Magnus Tessing Schneider

The Charmer and the Monument

Mozart’s Don Giovanni in the Light of Its Original Production

Dissertation

Main supervisor: Ansa Lønstrup, University of Aarhus

Co-supervisor: Bent Holm, University of Copenhagen

Department of Aesthetic Studies

University of Aarhus
2008

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2
Til minde om min far
Niels Tessing
1944 – 2008

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 Contents

Acknowledgments 6
Introduction 7

PART ONE 15

A Theatrical Theory of Italian Opera 17

The Aristotelian approach 17
The operatic poetics of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 27
The Italian style of singing 35
Score-oriented approaches to Italian opera 48

Modern Reception of Don Giovanni 57

Reading Don Giovanni backwards 57
Reading Don Giovanni forwards 65

The Making of a Musical Myth 72

The original reception of Don Giovanni in Germany 72
Don Juan and the impossible Stone Guest 79
Da Ponte, Mozart and Il convitato di pietra 86
The original reception of Don Giovanni in Prague 94
Don Giovanni‟s stepfathers I: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 99
Don Giovanni‟s stepfathers II: E. T. A. Hoffmann 101
Don Giovanni‟s stepfathers III: Søren Kierkegaard 110

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PART TWO 121

Approaching the Original Production 123

Mozart and the original cast 123
A singer, a composer and a role 127
Luigi Bassi as a performer 133

Don Giovanni in the Light of Its Original Production 145

Friedrich Heinse 1837 145
Marie Börner-Sandrini 1876 147
Marie Börner-Sandrini 1888 149
Johann Peter Lyser 1833 150
The vocal makeup of Don Giovanni and Leporello 156
Don Giovanni and the three women 173
Johann Peter Lyser 1837 – “Fin ch‟han dal vino” 187
Johann Peter Lyser 1845 I – The duel 193
Johann Peter Lyser 1845 II & III – Don Giovanni‟s supper 198
Johann Peter Lyser 1847 210
A Spanish comedy 214
The ballroom scene 219
Masetto, the Stone Guest and the Furies from hell 226
Johann Peter Lyser 1856 – The Overture 251

The Charmer’s Song 256

Appendices 267
Bibliography 284

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 Acknowledgments
First of all, I must thank my two supervisors, Ansa Lønstrup (University of Aarhus) and
Bent Holm (University of Copenhagen), for their qualified suggestions, „parental‟
guidance and continued confidence in my project. Then I must thank three good friends
who in different ways have been of invaluable assistance: rhetorician and musicologist
Jette Barnholdt Hansen, opera director Christopher Cowell and theatre historian Nicolai
Elver Østenlund: Jette for opening my eyes to the importance of rhetoric and orality to
the Italian tradition, for many passionate, amusing and inspiring discussions on related
topics, and for reading drafts of this dissertation; Chris for introducing me to various
aspects of vocal performance, for teaching me the fundamentals that I know of operatic
showbiz, for solving the mystery of Leporello‟s costume and for correcting my English;
Nicolai for countless inspiring conversations about acting, singing, opera and theatre
history, for his always surprising opinions on art and for designing the cover. I am
grateful to the University of Aarhus for giving me a chance to realize my ideas and to
my colleagues in the Scholars‟ House, including our invaluable secretary Annette
Gregersen, for creating an always pleasant, lively and inspiring atmosphere. I must also
thank the employees of the State Library in Aarhus for providing me with many rare
and obscure German volumes, so that I never had to travel to read my sources, and
Clemens Risi and Cornelia Schmitz (Freie Universität, Berlin) for providing me with a
very important PDF of Johann Peter Lyser‟s Cäcilia. Thanks, finally, to my parents for
love, support and confidence.

Magnus Tessing Schneider

Aarhus, October 2008

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 Introduction
Above all, the title of this dissertation refers to the encounter between Don Giovanni, the
famous seducer of women, and the walking statue of his mortal enemy, the
Commendatore, otherwise known as the „Stone Guest‟: central characters in Lorenzo Da
Ponte‟s and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart‟s comical opera Il dissoluto punito o sia Il Don
Giovanni (The Rake Punished, or Don Juan). This encounter took place for the first time on
29 October 1787 on the stage of Count František Antonín Nostic‟ National Theatre in
Prague – today known as the Theatre of the Estates – and the present dissertation is an
attempt to analyze and interpret the opera in the light of this theatrical event. Both the
libretto and the score will be examined in the process, but I approach these as a theatre
scholar, more specifically as a theatre historian and a dramaturge. Don Giovanni will be
discussed, accordingly, less as a self-contained artwork than as a piece for the stage, and so
I will concentrate on the production as it seems to have been envisioned and mounted by
the poet and the composer in collaboration with Domenico Guardasoni, the director of the
local Italian opera company. The centre of my attention is the title role as conceived for
and performed by Luigi Bassi, the buffo singer who created the part, and in the second half
of my dissertation I shall present new source material related to his performance, primarily
drawn from anecdotes and second-hand descriptions written down in the 19th century. I
use this material, discussed in the context of 18th-century scenic and musical performance
practice, as a basis for my analysis of the opera.
The reading of Don Giovanni presented here is partly intended as a theatrical
complement to musical analyses of the opera in the light of 18th-century musical
conventions, in particular to Wye Jamison Allanbrook‟s classical study from 1983: Rhythmic
Gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. But it is also intended as a
promotion of an alternative approach to and conceptualization of Italian opera in general,
emphasizing theatrical performance as the central focus of the tradition. It is suggested that
Italian operatic culture, from its rise at the turn of the 17th century and down to the end of
verismo in the interwar period, tended to centre on performance as the essence of opera,
whereas German operatic culture, from the turn of the 19th century onwards, has tended to
focus on textually fixed artworks. Consequently, Dennis Libby‟s argument that in 18th-

