Don Giovanni (selected arias)

Collaborations between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte produced three of the finest classical operas in existence, including the powerful blend of drama and comedy that is Don Giovanni. Treating the perennial tale of the seducer who finally gets his just desserts, Don Giovanni premiered to rapturous acclaim in Prague in 1787. The opera’s philosophical and supernatural elements have made it significant in the history of aesthetics, while the masterful blend of intense drama with buffa caricatures and ribald subject matter have extended its impact to all levels of culture.
Following the overture, Giovanni’s servant Leporello appears on stage complaining of his station in life: always serving, never tasting. Even now he is merely playing lookout while his master is inside courting Donna Anna. Soon Giovanni and Anna emerge from her house. He is still half disguised, and she refuses to let him go until she can discover who has attempted to seduce her. Enter next her father, the Commendatore, who will die here but return to play a major role at the end of the opera. Run through by Giovanni’s sword, the old man falls. Scene 1 concludes with Anna and her fiancé, Don Ottavio, swearing vengeance on the unknown assailant.
Scene 2 features another of Giovanni’s amorous intrigues. Unfortunately for our “hero,” this time he tries to seduce a woman he had already loved and cast aside. Neither Donna Elvira nor Giovanni recognize each other at first. She begins the scene singing about her rage in “Ah! chi mi dice mai.” Dwelling on her shameful abandonment, the vocal writing is suitably repetitious but also vehement and powerful, including a high B-flat. Elvira provides a strong female role, one that is badly needed as a counterweight to Giovanni’s hyperactive machismo. He flees the scene once recognition dawns, and Leporello is left trying to appease Elvira. Instead, his mollifying words turn into a shocking, catalogue aria regaling his master’s conquests across Europe (“Madamina!”). This buffa aria provides a numbers report that centers on the “mille e tre” (1,003) women in Spain alone that have succumbed to the Don. In the contrasting B section, Leporello shows how well he himself has observed women. This brief touch adds depth to his character, reminding us that Leporello is not just a foolish order-taker.
Scene 3 moves to the countryside where peasants Zerlina and Masetto are celebrating their nuptials. “Giovinette, che fate all’amore” is a vigorous chorus in G major and 6/8 meter—two musical elements with a long history of pastoral associations. Ever the gallant and ever the scoundrel, Giovanni strides onto the scene and offers to host their wedding feast at his estate. Such generosity barely masks his true intentions. In “Ho capito” a livid Masetto gives vent to his jealousy as a sarcastic submission to the master’s will. Eventually, with Masetto temporarily out of the picture, Giovanni draws Zerlina into the famous duet, “Là ci darem la mano.” Note how Mozart begins the vocal melody immediately, without any instrumental prelude; it seems that Giovanni’s lust can brook no further delay. Quickly the pair begin to finish each other’s phrases, and Zerlina’s resistance is quickly fading. The duet culminates with a turn to 6/8 as they share the text “Andiam, mio bene” (Let’s go, my dear). Giovanni’s efforts here come to nought as Elvira, Anna, and Ottavio all catch up with him. Anna then realizes that Giovanni is, indeed, the masked man who slew her father, and she demands a pledge of revenge from Ottavio. Ottavio doubts that such a noble man could be this criminal, but he promises to monitor the situation for her sake. In the first aria sung by a character alone on stage, Ottavio shows the depth of his feeling for Anna in the signature “Dalla sua pace.”
Even after failing to capture Zerlina, Giovanni remains undaunted. In his so-called “champagne aria,” the breathless “Fin ch’han dal vino,” he instructs Leporello to plan the wedding party and invite any pretty girl he sees. As the act winds down, Giovanni again tries to corner Zerlina. Poor Masetto is beginning to doubt her true fidelity, which prompts an outpouring of slavish devotion from his bride (“Batti, batti”). On its surface, “Batti, batti” makes for delightful music, though its message is hardly a redeeming moment in women’s liberation. During the massive ensemble finale, Giovanni is again caught in the act, and once again he offers up Leporello as the sacrificial lamb while himself escaping to woo another day.
Much of the opera’s darker moments are limited to Act 2. In that act we witness how Giovanni’s sexual addiction includes gross condescension and chauvinism. As soon as the game is won, entreaties turn to laughter. For example, he scoffs at Elvira’s renewed affections. This sinister behavior frames the opera’s “Cyrano” moment. The off-stage Giovanni serenades Elvira at her window, while hapless Leporello stands in for his master in the latter’s cloak. As the impostor heads off with Elvira, the true libertine steps from the shadows to serenade her maid with “Deh vieni alla finestra.” Against a simple, mincing accompaniment making use of mandolin, Giovanni sings a paean to love and his maiden of the moment.
For all his obvious misdeeds, it falls to supernatural forces to finally bring Giovanni to justice. The slain Commendatore returns in stone form, his statue come to life and come to drag Giovanni to hell. With the return of the D-minor Overture music, furies claim their victim. Various threads are knotted back together in a final, moralizing sextet: “Such is the horrific end for all who sin so boldly.” Surely no one sins so boldly as Don Giovanni. Surely no one else so consistently subverts societal laws to satisfaction of personal desire. And no one portrayed the rise and fall of this character-type so well as Mozart.

(c) Jason Stell