| Left: Illustration (c. 1914) of a scene from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (1787), in which Don Giovanni attempts to seduce Zerlina. Credit: World History Archive. Right Jared Byee (Don Giovanni) and Laura Wilde (Donna Elvira) in Seattle Opera's streaming Don Giovanni. Ken Christensen image |
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-6991451-1431179225-1540.jpeg.jpg "Don Juan Mozart")
Through Tirso's tragedy, Don Juan became an archetypcal character in the West, as familiar as Don Quixote, Hamlet, and Faust. Directed by Kasper Holten. With Christopher Maltman, Mikhail Petrenko, Elizabeth Futral, Maria Bengtsson. The successful artist and playboy Juan is a notorious seducer of women, through his ability to be just what a woman dreams of: Charming, charismatic, strong, sensitive, sexual.
Mozart's infamous character Don Giovanni is based on the legend of Don Juan, one of the most famous stories in European cultural history.| Jared Bybee as Don Giovanni in Seattle Opera's streaming production of Dion Giovanni. Video still, image by Ken Christensen |
Mozart wrote his great opera in a hurry, basing it scene-for-scene on a Don Juan opera which had been written a few years before. But somehow, perhaps in the wake of his overbearing father's recent death, he sympathized profoundly with the central character, and gave us a Don Juan whom we can love and hate at the same time. Also, Mozart's psychologically penetrating music paints the secondary characters with greater depth than any previous dramatist had ever achieved. Only in Mozart do we really come to care about Don Juan's servant Leporello, the anguished Donna Anna and her noble fiancé Don Ottavio, the sassy country girl Zerlina and the obsessive Donna Elvira.
After Mozart, and inspired by his music, Romantic writers like the Germans Hoffmann and Lenau saw Don Juan as a kind of hero, the prototype of what the later German philosopher Nietzsche was to call the übermensch or 'over-man': the man who did not know guilt. Don Juan, to these writers, was continuously in quest of the perfect woman; poor fellow, he could never find her, and had to keep sorting his way through her pale reflections in flawed human women. At the same time (in the early nineteenth century), the great British poet Byron wrote his immense and often hilarious epic poem, Don Juan (pronounced 'Jew-un' in Byron, for purposes of rhyme). Before Byron, Don Juan, a man in his late twenties, always wanted every woman he met but didn't always get them. After Byron, Don Juan is a few years younger, and although he doesn't always want all the women he meets, they want him. (The 1995 film
Don Giovanni Opera Youtube
Don Juan de Marco stars Johnny Depp as Byron's Don Juan. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's 2013 film Don Juan doesn't have much to do with the myth.| Jared Bybee (Don Giovanni) and Kenneth Kellogg (Commendatore) in Seattle Opera's streaming production of Don Giovanni. Ken Christensen photo |
PLOT SO FAR:
Don Giovanni and Leporello have exchanged clothes, so that DG can pursue Donna Elvira's maid. Leporello is to lead Donna Elvira herself away, while DG carries out his seduction.
(Meanwhile, the aggrieved Masetto turns up with a band of other peasants, in search of DG. The actual DG (whom they take to be Leporello, since he is wearing Leporello's clothes) sends the peasants off in futile search, and then beats the daylights out of Masetto.)
Later, Elvira and Leporello (dressed as DG, remember!) encounter Donna Anna and Don Ottavio, and are then confronted by Masetto and Zerlina, all of whom denounce DG, demanding his death. At this point the six characters express their various individual feelings in a sextet (i.e. an ensemble in which six characters sing their own very different words and music simultaneously). Leporello then identifies himself, in order to save his life. Donna Anna leaves, Leporello escapes, and Don Ottavio sings an aria encouraging the others to comfort Anna and swearing vengeance on DG.
The aria that Donna Elvira now sings, 'Mi tradi,' was not part of the opera at its first performance in Prague. It was added for the Vienna performance expressly at the request of the singer of Elvira's part, Caterina Cavallieri, who wanted something with which to show off the qualities of her voice. Mozart composed this for her, which turned out to be one of the great jewels of the opera.
Don Juan Mozart Opera
THE RECITATIVE AND ARIA
Left alone, and having been betrayed yet again, Elvira struggles with the realization that Don Giovanni is going to be punished by heaven (presumably still through the agency of Don Ottavio and the others trying to kill him, as far as she knows). The recitative and aria shows how torn she is by feelings of betrayal and pity, how worry about him intrudes on her desire for vengeance. This is a coloratura aria -- i.e. one with rapid scales and arpeggios in the voice, which in this case convey the intensity of her feelings. The orchestra plays a important part, too: listen for the exquisite short solos by flute, clarinet, and bassoon.
The aria is in the form:
A (tonic major) - B (dominant major) - A - C (tonic minor) - A
The differing keys and mode, and the alternation of the main themes, vividly express Elvira's conflicting emotions, which will culminate in her final appeal to DG in the Banquet Scene, and his dragging down to hell.
Through Tirso's tragedy, Don Juan became an archetypcal character in the West, as familiar as Don Quixote, Hamlet, and Faust. Directed by Kasper Holten. With Christopher Maltman, Mikhail Petrenko, Elizabeth Futral, Maria Bengtsson. The successful artist and playboy Juan is a notorious seducer of women, through his ability to be just what a woman dreams of: Charming, charismatic, strong, sensitive, sexual.
