Here is an overview of the entire opera.  The numbers in parentheses for Act II refer to the clip numbers on the YouTube performance referenced below – follow this link to see the rest of the opera (The YouTube performance is also the NY Metropolitan opera and James Levine!  We were watching a different Levine performance, and he was supposed to be the conductor of the performance we are seeing tomorrow night!  It is interesting to compare these similarly staged performances.)

Highlights summary of Don Giovanni:

ACT I –

Notte e giorno faticar – Leporello – opening scene, Don Giovanni kills the Commendatore.

Madamina, il catalogo a questo – Leporello tells Elvira she is but one of many conquests.

La ci darem la mano – Don Giovanni – seduces the peasant girl Zerlina

Bati, bati o bel Masetto – Zerlina – Zerlina asks Masetto for forgiveness (and invites him to beat her.)

Finale Act I – Mash up of morality vs. immorality, (as well as “seria” and “buffa”): the masked guests seek revenge, and the Don seeks another conquest.  Both are thwarted.

ACT II –

(12) Deh vieni all finestra – Don Giovanni – trying to woo another conquest (the maid of Elvira.)  Leporello has switched clothes and is pursuing Elvira.  (He can’t bring himself to close the deal!)  Donna Elvira asks Giovanni if he repents, as Leporello, he does (this indicates how Leporello understands real emotions of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, emotions that are beyond Giovanni’s comprehension).

(12) Meta di voi qua vadano – Masetto arrives with townspeople and Giovanni, disguised as Leporello, gives them instructions on how to pursue and punish Giovanni -acnowledging that he deserves to be punished.  He then disarms Masetto and beats him, then he escapes (Leporello has much more difficulty deceiving his pursuers in a future scene.)

(13) Vendrai Carino – Zerlina sings to  Masetto, acknowledging his pain and offering comfort.  Zerlina offers a simple and direct manner of appeasing the physical pain of her beloved (and one assumes his emotional pain at the same time): “toca mi qua”  compare this with the formal manner in which Donna Anna consoles the suffering Don Octavio.

(13) Sola, Sola, in buio loco – Elvira and Leporello.  Leporello can’t close the deal, he is confronted by the “seria” characters.

(14) Pieta Signori Miei – Leporello pleads his case as an honest man.  The “seria” characters are moved by his sincerity, and then he slips out the back while they are not looking.

(14) Il Mio Tesoro in tanto – Don Octavio – he is off to avenge his beloved (among the most florid and “opera seria” pieces musically: lots of flourishes and long sustained notes…) and in an ABA form reminicent of DaCapo aria form. The rigid formality of the music A, B Dacapo and coda, is a musical representation of Octavio’s rigid character and limited humanity.  Thought the coda is rather expansive for the aria that precedes it.

(15) Mi Tradi Quell’Alma Ingrata – Donna Elvira, lamenting that she still has feelings for Giovanni, despite acknowledging that he is a monster. More florid melismatic singing, another example of “seria” technique.

(15/16) “O statua gentilissima – in the cemetary: Leporello – on orders of Giovanni, invites the statue – a combination of comic and serious. (inclusion of magic and the supernatural is a conceit of opera seria.

(16/17) Non mi dir, bell’idol mio – Donna Anna professes her true love for Octavio.  She expresses an honorable and honest love.  Here an example of “seria” emotion is not presented as ironic, or comic or one-dimensional, but Mozart’s music seems to place Anna’s situation in a formal context that still resonates with genuine emotion.

(17/18) Finale  – dinner and death for Giovanni.  Leporello _”I am ready to serve.”  Don G. – “Since I’m paying I want to enjoy myself.”  These words portray a very earth-bound relationship: he who pays the piper calls the tune (quite literally in this scene.)  Leporello comments on his master’s monstrous appetite, and he does not just refer to his desire for food. (They also comment on the music, and when they get to a tune from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Leporello comments “that is a tune I have heard too many times.” Then they adapt the tune to to sing about the food.)

Elvira comes and offers forgiveness, Don Giovanni is unmoved by any emotions.  She asks him again to change his ways, he laughs. “Long live women and wine, they both bring joy to men.”

