Don Giovanni

For the legendary fictional character, see Don Juan. For the opera by Giuseppe Gazzaniga, see Don Giovanni Tenorio. For the album by Lucio Battisti, see Don Giovanni (album).
"Zerlina" redirects here. For the asteroid, see 531 Zerlina.
Don Giovanni
Opera by W. A. Mozart

Portrait of Francisco D'Andrade in the title role by Max Slevogt, 1912
Librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte
Language Italian
Premiere 29 October 1787 (1787-10-29)
Estates Theatre, Prague

Don Giovanni (Italian pronunciation: [dɔn dʒoˈvanni]; K. 527; complete title: Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni, literally The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni) is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It is based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional libertine and seducer. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga (now called the Estates Theatre) on 29 October 1787.[1] Da Ponte's libretto was billed, like many of its time, as dramma giocoso, a term that denotes a mixing of serious and comic action. Mozart entered the work into his catalogue as an opera buffa. Although sometimes classified as comic, it blends comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements.

A staple of the standard operatic repertoire, Don Giovanni is currently tenth on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.[2] It has also proved a fruitful subject for writers and philosophers.

Composition and premiere

Original playbill for the Vienna premiere of Don Giovanni

The opera was commissioned as a result of the overwhelming success of Mozart's trip to Prague in January and February of 1787.[3] The subject matter may have been chosen in consideration of the long history of Don Juan operas in Prague; the genre of eighteenth-century Don Juan opera originated in Prague.[4]

Don Giovanni was originally to have been performed on 14 October 1787 for a visit to Prague of the Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, niece of the Emperor Joseph II, and her new husband, Prince Anthony of Saxony; however, the production could not be prepared in time and Le nozze di Figaro was substituted instead on the order of the emperor himself.[5] The score was completed on 28 or 29 October 1787 after Da Ponte was recalled to Vienna to work on another opera. Reports about the last-minute completion of the overture conflict; some say it was completed the day before the premiere,[6] some on the very day. More likely it was completed the day before, in light of the fact that Mozart recorded the completion of the opera on 28 October.

The score calls for double woodwinds, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones (alto, tenor, bass), timpani, basso continuo for the recitatives, and the usual string section. The composer also specified occasional special musical effects. For the ballroom scene at the end of the first act, Mozart calls for two onstage ensembles to play separate dance music in synchronization with the pit orchestra, each of the three groups playing in its own meter (a 3/4 minuet, a 2/4 contradanse and a fast 3/8 peasant dance), accompanying the dancing of the principal characters. In act 2, Giovanni is seen to play the mandolin, accompanied by pizzicato strings. In the same act, two of the Commendatore's interventions ("Di rider finirai pria dell'aurora" and "Ribaldo, audace, lascia a' morti la pace") are sustained by trombones and bassoons, albeit this moment occurs during a recitativo secco.

The opera was first performed on 29 October 1787 in Prague under its full title of Il Dissoluto Punito ossia il Don Giovanni – Dramma giocoso in due atti (The Rake punished, or Don Giovanni, a dramma giocoso in two acts). The work was rapturously received, as was often true of Mozart's work in Prague, (See Mozart and Prague). The Prager Oberpostamtzeitung reported, "Connoisseurs and musicians say that Prague has never heard the like," and "the opera … is extremely difficult to perform."[7] Provincialnachrichten of Vienna reported, "Herr Mozart conducted in person and was welcomed joyously and jubilantly by the numerous gathering."[8]

Revision for Vienna

Mozart also supervised the Vienna premiere of the work, which took place on 7 May 1788. For this production, he wrote two new arias with corresponding recitatives – Don Ottavio's aria "Dalla sua pace" (K. 540a, composed on April 24 for the tenor Francesco Morella), Elvira's aria "In quali eccessi … Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata" (K. 540c, composed on April 30 for the soprano Caterina Cavalieri)[9] – and the duet between Leporello and Zerlina "Per queste tue manine" (K. 540b, composed on 28 April). He also made some cuts in the Finale in order to make it shorter and more incisive, the most important of which is the section where Anna and Ottavio, Elvira, Zerlina and Masetto, Leporello reveal their plans for the future ("Or che tutti, o mio tesoro"). In order to connect "Ah, certo è l'ombra che l'incontrò" ("It must have been the ghost she met") directly to the moral of the story "Questo è il fin di chi fa mal" ("This is the end which befalls to evildoers"), Mozart composed a different version of "Resti dunque quel birbon fra Proserpina e Pluton!" ("So the wretch can stay down there with Proserpina and Pluto!"). These cuts are very seldom performed in theatres or recordings.[10]

Later performance traditions

The opera's final ensemble was generally omitted until the early 20th century, and does not appear in the Viennese libretto of 1788. Nonetheless, the final ensemble is almost invariably performed in full today.