Mozart's infamous character Don Giovanni is based on the legend of Don Juan, one of the most famous stories in European cultural history.| Jared Bybee as Don Giovanni in Seattle Opera's streaming production of Dion Giovanni. Video still, image by Ken Christensen |
Mozart wrote his great opera in a hurry, basing it scene-for-scene on a Don Juan opera which had been written a few years before. But somehow, perhaps in the wake of his overbearing father's recent death, he sympathized profoundly with the central character, and gave us a Don Juan whom we can love and hate at the same time. Also, Mozart's psychologically penetrating music paints the secondary characters with greater depth than any previous dramatist had ever achieved. Only in Mozart do we really come to care about Don Juan's servant Leporello, the anguished Donna Anna and her noble fiancé Don Ottavio, the sassy country girl Zerlina and the obsessive Donna Elvira.
After Mozart, and inspired by his music, Romantic writers like the Germans Hoffmann and Lenau saw Don Juan as a kind of hero, the prototype of what the later German philosopher Nietzsche was to call the übermensch or 'over-man': the man who did not know guilt. Don Juan, to these writers, was continuously in quest of the perfect woman; poor fellow, he could never find her, and had to keep sorting his way through her pale reflections in flawed human women. At the same time (in the early nineteenth century), the great British poet Byron wrote his immense and often hilarious epic poem, Don Juan (pronounced 'Jew-un' in Byron, for purposes of rhyme). Before Byron, Don Juan, a man in his late twenties, always wanted every woman he met but didn't always get them. After Byron, Don Juan is a few years younger, and although he doesn't always want all the women he meets, they want him. (The 1995 film
Don Giovanni Opera Youtube
Don Juan de Marco stars Johnny Depp as Byron's Don Juan. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's 2013 film Don Juan doesn't have much to do with the myth.| Jared Bybee (Don Giovanni) and Kenneth Kellogg (Commendatore) in Seattle Opera's streaming production of Don Giovanni. Ken Christensen photo |
PLOT SO FAR:
Don Giovanni and Leporello have exchanged clothes, so that DG can pursue Donna Elvira's maid. Leporello is to lead Donna Elvira herself away, while DG carries out his seduction.
(Meanwhile, the aggrieved Masetto turns up with a band of other peasants, in search of DG. The actual DG (whom they take to be Leporello, since he is wearing Leporello's clothes) sends the peasants off in futile search, and then beats the daylights out of Masetto.)
Later, Elvira and Leporello (dressed as DG, remember!) encounter Donna Anna and Don Ottavio, and are then confronted by Masetto and Zerlina, all of whom denounce DG, demanding his death. At this point the six characters express their various individual feelings in a sextet (i.e. an ensemble in which six characters sing their own very different words and music simultaneously). Leporello then identifies himself, in order to save his life. Donna Anna leaves, Leporello escapes, and Don Ottavio sings an aria encouraging the others to comfort Anna and swearing vengeance on DG.
The aria that Donna Elvira now sings, 'Mi tradi,' was not part of the opera at its first performance in Prague. It was added for the Vienna performance expressly at the request of the singer of Elvira's part, Caterina Cavallieri, who wanted something with which to show off the qualities of her voice. Mozart composed this for her, which turned out to be one of the great jewels of the opera.
Don Juan Mozart Opera
THE RECITATIVE AND ARIA
Left alone, and having been betrayed yet again, Elvira struggles with the realization that Don Giovanni is going to be punished by heaven (presumably still through the agency of Don Ottavio and the others trying to kill him, as far as she knows). The recitative and aria shows how torn she is by feelings of betrayal and pity, how worry about him intrudes on her desire for vengeance. This is a coloratura aria -- i.e. one with rapid scales and arpeggios in the voice, which in this case convey the intensity of her feelings. The orchestra plays a important part, too: listen for the exquisite short solos by flute, clarinet, and bassoon.
The aria is in the form:
A (tonic major) - B (dominant major) - A - C (tonic minor) - A
The differing keys and mode, and the alternation of the main themes, vividly express Elvira's conflicting emotions, which will culminate in her final appeal to DG in the Banquet Scene, and his dragging down to hell.
| English | Italian |
| Recitativo: 'In quali eccessi...' | |
| Donna Elvira: In qulai eccessi, o Nui, in quai misfatti orribili tremendi è avvolto il sciagurato! Ah no! non puote tardar i'ira del cielo, la giustizia tardar. Sentir già parmi la fatale saetta, che gli piomba sul capo! Aperto veggio il baratro mortal! Misera Elvira! Che contrasto d'affetti, in sen ti nasce! Perchè questi sospiri? E queste ambascie? |
| & Aria: 'Mi tradì quell' alma ingrata' | |
| Mi tradì, quell' alma ingrata, Infelice, o Dio, mi fa. Ma tradita e abbandonata, Provo ancor per lui pietà. Quando sento il mio tormento, Di vendetta il cor favella, Ma se guardo il suo cimento, Palpitando il cor mi va. |
