolt: Lorenzo Da Ponte: The Adventures of Mozart’s Librettist in the Old and New Worlds).
