Don Giovanni in Prague and Vienna

By Magda Romanska, Ph.D., BLO Dramaturg

"Don Giovanni Playbill, Vienna Premiere, 1788". Public Domain.

Although we don’t know the exact date of Mozart’s arrival in Prague for the production of Don Giovanni, we do know that he was actively involved in shaping the libretto and the staging. His first letter from Prague, dated August 24, 1787, suggests that he had already spent some time in the city, though scholars offer different interpretations of the production timeline. Da Ponte’s account suggests that he had completed the libretto in June of that year. Many legends surround the origins of Don Giovanni, one of which claims that it was based on Mozart’s own numerous affairs with female singers. While rehearsing the opera in Prague, Mozart found that, “the company here is not as skilled as the Viennese in studying such an opera in so short a time.” The accounts of the rehearsals shed light not just on the activities specifically involved in producing Don Giovanni, but on the entire process of opera-making during the era. Luigi Bassi, a 22-year-old Italian singer who starred in the title role as the philandering libertine, complained that he had no big arias to sing, so Mozart, the story goes, wrote five different versions of the duet, “Là ci darem la mano” before the singer was content. Caterina Bondini, who sang the role of Zerlina, was unable to make the famous scream in the first Finale, which prompted Mozart to seize her unexpectedly until she did scream.

The first performance was scheduled for October 1, a gala occasion in honor of Prince Anton of Saxony and the Archduchess Maria Theresa, a sister of Joseph II, who were traveling through Prague while on their honeymoon. But the opera needed more rehearsal time, as Mozart was simultaneously involved in directing The Marriage of Figaro. In his letters home, Mozart blames the postponement on the “lazy singers” who “refuse to rehearse on opera days and the manager, who is anxious and timid, [and who] will not force them . . .” Eventually, the opera was scheduled to open on October 29, with Mozart reportedly completing the overture the night of the first performance (though some scholars argue that it was two nights before the opening).

All of the drama and efforts, however, were well worth it, because the opening night was a great success. A newspaper, Die Oberpostamtszeitung, wrote enthusiastically:

On Monday 29th the Italian opera company in Prague performed the eagerly-awaited opera by Maestro Mozart, Don Giovanni, or The Stone Guest. Connoisseurs and musicians say that nothing like it has ever been heard in Prague. Mr. Mozart himself conducted, and was greeted with repeated cheers as he came into the pit. The opera is, incidentally, extremely difficult, and everyone admired the fine performances after so short a rehearsal period. Theatre and orchestra did everything in their power for Mozart as a token of gratitude. A good deal of money had to be spent on the chorus and the décor, which was provided in excellent style by Mr. Guardasoni. The extraordinarily large audience was an indication of the general approval.

Mozart returned to Vienna by mid-November. During his absence, Salieri had asserted his dominance over the Viennese musical scene, so chances for Don Giovanni to be performed right away were rather slim. Don Giovanni was eventually staged on May 7, 1788, at the Burghtheater, by the order of Joseph II. Da Ponte was paid 100 florins, and Mozart, 225. The success that the opera enjoyed in Prague didn’t materialize immediately in Vienna. The critics remained lukewarm, and the general consensus was that the opera had some kind of fault in it. In response, Mozart made a number of rewrites: a few arias were altered, two were cut, and three newly-composed pieces were added. Still, it took a long time for Vienna to accept Mozart’s masterpiece. The next performance took place in Leipzig on June 15, with the original cast from the Prague production and under the direction of Guardasoni. In 1789, the opera was produced in Mainz. Although opera-goers were still wary of the story (“The music pleased the experts greatly; the action did not,” October 13), they embraced Mozart’s music. Johann Friedrich Schink wrote enthusiastically:

Is this splendid, majestic and vigorous music really the stuff for the ordinary opera-goers, who take their ears to the theatre but leave their hearts at home? What is beautiful, grand and noble in the Don Giovanni score will everywhere be obvious to a minority of chosen people. It is not music to everybody’s taste, tickling the ear and starving the heart—Mozart is no ordinary composer. Every note is felt and transformed into feeling. His expressiveness is glowing, lively and picturesque, without becoming excessive or self-indulgent. His imagination is at the same time both rich and controlled.