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century Italy a singer‟s contribution to an aria in performance was regarded “not as post-
compositional but as the final stage in the act of composition itself”, according to which
logic, “it was not the composer‟s score but the performed music that embodied the
finished work of art”,1 should apply to all three and a half centuries of Italian opera, albeit
to different degrees. This means that Italian scores were never meant to be “analysed,
judged, performed or listened to in the same way as a score of composer-centric music.”2
Especially among German and German-schooled singers and conductors, it has,
nevertheless, been the practice, from the turn of the 19th century but especially from the
mid-20th century onwards, to approach Italian scores on premises identical with the ones
on which they would approach a score by, say, Richard Wagner, though this arguably leads
to a distortion of the musical conceptions of the composers. With the „Charmer‟ and the
„Monument‟ I therefore also allude to the ongoing conflict between these two traditions: a
performance-oriented Italian tradition rooted in the culture of the Baroque and a work-
oriented German tradition rooted in the culture of Romanticism. I will refer to these
traditions, or positions, in various ways throughout the dissertation, but one fundamental
claim, which will be discussed in detail in the first chapter, is that the Italian tradition
presupposes what is basically an Aristotelian conception of art, the German tradition
basically a Platonic conception of art. Arguably, musicologists have tended to – and,
despite occasional claims to the contrary, still tend to – study Italian scores without
seriously addressing the issue of performance along the lines suggested by Dennis Libby,
which is equal to projecting a German conception of opera onto the Italian tradition. In
this regard, however, opera studies have simply mirrored the general operatic culture of the
post-war period, in which practitioners and opera-goers, too, have tended to cultivate a
romantic-modernist and hence essentially „German‟ approach to the art form, as will be
argued in my discussion of Maria Callas.
In the historical conflict between the Italian and the German traditions, the turn of
the 19th century is of particular importance, since these were the years when the theoretical
and artistic foundations of the German tradition were first formulated, in direct opposition
to the Italian tradition which had been virtually synonymous with the operatic form till
then. The establishment of the German tradition, mirroring the romantic conception of the
nature and function of art, was a revolution in several respects which were all interrelated:

1 Libby 1989: 16.

2 Ibid: 17.

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it promoted a new idea about the power and potential of music, a renegotiation of the
word-tone relationship, a new mode of listening, a new work-concept and – which is of
crucial importance in this context – a new style of performance.
This revolution was closely related to the development of the romantic subject,
Marshall Brown comparing the „Revolution in Musical Consciousness‟ to that of literary
Romanticism which in the late 18th century began “by isolating or discovering a state of
pure undifferentiated self-consciousness.”3 The contemplative nature of the romantic
aesthetic experience gave music, in particular instrumental music, a privileged status among
the arts, especially due to the writings of the German poet, composer, and music critic E.
T. A. Hoffmann. Hoffmann also formulated a new operatic aesthetic, however, which, as
Carl Dahlhaus has pointed out, anticipated that of Richard Wagner: opera should be reborn
from the spirit of „absolute‟ instrumental music, since the metaphysical substance of music
was most perceptible when it transcended language.4 This necessarily implied a somewhat
ambiguous relationship to the theatrical dimension of opera, both to its visual aspect
(Wagner dreamt of an “invisible theatre”)5 and to its linguistic aspect: “Almost without
understanding a word,” Hoffmann wrote, “the spectator must be able to form an idea of
the action from what he sees happening.”6 In Hoffmann, the action is revealed in the music
rather than in the words, and Dahlhaus points to the direct line from this recognition to
Wagner‟s talk of “sounding silence”, where the orchestral melody “expresses the inmost
essence of the world”.7 It is no coincidence, furthermore, that Hoffmann both fathered
these ideas and, as Lydia Goehr has pointed out, gave currency to the very notion of being
faithful to the musical work, to the romantic idea of Werktreue, which was later adopted by
musical modernism:

The genuine artist lives only for the work, which he understands as the composer
understood it and which he now performs. He does not make his personality count
in any way. All his thoughts and actions are directed towards bringing into being all
the wonderful, enchanting pictures and impressions the composer sealed in his work
with magical power.8

3 Brown 1981: 690.

4 Dahlhaus 1988: 119.
5 Ibid: 117.
6 Quoted in Ibid: 118.
7 Quoted in Ibid: 121.
8 Hoffmann: „Beethovens Instrumentalmusik‟, quoted in Goehr 1994: 1.