Modern productions typically include both of Don Ottavio's arias, both the original "Il mio tesoro" and "Dalla sua pace," which replaced it in the Viennese premiere in order to suit the tenor Francesco Morella. Elvira's "In quali eccessi, o Numi ... Mi tradi per l'alma ingrata" is usually retained as well. The duet, "Per queste tue manine" and the whole accompanying scene involving Zerlina and Leporello from the Viennese version is almost never included.

In modern-day productions, Masetto and the Commendatore are typically played by different singers (unless limited by such things as finance or rehearsal time and space), although the same singer played both roles in both the Prague and Vienna premieres, and the final scene's chorus of demons after the Commendatore's exit gives the singer time for a costume change before entering as Masetto for the sextet.[11]

Roles

Role Voice type Prague premiere cast,
29 October 1787[12]
Conductor:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart		 Vienna premiere cast,
7 May 1788[13]
Conductor:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Don Giovanni, a young, extremely licentious nobleman baritone Luigi Bassi Francesco Albertarelli
Leporello, Don Giovanni's servant bass Felice Ponziani Francesco Benucci[14]
Il Commendatore (Don Pedro) bass Giuseppe Lolli Francesco Bussani
Donna Anna, his daughter, betrothed to Don Ottavio soprano Teresa Saporiti Aloysia Weber[15]
Don Ottavio tenor Antonio Baglioni Francesco Morella
Donna Elvira, a lady of Burgos abandoned by Don Giovanni soprano Katherina Micelli Caterina Cavalieri[16]
Masetto, a peasant bass[17] Giuseppe Lolli Francesco Bussani
Zerlina, Masetto's fiancée soprano Caterina Bondini[18] Luisa Mombelli
Chorus: peasants, servants, young ladies, musicians, demons

Instrumentation

The instrumentation is:

Synopsis

Don Giovanni, a young, arrogant, and sexually promiscuous nobleman, abuses and outrages everyone else in the cast until he encounters something he cannot kill, beat up, dodge, or outwit.

Act 1

Overture to Don Giovanni (6:49)
Fulda Symphonic Orchestra
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The overture begins with a thundering D minor cadence, followed by a short misterioso sequence which leads into a light-hearted D major allegro.

Scene 1 – The garden of the Commendatore

Leporello, Don Giovanni's servant, complains of his lot ("Notte e giorno faticar" – "Night and day I slave away"). He is keeping watch while Don Giovanni is in the Commendatore's house attempting to rape or seduce the Commendatore's daughter, Donna Anna. Don Giovanni enters the garden from inside the house, pursued by Donna Anna. Giovanni is masked and Donna Anna insists on knowing his true identity (Trio: "Non sperar, se non m'uccidi, Ch'io ti lasci fuggir mai!" – "Do not hope, unless you kill me, that I shall ever let you run away!"); before he can break free from her grasp she cries for help. The Commendatore appears and forces Giovanni to fight a duel while Donna Anna flees to seek help. Giovanni kills the Commendatore with his sword and escapes with Leporello. Anna, returning with her fiancé, Don Ottavio, is horrified to see her father lying dead in a pool of his own blood. She makes Ottavio swear vengeance against the unknown murderer. (Duet: "Ah, vendicar, se il puoi, giura quel sangue ognor!" – "Ah, swear to avenge that blood if you can!").

Scene 2 – A public square outside Don Giovanni's palace

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo as Don Giovanni, Salzburg Festival 2014

Giovanni and Leporello arrive and hear a woman (Donna Elvira) singing of having been abandoned by her lover, on whom she is seeking revenge ("Ah, chi mi dice mai" – "Ah, who could ever tell me"). Giovanni starts to flirt with her, but it turns out he is the former lover she is seeking. The two recognize each other and she reproaches him bitterly. He shoves Leporello forward, ordering him to tell Elvira the truth, and then hurries away.

Leporello tells Elvira that Don Giovanni is not worth her feelings for him. He is unfaithful to everyone; his conquests include 640 women and girls in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, but in Spain, 1,003 ("Madamina, il catalogo è questo" – "My dear lady, this is the catalogue"). In a frequently cut recitative, Elvira vows vengeance.

