- Il dissoluto punito, ossia Il Don Giovanni (The Libertine Punished, or Don Giovanni) premiered in Prague in 1787.1
- Don Giovanni is one of three operas Mozart wrote to libretti by Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838). The others are The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan Tutte. All three explore tensions between men and women. Figaro and Don Giovanni also dig into class tensions.2
- The opera is based on the legendary character of Don Juan, the Spanish libertine nobleman. Don Juan’s first literary appearance was in El burlador de Sevilla (The Seducer of Seville, 1630), attr. Tirso de Molina. By Mozart’s time, Don Juan was a well-known, archetypal character in literature and drama.3
- The overture opens with the same music that will later announce the arrival of the statue of the Commendatore, come to drag the Don to hell. This bit of foreshadowing is followed by a lighter D Major Allegro theme. This juxtaposition shows the audience that Don Giovanni is going to be an ambivalent opera, mixing comedy and tragedy.4
- Additionally, the overture has been alternately interpreted as a portrait of the Don, or as a depiction of justice pursuing the Don.
Sources
- Cliff Eisen, and Stanley Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 19, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278233.
- Ibid.
- “Don Juan,” Encyclopædia Brittanica (November 19, 2019), accessed November 26, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Don-Juan-fictional-character.
- Julian Rushton, “Don Giovanni (ii),” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed November 26, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000901351.
Cut IDs
16138, 42422,