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The contrast to the symbiotic relationship between composer and performer in the 18th
century, which Libby describes9 and which continued to characterize the Italian tradition in
an only slightly modified form, is obvious. Hoffmann‟s focus on the creative vision of the
composer is naturally linked to the idea that truth is found in the music rather than in the
words and in the score rather than in the performance, the modern score-oriented
approach following as a logical consequence of this conception.
One work played a key role in the establishment of the German-romantic conception
of opera: Mozart‟s Don Giovanni. As I will show later, Goethe, Hoffmann and others
proclaimed it the supreme romantic opera, or even artwork, and both the concept of
operatic Werktreue and the notion of an „interior action‟ where musical meaning transcends
verbal meaning, which features were closely related to the emergence of a new operatic
performance ideal, were inspired directly by this opera.
I shall argue, however, that this operatic conception was fundamentally alien both to
the way Da Ponte and Mozart seem to have conceived of Don Giovanni and to the way it
was originally produced and performed. The opera was firmly situated within the
performance-centred Italian tradition, characterized by a close collaboration between
composer and singers and a conception of song as heightened theatrical declamation,
musical meaning being entirely dependent on verbal meaning. Following the lead of E. T.
A. Hoffmann‟s and Søren Kierkegaard‟s influential readings of the opera in the first half of
the 19th century, opera scholars have projected meanings onto the score which are
demonstrably at variance with the way the opera was originally performed, and the
theoretical premises of which are, arguably, irreconcilable with Mozart‟s classicist poetics.
It appears, furthermore, to have been a basic misunderstanding of the opera‟s
dramaturgy that prompted the romanticists to base their new conception of opera on Don
Giovanni. By all appearances, Da Ponte and Mozart envisioned the opera as an enlightened,
„serious‟ parody of Il convitato di pietra (The Stone Guest), a farcical plot traditionally
associated with commedia dell’arte shows, pantomimes and puppet theatre. While respecting
the comical genre of their model, they transferred the action to a contemporary realistic
setting, presented the seducer as a frivolous but fundamentally harmless character and
thereby exposed his infernal punishment by the walking statue as potentially out of
proportion with his offences. The romanticists, however, failing to recognize the parodic
point, assumed that Don Giovanni‟s punishment was somehow in accordance with his

9 Libby 1989: 16.

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crimes and, since his horrible death is barely motivated by the action as presented in the
text, began to search for its motivation in Mozart‟s music, in the „interior action‟, as it were.
Although opinions about what the music actually has to say on the subject have always
differed radically, virtually every interpretation of the opera from the early 19th century till
the present day has followed this chain of inferences.
The very idea that operatic music can convey a dramatic action untold by, or even at
variance with the words, which still remains central to most musicological approaches to
opera, was originally formulated in relation to this essentially romantic reading of Don
Giovanni, and scholars‟ continued support not only of this interpretation of the opera but
also of its inevitable corollary – the search for meaning in the music rather than in the
words – thus testifies to the pervasiveness of modes of thought rooted in the 19th century.
The matter has been complicated by the fact that conductors and singers, similarly
influenced by the musical practices of German Romanticism, traditionally have performed
the opera in a manner designed to make it fit the conventional readings. This has not only
led to an overt disregard of Mozart‟s tempo markings (of which the Overture, “Fin ch‟han
dal vino” and the music of the Stone Guest in the Act Two Finale are the most striking
examples), but to a style of vocal interpretation fundamentally different from the Italian
style practised by the performers for whom Mozart wrote.
In short, Don Giovanni‟s reception and performance history demonstrates the close
interdependence of dramaturgical analysis, work-concept, word-tone relationship, listening
mode and performance practice in opera, and an attempt to analyze the opera in the
context of the Italian operatic practices of the 18th century therefore demands that all these
issues are addressed simultaneously, which is the methodological aim of the present
investigation.
The dissertation is divided into two parts: Part One sets the theoretical and historical
scene for the analysis of the original production itself, which is located in Part Two. The
first part is divided into three sections, the first of which, „A Theatrical Theory of Italian
Opera‟, situates the general operatic poetics and practices of Da Ponte and Mozart within
the context of the Italian tradition. The characteristic Italian view of the word-tone
relationship, in which song functions as the extension of speech, is contrasted to the
German view, according to which music is the beginning and end of language, and on the
basis of theoretical statements found in Da Ponte‟s autobiographical writings and in
Mozart‟s letters it is argued that they both adhered to the Italian conception. It is argued,