Bibliography

• Abert, Hermann. Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” London: Eulenburg Books, 1976.
• Cairns, David. Mozart and His Operas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
• Woodfield, Ian. The Vienna Don Giovanni. Rochester, NY: Boydell, 2010.

The Legend of Don Giovanni (or, Don Giovanni before Don Giovanni)

By Magda Romanska, Ph.D., BLO Dramaturg

"Don Juan (Molière)" by Illustrator: Pierre Brissart (ca. 1645 – 1682)
Engraver: Jean Sauvé (VIAF)
Photographer: Unknown.

The origins of the Don Giovanni legend reach back to the Middle Ages, but the character didn’t become fully fleshed out until the Renaissance, when it first appeared in the 1630 comedy, El Burlador de Sevilla y convidado de pietra, by the monk Tirso de Molina (although modern scholars have contested his authorship of the play). In this first written incarnation, when faced with the vision of Hell, Don Giovanni does eventually ask for a priest in an attempt to repent, though it is too late, and it is difficult to say what his motives are (does he genuinely feel remorseful or is he only pretending?). Modern scholars believe that Molina’s text was modeled on the story of a certain Count Leonzio who was described in a Counter-Reformation document as an unscrupulous disbeliever. In the writings of the theologian Paul Zehentner, we can find a description of a theatrical performance in which, “Leonzio, like Hamlet, apostrophizes a skull and defies him, inviting him mockingly to a banquet to entertain his dinner guest with a debate over whether the mortal bodies of men enclose an immortal soul; unexpectedly, the skeleton appears at the banquet and drags away the scoffer to eternal punishment” (quoted in Pirrotta 12).

The next version of the story, under the title Convitato di pietra, rappresentazione in prosa, by Onofrio Giliberti, was published in 1652, but because it was lost, we know little about it other than that it was written as a piece of commedia dell’arte. Andrea Perrucci’s 1678 treatment of the story is also lost. Commedia dell’arte troupes traveled extensively throughout Europe during that time, enjoying particular success in France. Thus, it is not surprising that from Italy, the story next traveled to France, where it got its first two treatments, both titled Le Festin de Pierre ou le Fils Criminal, and both also in the style of commedia, by Dorimond (1658) and de Villiers (1659). The most important French version of the story from the era is, of course, Molière’s Dom Juan ou le Festin de Pierre, which first opened at the Théâtre du Palais Royal on February 15, 1665. Molière’s Dom Juan is a rational creature, quick-witted and charming but without passion. He not only blasphemes but goes even further, denying the very existence of God, and thus any moral system to live by. At the end of the play, he is confronted by a veiled woman, who makes the final judgment and reveals herself to be an incarnation of Time (with scythe). Scholar David Whitton notes that Molière’s Dom Juan is endowed “with a powerful intellect” which:

... allows him justify his actions in terms of a systematic programme of rational free-thinking. Dom Juan, unlike his real-life counterparts who dabbled in Epicurianism and materialistic skepticism, may simply be using his professed philosophy as a convenient cloak for a selfish way of life.  But by treating the subject at the level of philosophical debate, Molière makes the play into a provocative blend of social satire and metaphysical speculation.

The play was so controversial that it was only performed 15 times in 1665, and it wasn’t published until after Molière’s death, in his Oeuvres in 1682. Thomas Corneille’s 1677 adaptation eliminated the controversial ending, and the original Molière version wasn’t staged in full until 1841 at the Odéon, and in 1847 at the Théâtre Français. Following Molière’s production, Claude de La Rose, who was also known by the name Rosimond, and who acted in the rival company to Molière's,  staged his own version in 1669, titled The New Stone Guest, or The Atheist Struck by Lighting. Rosimond’s comedy focused on Don Juan’s impiety and atheism.

Molière’s version of the libertine’s story became quite influential across Europe. Thomas Shadwell’s The Libertine, first performed in London in 1676, was among many versions based on Molière’s. In Germany, Johannes Velten’s translation, Don Juan oder Don Pedros Totengastmahl, initiated a lasting fascination with the character. Until 1772, Don Juan, or The Stone Guest was regularly performed in Vienna on All Souls’ Day. Numerous versions of the play, often in burlesque style, toured Europe, and many puppet plays were performed at the town markets, with titles like Don Juan, or the Quadruple Murderer, or the Midnight Banquet in the Cemetery. In Spain, a new version appeared in 1725, written by Antonio Zamora, and in Italy, Goldoni wrote his Don Giovanni Tenorio ossia il Dissoluto, which was performed in Venice in 1736. Many of these versions were quite popular, though questionable. Writing about one such travelling Italian production, Voltaire noted that “it was a great success at the improved theatre: no one rebelled against the monstrous collage of buffoonery and religion, of jesting and horror, nor against the eccentricities that formed the subject of this piece.”