The penultimate scene with the statue of the Commendatore come to life, is the opera coming full circle.  This scene recalls the same three characters from the opening, but the dynamics have shifted. Each is still holding to the same moral position, but the winner will be different this time.  This music from this final scene is also prominent in the opening overture).  Giovanni is unrepentant, unafraid, unrealistic and ultimately one-dimensional.  He is dragged to his death, and no one mourns.

(Last) Coda – Questo E Il fin Di Chi Fa Mal – “This is what happens to those who do bad things”

Anna and Octavio come in afterwards, they hope to find him in chains for their revenge, but he is gone.  Octavio would like to finally get married and have the relief he seeks, Anna want another year, he says OK.  He is compliant to a fault (literally, that is his greatest fault, he yields too much where Giovanni does not yield at all.)

Elvira is going to go to a convent. Anothe one-dimensional character incapable of the balance required of a happy life.

Zerlina and Masetto will go home together and make a life. (The peasants don’t have worldy resources, but they are happier and more content.)

Leporello  – will go off to the inn to find another and better master.  He seems to have learned his lesson and has maintained his integrity.

The final ensemble states the  morality: Such is the fate of those who do wrong.  It is an especially Christian reckoning: the wicked are punished, if they do not repent.  Forgiveness is available, you must ask and it will be granted.  The balance of the world of Mozart is achieved and re-affirmed.

A few final thoughts:

On balance, Leporello is the most human and fully formed of all the characters.  He is motivated by desire, (dresses as Don Giovanni and pursues Donna Elvira),  loyalty (he keeps returning to the Don) has a strong work ethic (Notte e giorno faticar, in the end he will also seek a new master to serve), is subject to temptation (at the wedding, and with Donna Elvira);, he feels fear (in the cemetary and in the final scene),  he is also repentant “the fault is mine!” (when confronted by Anna, Elvira, Zerlina, Octavio, and Masetto).   Imagine if the noblemen acted with the same moral integrity.  But he is also cunning (when he is confronted by all those he – and Giovanni- have wronged, he tricks them to allow his escape!).

Octavio is motivated by duty and honor, as is Donna Anna (she can’t marry Octavio until she has sufficiently honored her father’s memory by waiting.)  Donna Elvira is also highly motivated by an honor code: having been used and rejected by Giovanni, her only recourse is to go into a convent.  Even the Commendatore lives up to his pledge to avenge the attack on his daughter, coming back from the grave to achieve it.

When we finished class the other day, we concluded with the final scene of Act I, in which Donna Elvira, Donna Anna and Don Ottavio come as masked guests.  Here is how the article you are reading summarizes this scene:

“Don Giovanni hosts a party for the villagers so that he can have an opportunity to seduce Zerlina, but he is again frustrated by the intervention of Donna Elvira, Donna Anna and her betrothed, Don Octavio.”

Not much help, really.

I think we need some additional perspective to understand this, and many of the ensuing details of the opera.

One of the features of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is the fact that he incorporates aspects of the two major operatic styles of the day: Opera Seria and Opera Buffa.  As these terms indicate, operas of the day tended to be either “serious” or “comic.”  Don Giovanni is referred to as a dramma giocosa because it incorporates aspects of both traditions.  What is special about the opera is the manner in which it does this.  Specifically, particular characters in Mozart’s opera are either “seria” or “buffa” characters.  Donna Anna, Don Ottavio and the Commendatore are pretty consistently “seria.”  This is especially true of Don Ottavio, who is almost comic (ironic, don’t you think) in his seriousness.  Leporello is a thoroughly “buffa” character, though he occasionally displays a spark of genuine insight that we would expect from a more serious character (another interesting combination, almost the opposite of Don Ottavio!) .  In this way, Mozart’s opera is actually a more accurate (and in some ways a quite modern) interpretation of human emotions.  Life, and people in general, are rarely so one-dimensional that they are thoroughly “seria” or “buffa.”  Mozart and Da Ponte give us a rather rich view of carnal desire, honor, loyalty, love, morality, etc. as a result. (Remember, this was the Age of the Enlightenment, but Freud and the insights of psychoanalysis was a long way off in the future.

When we were watching the finale of Act I, it was clear (as we discussed in class) that the plot was rather jumbled and unrealistic.  It was, however, a rather brilliant display of the seria and buffa aspects of the opera crashing into one another in a kind of rollicking 18th century “mash-up.”  Don’t be too concerned with the lack of clarity or the unrealistic aspects of the individual characters.  Not only is each something of a caricature, Mozart is also having fun with the traditions of the two opera styles he is combining.