Scene 3 – The open country

A marriage procession with Masetto and Zerlina enters. Don Giovanni and Leporello arrive soon after. Giovanni is immediately attracted to Zerlina, and he attempts to remove the jealous Masetto by offering to host a wedding celebration at his castle. On realizing that Giovanni means to remain behind with Zerlina, Masetto becomes angry ("Ho capito! Signor, sì" – "I understand! Yes, my lord!") but is forced to leave. Don Giovanni and Zerlina are soon alone and he immediately begins his seductive arts (Duet: "Là ci darem la mano" – "There we will entwine our hands").

Elvira arrives and thwarts the seduction ("Ah, fuggi il traditor" – "Flee from the traitor!"). She leaves with Zerlina. Ottavio and Anna enter, plotting vengeance on the still unknown murderer of Anna's father. Anna, unaware that she is speaking to her attacker, pleads for Giovanni's help. Giovanni, relieved that he is unrecognised, readily promises it, and asks who has disturbed her peace. Before she can answer, Elvira returns and tells Anna and Ottavio that Giovanni is a false-hearted seducer. Giovanni tries to convince Ottavio and Anna that Elvira is insane (Quartet: "Non ti fidar, o misera" – "Don't trust him, oh sad one"). As Giovanni leaves, Anna suddenly recognizes him as her father's murderer and tells Ottavio the story of his intrusion, claiming that she was deceived at first because she was expecting a night visit from Ottavio himself, but managed to fight Giovanni off after discovering the imposture, leading to the events we have already witnessed (long recitative exchange between Anna and Ottavio, leading to Anna's aria: "Or sai chi l'onore Rapire a me volse" – "Now you know who wanted to rob me of my honour"). Ottavio, not yet convinced (Anna having only recognised Giovanni's voice, not seen his face), resolves to keep an eye on his friend ("Dalla sua pace la mia dipende" – "On her peace my peace depends").

Leporello informs Giovanni that all the guests of the peasant wedding are in Giovanni's house and that he distracted Masetto from his jealousy, but that Zerlina, returning with Elvira, made a scene and spoiled everything. However, Don Giovanni remains cheerful and tells Leporello to organize a party and invite every girl he can find. (Giovanni's "Champagne Aria": "Fin ch'han dal vino calda la testa" – "Till they are tipsy"). They hasten to his palace.

Scene 4 – A garden outside Don Giovanni's palace
"Batti, batti, o bel Masetto"
Sung by Adelina Patti
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Zerlina follows the jealous Masetto and tries to pacify him ("Batti, batti o bel Masetto" – "Beat, O beat me, handsome Masetto"), but just as she manages to persuade him of her innocence, Don Giovanni's voice from offstage startles and frightens her. Masetto hides, resolving to see for himself what Zerlina will do when Giovanni arrives. Zerlina tries to hide from Don Giovanni, but he finds her and attempts to continue the seduction, until he stumbles upon Masetto's hiding place. Confused but quickly recovering, Giovanni reproaches Masetto for leaving Zerlina alone, and returns her temporarily to him. Giovanni then leads both offstage to his ballroom. Three masked guests – the disguised Ottavio, Anna, and Elvira – enter the garden. From a balcony, Leporello invites them to his master's party. They accept the invitation and Leporello leaves the balcony. Alone, Ottavio and Anna pray for protection, Elvira for vengeance (Trio: "Protegga il giusto cielo" – "May the just heavens protect us").

Luigi Bassi in the title role of Don Giovanni in 1787

Scene 5 – Don Giovanni's ballroom

As the merriment, featuring three separate chamber orchestras on stage, proceeds, Leporello distracts Masetto by dancing with him, while Don Giovanni leads Zerlina offstage to a private room. When Zerlina screams for help, Don Giovanni tries to fool the onlookers by dragging Leporello into the room and threatening to kill him for assaulting Zerlina. But Ottavio produces a pistol, and the three guests unmask and declare that they know all. But despite being denounced on all sides, Don Giovanni escapes – for the moment.