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furthermore, that different word-tone relationships give rise to different performance
practices, listening modes and work-concepts, and that the Italian tradition always
presupposed a declamatory ideal of singing, a more active, „theatrical‟ mode of listening and
a performance-oriented work-concept, the Wagnerian-modernist tradition an instrumental
ideal of singing, a more contemplative mode of listening and a score-oriented work-
concept. Since the latter tradition has ruled supreme in the operatic culture of the post-war
period, we know Italian operas, including Mozart‟s, primarily from performances whose
artistic premises are fundamentally alien to those of the Italian and Italianate composers
and performers of the past. It is argued, accordingly, that the score-oriented musicological
approach to Italian opera (as exemplified by Joseph Kerman, Carl Dahlhaus, Wye Jamison
Allanbrook, John Platoff, Carolyn Abbate and James Webster), since it presupposes a
word-tone relationship and hence a performance practice and a work-concept rooted in
German Romanticism, tends to subject Italian scores to a Wagnerian-modernist conception
of opera.
In the section „Modern Reception of Don Giovanni‟ it is argued that critics have
tended to favour either a tradition of psychological or a tradition of metaphysical-
subjectivist interpretations, the former originally launched by E. T. A. Hoffmann, the latter
by Søren Kierkegaard. Both traditions, however, presuppose a „backward reading‟ of the
opera, in which interpreters look for the motivation for Don Giovanni‟s fate in the music,
projecting a romantic conception of opera onto Mozart‟s opera in the process. As a
contrast, the literary scholar Felicity Baker has, in her 2005 essay „The figures of hell in the
Don Giovanni libretto‟, argued that the discrepancy between the conduct and punishment of
the title hero was intentional on the poet‟s part. Baker only discusses the libretto, but her
interpretation arguably renders the search for hidden motivations in the music dramatically
superfluous, which paves the way for a reading of the score according to the premises of
the Italian tradition.
The section „The Making of a Musical Myth‟ traces Don Giovanni‟s early history of
reception, attempting to explain how and why the opera was detached from its original
Italian context and reinterpreted according to German-romantic premises. Proceeding
from an overview of the opera‟s initial reception in Germany, it is argued that the
reviewers, because they only knew Mozart‟s opera from farcical singspiel adaptations in
which the parodic points of the original were eliminated, perceived Da Ponte‟s libretto as a
conventional version of Il convitato di pietra, the well-known Italian play about Don Juan,

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and not as a critical treatment. From a discussion of the historical sources, however, it is
argued that Da Ponte and Mozart intended Don Giovanni neither as a farce nor as a tragedy,
but as a „serious‟ comedy, and that the opera was received as such by the original audience
in Prague. It was the German reception of the singspiel versions, however, which
determined the later reception of the opera, especially through the agency of Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Søren Kierkegaard who knew the opera
primarily from such adaptations. These three, Don Giovanni‟s „stepfathers‟, who were also
important figures in the general establishment of romantic aesthetics, formulated the
romantic interpretations of the opera which determined its later reception.
The second part of the dissertation presents an attempt to analyze and interpret Don
Giovanni in the light of its original production. In the section „Approaching the Original
Production‟ it is argued that Mozart modelled his opera on the singers to a higher degree
than was acknowledged by romanticists and modernists, and that the role of Don Giovanni
was designed specifically for its creator, Luigi Bassi. Through contemporary reviews and
descriptions I try to reconstruct him as a performer, his appearance and acting style,
arguing that he was a comedian in the Italian-classicist tradition.
In the analysis proper, „Don Giovanni in the Light of Its Original Production‟, I
discuss and compare each of the known sources to the original production, attempting to
assemble the jigsaw in the light of 18th-century scenic and musical performance practice. As
the pieces are presented, individual numbers, scenes and features of the production will be
analyzed: the vocal makeup of Don Giovanni and Leporello, the seducer‟s behaviour
towards the three women, the Spanish setting, the doubling of Masetto and the
Commendatore, as well as the performance of “Fin ch‟han dal vino”, the Introduction, the
two Finales and the Overture are discussed and used as the starting point of a
dramaturgical analysis. The overall picture of the production, it is argued, adheres entirely
to the Italian conception of opera and is fundamentally incompatible not only with the
traditional interpretations of the opera, but also with romantic and modernist conceptions
of opera in general.

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PART ONE

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 A Theatrical Theory of Italian Opera
The Aristotelian approach
Reduced to their bare bones, Aristotelian poetics are focussed entirely on how art achieves
maximum effect with a given audience, whereas art according to the Platonic conception
should try to be as faithful as possible to an underlying truth, whether metaphysical,
philosophical, moral, social or psychological. Of course, most artists want to affect their
recipients in one way or another, just as most artworks will include a statement of some
sort, but the emphases and basic conceptions are different within the two traditions.
In the opinion of Aristotle and his followers, art is meant above all to afford the
audience pleasure by means of beauty, humour, emotional involvement in addition to or
apart from intellectual stimulation. Art should be entertaining whether it wants us to
marvel, laugh, weep or reflect, but in order to entertain, a poetic illusion has to convince,
and therefore it should be verisimilar: through the persuasive imitation of reality it should
present us with (and, it is implied, can present us with nothing more than) the semblance of
truth. Aristotle, furthermore, pointed to the union of civilizing and pleasurable effects
inherent in the imitation of reality when he emphasized in Poetics that the instinct of
imitation is implanted in man from childhood, “one difference between him and other
animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns
his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated.”10 Whether
the purpose of art is to cultivate the recipients or simply to amuse them, there is always an
avowed communicational purpose in the Aristotelian approach, which explains its close
affinity to rhetoric. We should be persuaded by the artistic event, as were the wild beasts
when Orpheus sang to the lyre, but art is not where we should search for truth, which is
basically the domain of religion or science.
Plato, however, tended to evaluate art less by its ability to move the recipients than
by its truthfulness (actually by its affinity to the world of eternal Forms). This invariably
made imitation, effect and entertainment suspect aims for art and furthered a clear-cut
distinction between more or less truthful art (or, in the terms of Plato‟s modernist heirs,
between „art‟ and „kitsch‟) in place of the Aristotelian distinction between more or less well-