Around the same time, the story crossed to the operatic stage. In 1713, Le Tellier’s three-act vaudeville comedy Le Festin de Pierre, en vaudevilles sans prose was performed at the Théâtre de la Foire Saint-Germain in Paris. Despite audience enthusiasm, the show was at first banned because of the representation of Hell in the finale. In Italy, Don Giovanni appeared first in the composer Eustachio Bambini’s 1734 farce opera, La pravità castigata, and in 1746, Colin Restier’s ballet Le grand Festin de Pierre was staged at the Théâtre de la Foire Saint-Laurent. The second ballet, Don Juan, with music by Gluck, was performed at the Vienna Karntnertortheater in 1761. By the 1770s, the Italian theatres were flooded with convitati di pietra, many of which mixed serious and buffo elements. The Italian fascination with the Don Juan character reached its peak in 1787. Writing to one of his friends, Goethe noted that “an opera called Don Juan (not Mozart’s) was played every night for four weeks.”

These early representations of Don Giovanni’s story focused less on his womanizing than on his general display of impiety and disbelief, which inevitably must be punished with eternal damnation to Hell. The later productions, which were influenced by Restoration comedy, presented Don Giovanni’s womanizing in a more ambivalent light. The Restoration saw the boudoir as a place of war: of men against women, and vice versa. Men gained esteem and increased their reputation proportionate to the number of women they seduced, while women gained esteem according to how long they resisted. A woman’s virtue was a fortress to be conquered, and the theme of the fall of the virtuous woman and the progress of the libertine seducer (the rake) dominated most Restoration comedies, in which “the citizens continue to hunt down the gallants’ patrimonies; the gallants continue to hunt down the citizens’ wives” (Bruce 15). Sex and power was a game that only the most skillful could win.

Bibliography

• Abert, Hermann. Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” London: Eulenburg Books, 1976.

• Bruce, Donald James Williams. Topics of Restoration Comedy. New York: St. Martin’s, 1974.

• Keefe, Simon P. Mozart Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

• Pirrotta, Nino. Don Giovanni’s Progress: A Rake Goes to the Opera. Trans. Harry S. Saunders. New York: Marsilio, 1994.

• Whitton, David. Molière’s ‘Don Juan.’ Cambridge UP. 1995.

Who, What, Where, When (a little background on COSI)

Premieres: 

January 26th Burgtheater Vienna

UK:   May 9, 1811 His Majesty’s Theater, London
US:   March 1922 Metropolitan Opera , New York

The premiere (conducted by the composer)  featured the librettist’s (Lorenzo da Ponte - frequent collaborator with  Mozart  - FIGARO and DON GIOVANNI) current mistress (as a cleric forbidden to marry, da Ponte had several), Adriana Ferraresi del Bene (whom da Ponte very ungallantly called “his misfortune”)  as Fiordiligi . The Don Alfonso was Mozart’s first Dr Bartolo and Commendatore, the Despina his first Cherubino and Guglielmo his first Figaro. It was a fair success.

The original libretto was called by Da  Ponte (recalling Moliere or Marivaux) “LA SCUOLA DEGLI AMANTI ( “The School for Lovers”); Mozart gave it its title of COSI FAN TUTTE (the words which had appeared  in the Act 1 trio from FIGARO). Its sources are varied. Legend has it that the plot idea  was given to Da Ponte by the Emperor, Joseph II  who had read of a similarly scandalous  situation in a newspaper article. But the theme of lovers testing fidelity by the use of a disguise and often incorporating a wager of some sort went back to Greek mythology, Ovid’s METAMORPHOSES, Shakespeare (CYMBELINE), Boccaccio and more importantly for Da Ponte Ariosto’s brilliant 1532 epic poem ORLANDO FURIOSO (incidentally the source for many of Handel’s most well-known pieces). Many of the names in the opera come from Ariosto. There is evidence that Da Ponte had first offered his libretto to Salieri who set a little bit of it before deciding that the text was “unworthy of musical invention.”