Act 2

Scene 1 – Outside Elvira's house

Leporello threatens to leave Giovanni, but his master calms him with a peace offering of money (Duet: "Eh via buffone" – "Go on, fool"). Wanting to seduce Elvira's maid, and believing that she will trust him better if he appears in lower-class clothes, Giovanni persuades Leporello to exchange cloak and hat with him. Elvira comes to her window (Trio: "Ah taci, ingiusto core" – "Ah, be quiet unjust heart"). Seeing an opportunity for a game, Giovanni hides and sends Leporello out in the open wearing Giovanni's cloak and hat. From his hiding place Giovanni sings a promise of repentance, expressing a desire to return to her and threatening to kill himself if she does not take him back, while Leporello poses as Giovanni and tries to keep from laughing. Elvira is convinced and descends to the street. Leporello, continuing to pose as Giovanni, leads her away to keep her occupied while Giovanni serenades her maid with his mandolin. ("Deh vieni alla finestra" – "Ah, come to the window").

Before Giovanni can complete his seduction of the maid, Masetto and his friends arrive, searching for Giovanni with the intent of killing him. Giovanni (still disguised as Leporello) convinces the posse that he also hates Giovanni, and joins the hunt. After cunningly dispersing Masetto's friends (Giovanni aria: "Metà di voi qua vadano" – "Half of you go this way"), Giovanni takes Masetto's weapons away, beats him up, and runs off, laughing. Zerlina arrives and consoles the bruised and battered Masetto ("Vedrai carino" – "You'll see, dear one").

Scene 2 – A dark courtyard

Leporello abandons Elvira. (Sextet: "Sola, sola in buio loco" – "All alone in this dark place"). As he tries to escape, Ottavio arrives with Anna, consoling her in her grief. Just as Leporello is about to slip through the door, which he has difficulty finding, Zerlina and Masetto open it and, seeing him dressed as Giovanni, catch him before he can escape. When Anna and Ottavio notice what is going on, all move to surround Leporello, threatening him with death. Elvira tries to protect the man who she thinks is Giovanni, claiming that he is her husband and begging for pity. The other four are resolved to punish the traitor, but Leporello removes his cloak to reveal his true identity. He begs for mercy and, seeing an opportunity, runs off (Leporello aria: "Ah pietà signori miei" – "Ah, have mercy, my lords"). Given the circumstances, Ottavio is now convinced that Giovanni was the murderer of Donna Anna's father (the deceased Commendatore) and swears vengeance ("Il mio tesoro" – "My treasure" – though in the Vienna version this was cut).[19] Elvira is still furious at Giovanni for betraying her, but she also feels sorry for him. ("Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata" – "That ungrateful wretch betrayed me").[20]

Graveyard scene of act 2 (Prague, probably 1790s), the earliest known set design for the opera

Scene 3 – A graveyard with the statue of the Commendatore.

Leporello tells Don Giovanni of his brush with danger, and Giovanni taunts him, saying that he took advantage of his disguise as Leporello by trying to seduce one of Leporello's girlfriends. But the servant is not amused, suggesting it could have been his wife, and Don Giovanni laughs aloud at his servant's protests. The voice of the statue warns Giovanni that his laughter will not last beyond sunrise. At the command of his master, Leporello reads the inscription upon the statue's base: "Here am I waiting for revenge against the scoundrel who killed me" (Dell'empio che mi trasse al passo estremo qui attendo la vendetta). The servant trembles, but the unabashed Giovanni orders him to invite the statue to dinner, threatening to kill him if he does not. Leporello makes several attempts to invite the statue to dinner but for fear cannot complete the task (Duet: "O, statua gentilissima" – "Oh most noble statue"). It falls upon Don Giovanni himself to complete the invitation, thereby sealing his own doom. Much to his surprise, the statue nods its head and responds affirmatively.

Scene 4 – Donna Anna's room

Ottavio pressures Anna to marry him, but she thinks it inappropriate so soon after her father's death. He accuses her of being cruel, and she assures him that she loves him, and is faithful ("Non mi dir" – "Tell me not").

Don Giovanni confronts the stone guest in a painting by Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard, ca 1830–35 (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg)