10 Aristotle 1902: Ch. IV.

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made, or more or less effective, art. Whereas Aristotelian poetics focus on the how, on the
relation between art and its recipients, the Platonic philosophy of art focuses on the what,
on the relation between art and truth, or between form and content. Plato‟s model artist, as
evoked in his dialogue Phaedrus, is not the skilled craftsman of Aristotle, but the visionary
who beholds truth and can convey it to his audience. At different times, this has tended to
dissolve the distinction between the artist on the one hand and the prophet, the critic, the
scientist or the historian on the other.
Throughout the three and half centuries of Italian opera, the tradition was based on
Aristotelian premises, while the German tradition, which exerted enormous influence on
the operatic culture of the 20th century, was based on Platonic premises. In this light, it is
no coincidence that the art form of opera was invented in Italy around the turn of the 17 th
century, since this was the exact historical moment when a Neo-Platonic conception of art,
which had dominated in the 15th and 16th centuries, was rejected by poets and composers in
favour of a Neo-Aristotelian conception of art. The 17th and 18th centuries, when Aristotle
dominated European art theory, arguably embodied the Golden Age of Italian opera,
Italian poets, composers, singers and designers being employed all over Europe, while
Italian opera was met with increasing hostility in Northern Europe from the late 18 th and
throughout the 19th century, when the Romantic Movement, which flourished in Germany
in this period, revived the Platonic insistence on truthfulness in art. The German
romanticists found mostly pandering, artifice and surface glitter in the Italian operas, which
retained their Aristotelian foundations in an only slightly modified form even into the 20th
century. The polemic clashes between the two operatic cultures in fact cloaked the ancient
antagonism between Aristotelians and Platonists. The death of the Italian tradition in the
interwar period, along with the end of the verismo, coincided with the advent of modernism,
which is Platonic at heart and finally came to the front in Italian art at this time.
As I will try to show in the following, a distinction between Aristotelianism and
Platonism, which I regard as the fundamental difference between the Italian and the
German operatic cultures, has wide-ranging practical as well as theoretical consequences
for how we regard opera. The difference in artistic aims has naturally led to a difference in
artistic methods and thereby to a difference in scenic and musical performance practices,
which in turn implies different conceptions of the nature and function of language and
music. This has given the score quite a different ontological status in the two cultures.

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 First of all, distinguishing between effect and truth as the artistic aim involves the
distinction between two different approaches to the word-tone relationship, and here it
may be useful to compare the views of the fathers of the Italian tradition, who in the early
17th century formulated the practical principles on which, as will appear from the following
discussion, Italian opera rested for the next three centuries, with those of Richard Wagner,
who more than any other composer embodies the German-Platonic tradition. Thus, Giulio
Caccini claimed in the preface to his opera L’Euridice from 1600 never to have used in his
works “any other art than the imitation of the sentiments of the words”, 11 while Jacopo
Peri in the 1601 preface to his opera of the same title insisted that the composer of
recitative “should imitate with song him who speaks”.12 Similarly, Marco Da Gagliano, in
the preface to his opera La Dafne from 1608, told his singers “to chisel out the syllables so
as to make the words well understood, and this is always the chief aim of the singer in
every occasion of song, especially in reciting, and be persuaded that true delight arises from
the understanding of the words.”13
That Wagner‟s view of the word-tone relationship differed significantly from that of
the old Italians is demonstrated most clearly in his vast treatise Oper und Drama from 1852.

The language of tones is the beginning and the end of the language of words, just as
feeling is the beginning and the end of the intellect, myth the beginning and the end of
history, lyric poetry the beginning and the end of literature. […] The original form of
utterance of inner man […] is the language of tones, which is the most immediate
expression of interior feelings stimulated from the outside. […] I do not think of the
birth of language from melody as a chronological progression, but as an architectonic
order.14

To Caccini, Peri and Da Gagliano, song was to be regarded as the extension of speech; to
Wagner, music is the beginning and end of language. In short, the music seems to precede the
words in the German but not in the Italian tradition, though there is a most crucial
difference between “speech” and “language” and between “song” and “music”, to which I
shall return below. The different solutions are mainly due to the fact that the questions are
put differently: the Italians were interested in rhetoric, in effect, and since they found that the

11 Caccini 1994: 41.

12 Peri 1994: 25.
13 Gagliano 1994: 49. Combining the approaches of the musicologist and the rhetorician, Jette Barnholdt

Hansen has expounded that the Italian conception of song as the affective extension of speech provided a
cultural basis for the invention of opera (Cf. Jette Barnholdt Hansen: Den klingende tale. Studier i de første
hofoperaers solosang på baggrund af senrenæssancens retorik (Museum Tusculanum, Copenhagen, in print).
14 Wagner 2000: 230-2.