After its premiere and the revival in Vienna in 1794 and several subsequent  performances in opera houses in Germany, and in Prague and Amsterdam,  COSI seemed to drop out of favor. Beethoven considered it (particularly its libretto) “immoral and trivial” and totally unworthy of Mozart’s genius (He also deeply disapproved of GIOVANNI). It was drastically cut, mutilated, adapted, bowdlerized, changed wholesale- all in the interest of saving the piece from  its shockingly  indecent libretto and to salvage  Mozart’s “divine” music - or as one critic wrote “a mighty endeavor to save Mozart’s inspired score  which dragged behind it Da Ponte’s contemptible libretto like a convict’s iron  ball and chain.” Whole new librettos were introduced  - in Paris a new text  (by the librettists of FAUST ) based on Shakespeare’s LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST was attempted. As late as 1909 in Dresden the music was grafted onto an adaption from a play by Calderon

But from 1897 on a number of major conductors and productions tried to return to what Mozart and da Ponte had actually created. Richard Strauss in Munich, Gustav Mahler in Vienna , Thomas Beecham in London. Perhaps the most influential being the Fritz Busch - Carl Ebert 1934 staging at the newly opened Glyndebourne Festival (which led to the opera’s first recording) and now in many commentator’s or critic’s  view COSI emerged as Mozart’s supreme operatic achievement . The French composer Reynaldo Hahn wrote “I swear to you that GIOVANNI and FIGARO are the work of an amateur compared to COSI.”

 "This is Mozart’s most unreal opera - confined to a small space that might as well be Don Alfonso’s dreaming head. People behave in ways...that defy logic. Yet for the same reason COSI is Mozart’s most realistic opera, [it is also] his most mature, provocative and demanding. It is an astute study of human desires. The dreaming head may as well be a laboratory."

The US premiere of COSI took place at the Metropolitan Opera 132 years after the first performance at the Vienna Burgtheater. The conductor was Artur Bodansky, the design (which featured the novelty (at least at the Met) of a revolving stage was by Joseph Urban. It was a cautious success  - the New York Times called it “a notable event.” The cast was distinguished including Florence Easton as Fiordiligi, Lucrezia Bori as Despina, Giuseppi de Luca as Guglielmo and Adamo Didur as Alfonso. It had eleven performances in the course of the next three seasons. An important and highly successful revival occurred in the 1951-52 season directed by the noted American actor Alfred Lunt and starring Eleanor Steber, Blanche Thebom, Patrice Munsel and Richard Tucker with Fritz Stiedry conducting.  (A fascinating and quite compelling CD  recording remains as a testament to the theatrical vitality of this production) It was sung in an English translation by Ruth and Thomas Martin.

Lorenzo Da Ponte: A Man of Many Words

Lorenzo who? Lorenzo Da Ponte, He was a frequent collaborator of Mozart, he also founded the first Opera house in New York City. 

Lorenzo was born originally a Jewish Emmanuelle Conegliano near Venice in 1749.  He was an Italian poet and librettist well known for his collaboration with Mozart. When his mother died his father remarried to a Catholic woman and the family was required to convert to Catholicism. He entered a seminary, learned some Hebrew, became a professor and ordained minister and also had several affairs. These affairs eventually led to him being banished from Venice and he fled to Vienna.

While in Vienna, he became a distinguished poet and librettist. He was named Poet to the court to the Emperor Joseph II. In 1738, Da Ponte and Motzart met and quickly created three works of art together, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così Fan Tutte. Unfortunately soon after these successful collaborations, Mozart and Joseph II passed away leaving Da Ponte jobless. He relocated to London where he wrote plays, librettos, and ran a bookshop. This time, instead of countless affairs, he was arrested for debt. He fled to the United States to escape trial.

He finally settled in New York City where he taught for years at Columbia University Italian language and literature. While there, he also founded the first Opera house in New York City. His death in 1838 was highly publicized and in a strange turn of events his actual remains whereabouts are still unknown. While there is a stone maker in the cemetery in Queens, there are sources that say he is actually buried in downtown Manhattan. Wherever he is, his contributions to music aren’t forgotten.