Scene 5 – Don Giovanni's chambers

Giovanni revels in the luxury of a great meal, served by Leporello, and musical entertainment during which the orchestra plays then-contemporary late-18th-century operatic music: "O quanto in sì bel giubilo" from Vicente Martín y Soler's Una cosa rara (1786), "Come un agnello" from Giuseppe Sarti's Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode (1782) and finally, "Non più andrai" from Mozart's own The Marriage of Figaro (1786).[21] (Finale "Già la mensa preparata" – "Already the table is prepared"). Elvira appears, saying that she no longer feels resentment for Giovanni, only pity. ("L'ultima prova dell'amor mio" – "The final proof of my love"). Surprised by her lack of hatred, Giovanni asks what it is that she wants, and she begs him to change his life. Giovanni taunts her and then turns away, praising wine and women as the "support and glory of humankind" (sostegno e gloria d'umanità). Hurt and angry, Elvira gives up and leaves. A moment later, her scream is heard from outside the walls of the palace, and she returns only to flee through another door. Giovanni orders Leporello to see what has upset her; upon peering outside, the servant also cries out, and runs back into the room, stammering that the statue has appeared as promised. An ominous knocking sounds at the door. Leporello, paralyzed by fear, cannot answer it, so Giovanni opens it himself, revealing the statue of the Commendatore. With the D minor cadences from the overture now accompanying the bass voice ("Don Giovanni! A cenar teco m'invitasti" – "Don Giovanni! You invited me to dine with you"), the Commendatore offers a last chance to repent, but Giovanni adamantly refuses. The statue disappears and Don Giovanni cries out in pain and terror as he is surrounded by a chorus of demons, who carry him down to Hell. Leporello, watching from under the table, also cries out in fear.

Donna Anna, Don Ottavio, Donna Elvira, Zerlina, and Masetto arrive, searching for the villain. They find instead Leporello hiding under the table, shaken by the supernatural horror he has witnessed. Giovanni is dead. Anna and Ottavio will marry when Anna's year of mourning is over; Elvira will spend the rest of her life in a convent; Zerlina and Masetto will finally go home for dinner; and Leporello will go to the tavern to find a better master.

The concluding ensemble delivers the moral of the opera – "Such is the end of the evildoer: the death of a sinner always reflects his life" ("Questo è il fin di chi fa mal, e de' perfidi la morte alla vita è sempre ugual"). In the past, the final ensemble was sometimes omitted by conductors (such as Gustav Mahler) who claimed that the opera should end when the title character dies. However, this approach has not survived, and today's conductors almost always include the finale in its entirety. The return to D major and the innocent simplicity of the last few bars conclude the opera.

Recordings

A screen adaptation of the opera was made under the title Don Giovanni in 1979 directed by Joseph Losey.[22]

Cultural influence

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote a long essay in his book Enten – Eller in which he argues, writing under the pseudonym of his character "A", that "among all classic works Don Giovanni stands highest."[23] Charles Gounod wrote that Mozart's Don Giovanni is "a work without blemish, of uninterrupted perfection."[24] The finale, in which Don Giovanni refuses to repent, has been a captivating philosophical and artistic topic for many writers including George Bernard Shaw, who in Man and Superman parodied the opera (with explicit mention of the Mozart score for the finale scene between the Commendatore and Don Giovanni). Gustave Flaubert called Don Giovanni, along with Hamlet and the sea, "the three finest things God ever made."[25] E. T. A. Hoffmann also wrote a short story derived from the opera, "Don Juan," in which the narrator meets Donna Anna and describes Don Juan as an aesthetic hero rebelling against God and society.

In some Germanic and other languages, Leporello's "Catalogue Aria" provided the name "Leporello List" for fan-folded printed matter, as used for brochures, photo albums, computer printouts and other continuous stationery.[26]

Don Giovanni and other composers

The sustained popularity of Don Giovanni has resulted in extensive borrowings and arrangements of the original. The most famous and probably the most musically substantial is the operatic fantasy, Réminiscences de Don Juan by Franz Liszt. The minuet from the finale of act 1, transcribed by Moritz Moszkowski, also makes an incongruous appearance in the manuscript of Liszt's Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, and Sigismond Thalberg uses the same minuet, along with "Deh, vieni alla finestra", in his Grand Fantaisie sur la serenade et le Minuet de Don Juan, Op. 42. "Deh, vieni alla finestra" also makes an appearance in the Klavierübung of Ferruccio Busoni, under the title Variations-Studie nach Mozart (Variation study after Mozart). Chopin wrote Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" (the duet between Don Giovanni and Zerlina) for piano and orchestra. Beethoven and Danzi also wrote variations on the same theme. And Beethoven, in his Diabelli Variations, cites Leporello's aria "Notte e giorno faticar" in variation 22.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky always regarded Don Giovanni—and its composer—with awe. In 1855, Mozart's original manuscript had been purchased in London by the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, who was the teacher of Tchaikovsky's one-time unofficial fiancée Désirée Artôt (whom Viardot may have persuaded not to go through with her plan to marry the composer). Viardot kept the manuscript in a shrine in her Paris home, where it was visited by many people. Tchaikovsky visited her when he was in Paris in June 1886,[27] and said that when looking at the manuscript, he was "in the presence of divinity".[28] So it is not surprising that the centenary of the opera in 1887 would inspire him to write something honouring Mozart. Instead of taking any themes from Don Giovanni, however, he took four lesser known works by Mozart and arranged them into his fourth orchestral suite, which he called Mozartiana. The baritone who sang the title role in the centenary performance of Don Giovanni in Prague that year was Mariano Padilla y Ramos, the man Désirée Artôt married instead of Tchaikovsky.[29]