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audience was affected more deeply by words whose sentiments were emphasized by the
musical setting than by music in which the words were of secondary importance, the music
must be an extension of the words. Wagner, on the other hand, was interested in ontology,
in truth, and since music (the medium of the emotions) was considered more primordial, or
„essential‟, than language (the medium of thought) the words must be an extension of the
music. This view, which Wagner seems to have shared with Hoffmann, was linked to the
romantic notion of the „language of tones‟ as transcending the „language of words‟.
That the conflict between these two viewpoints was central to the Mozart reception
in the early 19th century is aptly demonstrated by two quotations, both of which refer to
Don Giovanni. The first quotation is from the 1819 Extract from the Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte by
the poet who had written the libretti for Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte
and who was reacting against the romantic view of the tone-word relationship, more
specifically against a review of the first London production of Don Giovanni in the Edinburgh
Magazine, which had failed to mention his name and described the text as a mere “vehicle
to the notes”:15

[…] Mozart knew very well that the success of an opera depends, FIRST OF ALL, ON
THE POET: that without a good poem an entertainment cannot be perfectly dramatic, just as
a picture cannot be good without possessing the merit of invention, design, and a
just proportion of the parts: that a composer, who is, in regard to a drama, what a
painter is in regard to the colours, can never do that with effect, unless excited and
animated by the words of a poet, whose province is to choose a subject susceptible
of variety, incident, movement, and action; to prepare, to suspend, to bring about the
catastrophe; to exhibit characters interesting, comic, well supported, and calculated
for stage effect; to write his recitative short, but substantial, his airs various, new, and
well situated; in fine, his verses easy, harmonious, and almost singing of themselves,
without all which requisites, the notes of the most sublime and scientific composer
will not be felt by the heart, the passions remaining tranquil, and unmoved, their
effect will be transient, and the best of his airs, after a short time, will be heard with
no more attention or pleasure, than a trio or a sonata.16

The following quotation is from the supplement of Georg Nikolaus Nissen‟s biography of
Mozart from 1828 (the first major biography of the composer), presumably written by the
Dresden physician Johann Heinrich Feuerstein:17

15 Da Ponte 1999: 56. The first London performance of Don Giovanni took place at the King‟s Theatre,
Haymarket on 12 April 1817. Rachel Cowgill argues that this production was a turning point in the
introduction of Romantic Werktreue into British operatic culture, possibly influenced by the writings of
Hoffmann (Cowgill 2006: 165-6).
16 Da Ponte 1999: 58-60.
17 Rudolph Angermüller & William Stafford: „Georg Nikolaus Nissen‟ IN The New Grove.

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 Is the poem more to an opera, then, than the grounded canvas to a painting? Well,
„tis true that one cannot paint much without ground, but a deft paint-coater can
always do the grounding adequately. Such poetic-musical paint-coaters can be found
in every corner nowadays; if only the poetically painting musicians could be found
too! […]
When Mozart composed operas, he became our poet!18

Both writers illustrate their points by comparing opera to painting, but whereas Da Ponte
considers the poetry the equivalent of “invention, design, and a just proportion of the
parts”, to Feuerstein it is merely the “grounded canvas”. According to Da Ponte, the music
is the colouring of the painting and can have no real effect without the lines of the poetry;
according to Feuerstein, Mozart‟s music is itself poetry and creates figures that are purely
musical.
Da Ponte‟s views on the word-tone relationship have received little attention from
musicologists, and it is indeed easy to discard his pleading for the primacy of words as mere
self-promotion, but the fact that he was Mozart‟s closest collaborator should at least
demand our attention. Among his statements which directly contradict Feuerstein‟s
viewpoint is the claim that the words did not mean less to Mozart than to his Italian
contemporaries, but that they in fact meant more. He admits “that the words and
expressions of a comic Italian drama, destitute in general of interest, and of poetical merit,
had been deemed of no more importance to the piece, than the frame of a capital picture
to the painting itself”, but asks rhetorically whether this was the case with “my Don
Giovanni”.19 He claims that Mozart, “either because he considered me till the last moment
of his life, the promoter of his musical glory, or because he was so well pleased with the
words and success of “Le nozze di Figaro”, to try another vehicle to his notes, would never have
set to music the verses of another poet, when he could have had those of Da Ponte”,20
adducing as evidence for Mozart‟s satisfaction with his verses that “after the first and
second of my dramas, he was happy to have the third”.21
But why was Mozart so happy with Da Ponte‟s poetry, as we have little reason to
doubt that he was? According to the poet himself, the success of Mozart‟s music for Don
Giovanni was due to its being “well adapted to the sense of my words, in which qualification