Another aspect to keep in mind, is that the audience of the day was a highly sophisticated group, who were well versed in literature, languages, theatrical traditions and the expectations of those traditions.  Mozart and DaPonte toyed with their emotions by mixing seria and buffa at every turn, though Don Giovanni’s character gets what he deserves in the end, the opera has a good time exploring both good and evil and the consequences of each.

Here is a link to the second Act.  If you start listening here, you just have to keep clicking to hear the remaining scenes.  This is a different production than the one we were watching, so you’ll have to figure out which character is which.  Remember: Don Giovanni, and Donna Anna, Donna Elvira and Don Ottavio are all aristocrats, so their costumes are the fancier ones.  Leporello, Masseto, and Zerlina are lower class characters.

(After this clip concludes, you will see additional clips.  click on clip number 12, then 13, etc. – up to # 18 – for the rest of the opera.  You have to click on clip called  “last” –not the one that will appear with “19” — for the very final scene.  After Don Giovanni gets dragged down to the gates of Hell,  Anna, Elvira and Octavio come back to wrap things up!)

The Picture of Dorian Gray, is my favorite novel of all time.  Oscar Wilde single handedly changed my view of the world.  The novel describes the life of a handsome young man, Dorian Gray, who lives his life selfishly and hedonistically with no regard for conventional morality.  Dorian curses a portrait of himself because it would never portray the burdens of time and offers his soul if the portrait could age instead of him.  Miraculously, his wish comes to fruition and he is able to keep his Adonis-like looks, while his portrait, which is his conscience, wizens both as a result of the passage of time and the heinous behaviors in which Dorian engages.  In essence, Dorian is provided a front row seat to view his conscience.  After committing many unspeakable horrors, Dorian shows no remorse and continues to flourish.  Finally, Dorian can no longer bear to see what his portrait has become and tries to destroy the picture.  I will not tell you what happens, because I highly recommend that everyone read this novel.

This novel is a reminder of the depths that people reach when they shed their moral compass, and that is the reason this novel changed my view of the world.  What is unique about Dorian Gray is that his conscience is physically detached from his body.

I thought of Dorian Gray when we began discussing Don Giovanni.  Don Giovanni and Dorian Gray have similar characteristics.  Both take what they want with no regard for other people or things.  In addition, it appears as if Don Giovanni has no conscience, or at least does not listen to it.  I do not know what happens with Don Giovanni (I want to be surprised when we go see it), but if it is anything like the novel, he will have to wrestle with himself over the awful acts he has committed.  I am excited to see Don Giovanni after comparing the two characters.

Turns out operatic baritones are also at risk. Particularly the Polish, foil-wielding, Mariusz Kwiecien, who missed his opening night performance as the eponymous character, Don Giovanni, due to a herniated disc. Worry not, he will be back in action for the Nov. 7 performance, but look out for these production changes made specially to accommodate Don Giovanni’s back problems:

Dramatic lunges are out. Kwiecien’s physio therapist instructed him to “thrust the sword by using his arm, not by rotating his back; use his legs to move forward; keep his lower torso neutral” Sounds like ballet minus plie.

There will also be more arrogant striding and less running (or chasing women, as it may be). The post-surgery Don will skip most of the dramatic flopping, and cut the symbolic ladder descent.

Lets hope our beloved theatrical opera doesn’t turn into an operating theater.

Information courtesy of NYTimes

As I was leaving class last night, Professor Smaldone made a comment to someone else about Don Giovani and the pervertedness of the 18th century. This prompted me to respond that operas such as Don Giovani could be characterized as the pornography of the 18th century. It seems like Don Giovani is catering to the desires of the public for some clean, visual representation of a sexual theme. People say how the olden days were better, more proper, and wholesome. Sex was much more taboo, cursing was considered improper, women wore more clothing, etc. I think it’s important to keep in mind that even the older generations had a desire for the same stuff that a large part of today’s society desires. Just because they acted less salaciously doesn’t mean they didn’t have the same physical desires that we have. Back then, they had Don Giovani. Now, we have porn.