In addition to instrumental works, allusions to Don Giovanni also appear in a number of operas: Nicklausse of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann sings a snatch of Leporello's "Notte e giorno", and Rossini alludes to the Commendatore's music for Selim's entrance in Il turco in Italia.

Jean Françaix's Mozart new-look, Petite fantaisie pour contrebasse et instruments à vent sur la Sérénade de "Don Giovanni" (Mozart new-look: Little fantasy for double bass and wind instruments on the serenade from Don Giovanni), written in 1981, is based on the aria "Deh, vieni alla finestra".

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ The theatre is referred to as the Teatro di Praga in the libretto for the 1787 premiere (Deutsch 1965, 302–303); for the current name of the theatre see "The Estates Theatre" at the Prague National Theatre website.
  2. ↑ "Opera Statistics". Operabase. Retrieved 13 August 2013.
  3. ↑ The background of the production is summarized in Freeman (2013), 104–130.
  4. ↑ The first eighteenth-century Don Juan opera produced in Europe was La pravità castigata (Prague, 1730), and the second one was Il convitato di pietra (Prague, 1776).
  5. ↑ Mozart's letter sent to Gottfried von Jacquin, dated on October 15th
  6. ↑ Esposito, Eric. "Mozart’s Midnight Masterpiece: The Composition of "Don Giovanni’s" Overture". CMUSE. Retrieved 2016-02-11.
  7. ↑ Deutsch 1965, 303
  8. ↑ Deutsch 1965, 304
  9. ↑ OperaGlass at Opera.Stanford.Edu
  10. ↑ Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm, Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, Serie II, Werkgruppe 5, Band 17, Don Giovanni (Kassel, 1968)
  11. ↑ Buch, David Joseph (2008). Magic flutes & enchanted forests: the supernatural in eighteenth-century musical theater. University of Chicago Press. p. 332. ISBN 978-0-226-07811-3.
  12. ↑ Premiere cast from Casaglia (2005)
  13. ↑ Deutsch 1965, 313
  14. ↑ Benucci was the first Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro'.
  15. ↑ Weber, Mozart's sister-in-law, frequently sang in his works.
  16. ↑ Cavalieri was the first Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
  17. ↑ The role is often sung by baritones
  18. ↑ Abert, Spencer, Eisen: W. A. Mozart
  19. ↑ It is at this point in the Vienna production of the opera that Zerlina manages to recapture a protesting Leporello, dragging him by the hair, calling for Masetto. Threatening him with a razor, she ties him to a stool as he attempts to sweet-talk her out of hurting him. (Duet: "Per queste tue manine" – "For these hands of yours"). Zerlina runs to find Masetto and the others, and, once more, Leporello manages to escape just before she returns. This scene, marked by low comedy, is rarely performed.
  20. ↑ This scene was added at the same time as the preceding Zerlina / Leporello duet, but is generally retained and sung directly after "Il mio tesoro".
  21. ↑ Freeman (2013), 222-24, points out that the purpose of excerpting music from other composer's operas is an assertion of superiority – and a highly effective one. The impact of Mozart's music after hearing insipid examples by other composers' work is striking indeed. The dialogue that accompanies this vignette does not appear in the libretto published for the first performance, thus the idea was almost certainly Mozart's, and he must have written the lines of text himself.
  22. ↑ Citron, Marcia J. (2000). Opera on Screen, p. 203. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08158-8
  23. ↑ Kierkegaard, p. 135.
  24. ↑ Gounod, pp. v-vi
  25. ↑ Flaubert, Gustave. The Letters of Gustave Flaubert.
  26. ↑ "leporelloliste". Den Danske Ordbog (in Danish). Retrieved 29 June 2014.
  27. ↑ Alexander Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, p. 460
  28. ↑ Abstract: 19th Century Music, Mark Everist
  29. ↑ Louis Charles Elson (1912). University musical encyclopedia. The University society. p. 467. Retrieved 5 April 2011.

Sources

External links

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