18 Nissen 1828 (supplement): 97-8.

19 Da Ponte 1999: 54.
20 Ibid: 60-2.
21 Ibid: 84.

21
consists the greatest merit of a composer”,22 but behind this seemingly presumptuous claim
rests the fact that Da Ponte designed his verses to suit Mozart‟s musical conception. An
impression of how he did this is given in the comical poem „The State of the Theatre Poet‟,
which Da Ponte wrote in the spring of 1786 during the work on Le nozze di Figaro. Though
there is no direct reference to Mozart in the poem, which is a satirical enumeration of the
qualifications demanded from a librettist, the date of its genesis and the well-known
descriptions in Mozart‟s letters to his father of how he had previously worked with
librettists (see below) leave hardly any doubt that this description reflects his and Da
Ponte‟s collaboration:

Contenta in prima conviene Firstly, it requires satisfying

Il maestro di cappella,
A cui sempre in capo viene
Una, od altra bagatella:
Qui cangiar vuol metro o rima,
E porre A dove U v‟è prima,
Là d‟un verso gli fa d‟uopo,
Quel ch‟è innanzi or vorria dopo;
Peggio poi, se a svegliar l‟estro
De lo stitico maestro
Tu dei metter, come s‟usa,
Specialmente ne la chiusa,
Or il canto degli angelli,
Or il corseo de‟ ruscelli,
Or il batter de‟ martelli
E il dindin de‟ campanelli
E la rota, e il tamburino,
E la macina, e il mulino,
E la rana, e la cicala,
E il pian pian, e il cresci, e cala.
the maestro di cappella,
into whose head there always comes
one trifle or another:
here changing the meter or rhyme,
and putting A where U stood before,
there he wants the verse reversed,
what was before he wants afterwards;
worse still, to awaken the inspiration
of the grudging maestro
you have to put, according to custom,
especially in the end,
now the song of the angels,
now the coursing of brooks,
now the beating of hammers,
and the dingdong of bells,
and the wheel, and the drum,
and the millstone, and the mill,
and the frog, and the cicada,
and the soft, and the swelling, and fall.23

Not only are we told that the composer was very sensitive to metre, rhymes and the placing
of vowels, but in the evocative closing description, which mimes the lyrics of a buffo aria,
we see how Da Ponte conceived his poetry as verbal music. The poem aptly demonstrates –
as do Da Ponte‟s librettos for Mozart – his sensitivity to declamatory subtleties, which
must have been among his chief assets from Mozart‟s point of view, and which recalls his
intention to write his verses “almost singing of themselves”.
The close relationship between speech and song, words and tones, affective and
intellectual meaning, which formed the basis of the Italian operatic tradition, was linked to

22 Ibid: 74.
23 The translation is a modification of the one by Daniel Heartz (Heartz 1990: 100).

22
an emphasis on the oral nature of poetry particularly characteristic of Italy‟s literary
tradition, which until the 19th century was almost exclusively in verse. Verse literature was
never meant for solitary enjoyment, like the novel, but was meant to be recited or sung to an
audience, and this shows how closely Italian literature was linked to the art of recitation,
indeed to performance. From the Renaissance onwards, the epic poems of Dante, Ariosto
and Tasso were performed by professional or non-professional cantastorie (reciting singers),
usually to the accompaniment of a lute or another stringed instrument, which practice not
only fathered the strophic arias of the first operas, but was closely linked to the practice of
recitar cantando (sung recitation) and thereby served as a cultural background for the operatic
recitative.24
The oral and musical approach to poetry is also reflected in the practice of verse
improvisation which Tobias Smollett describes in his Travels through France and Italy from
1766:

One of the greatest curiosities you meet in Italy is the Improvisatore; such is the name
given to certain individuals, who have the surprising talent of reciting verses
extempore, on any subject you propose. Mr Corvesi, my landlord, has a son, a
Franciscan friar, who is a great genius in this way. When the subject is given, his
brother tunes his violin to accompany him, and he begins to rehearse in recitative,
with wonderful fluency and precision. Thus he will, at a minute‟s warning, recite two
or three hundred verses, well turned, and well adapted, and generally mingled with an
elegant compliment to the company. The Italians are so fond of poetry, that many of
them have the best part of Ariosto, Tasso, and Petrarch, by heart; and these are the
great sources from which the Improvisatori draw their rhymes, cadence, and turns of
expression.25

The improvisation of sung verse reflected a poetic culture that stressed performance and
the oral and „musical‟ qualities of literature. To the Italians, poetry was itself music and
music the enhancement of sonorous, sensuous and affective qualities already present in the
words. Lorenzo Da Ponte lived in a world when this oral, non-dualistic conception of
language was taken for granted: in his Memorie he explains how “Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto
and Tasso were my first masters”, how he, in less than six months, “had learnt by heart
nearly all the Inferno, all the best of Petrarch‟s sonnets and not a few of his canzoni, and the
finest passages of Ariosto and Tasso”,26 and how he, when his teacher “laboured to explain
Euclid or some abstruse treatise of Galileo or Newton”, was “stealthily reading Tasso‟s

24 Cf. Barnholdt Hansen 2003.

25 Quoted in Hodges 1985: 26.
26 Da Ponte 1929: 25.

23
Aminta or Guarini‟s Pastor Fido which I knew almost by heart.”27 As implied in the Smollett
quotation, memorization and declamation were inextricably linked and central to the
popular reception of Italian poetry, as was the practice of imitation. Thus, the reading of
the Italian poets induced the young Da Ponte to practise the writing of “all kinds of
composition and metre”, endeavouring “to imitate the most beautiful of their ideas, use
their most elegant phrases and select the finest passages of my habitual models, always
preferring my idolised Petrarch to any other writer, for in his every line I seemed at each
reading to find some new beauty.”28
When still in his early twenties, Da Ponte not only held the chair of Rhetoric at the
seminary of Portogruaro for two years; he also made the acquaintance of several celebrated
Italian improvisers and began to improvise himself, he and his brother becoming known as
„the improvisers of Ceneda‟ after their native town:

This facility in reciting or singing impromptu in good verse on any subject and in any
metre is an almost exclusively Italian gift. It ought therefore to suffice to show how
poetic and valuable in every way is our language. For Italian, with its grace, its music
and its riches furnishes the means for saying ex abrupto things which verse-writers of
other tongues write with difficulty, only after long study and thought: and things not
only beautiful, elegant and worthy to be heard and praised, but calculated to amuse,
surprise and delight the mind of the hearer, as all those will agree who have had the
good fortune to hear not only the incomparable Gianni and dal Mollo, but also
Corilla, Bandettini and other famous improvisers.29

It is striking that Da Ponte here emphasizes the close connection between 1) Italian
culture, 2) the musicality of speech and the close affinity between reciting and singing, 3)
poetry as an oral, performance-oriented practice, and 4) the social, rhetorical and
pleasurable function of art.
Dennis Libby has already established that Italians in the 18th century “recognized
only the voice and vocal melody as agents of true expression”,30 which principle “has as a
corollary the old idea that music in itself had no self-sufficient meaning or expression; these
were imparted to it by the words that were sung.” Though I believe it is an open question
which was a corollary of what, I agree when Libby concludes from this that Italians
considered the only proper function of music to be the intensification of “the meaning and

27 Ibid: 29-30.
28 Ibid: 26-7.
29 Ibid: 69-70.
30 Libby 1989: 15.

24
expression embodied in words.”31 The strong affinity between speech and music, which is
characteristic of the Italian tradition, reflects an emphasis on language as a medium of both
intellectual and emotional communication – in diametrical opposition to the structuralist
emphasis on language as a sign system. Indeed, as Walter Ong maintains, words acquire
their meanings “only from their always insistent actual habitat, which is not, as in a
dictionary, simply other words, but includes also gestures, vocal inflections, facial
expression, and the entire human, existential setting in which the real, spoken word always
occurs”,32 the philosopher Peter Kemp reminding us that most everyday conversations are
about explaining emotions to each other and about trying to influence the emotions of
others, though modern people are liable to forget how central emotions are to linguistic
communication.33 The conflict between the „Wagnerian‟ and the „Italianate‟ conceptions of
language is reflected in the ancient quarrel between Plato, who claimed that truth is
absolute and exists independently of language, and the sophists, who claimed that truth is
relative and emerges from human interaction by means of language. If we accept the
Platonic belief, as the rhetorician Jørgen Fafner points out, language is not only a
treacherous means to apprehend truth, but even a hindrance,34 and this viewpoint was
adopted by 17th- and 18th-century rationalists and empiricists as well as by 19th-century
idealists, who all believed in absolute truths, albeit of different kinds. Whether apprehended
through logical reasoning, the sensory apparatus or individual emotions, truth was meant to
belong to a sphere fundamentally apart from the fluid, relativistic and imprecise sphere of
language, which was regarded as an unavoidable but fundamentally unreliable means to
formulate and communicate truth. It is no coincidence that it was an Italian, the Neapolitan
philosopher Giambattista Vico, who launched the most thorough attack on this conception
of language in the 18th century: Vico maintained that knowledge emerges interdependently
with language, that we understand the world while speaking about it and that language is an
emotional as well as an intellectual medium.35 He thereby rejected the dualistic world
scheme which underlies Cartesian rationalism as well as romantic idealism, and which
presupposes the separation of language and truth, of body and soul, of form and content,
and – we might add – of tones and words.

31 Ibid: 30.
32 Ong 1982: 46-7.
33 Kemp 1972: 38.
34 Fafner 1982: 42.
35 Cf. Ibid: 236-7.

25
 To a romantic or a modernist, Da Ponte‟s descriptions of poetry as “calculated to
amuse, surprise and delight the mind of the hearer”, or of operatic characters as “calculated
for stage effect” sound cheap and degrading, since a dramatist should try above all to be
faithful to some intellectual, psychological or social reality without glancing at the merely
entertaining; Da Ponte, however, does not purport to know what the truth is, or at least he
does not find it fit that a theatrical entertainment should aspire to inform us about it. He
only gives us verisimilitude, the semblance of truth, through which the drama persuades us to
accept its fictive world as convincing. Verisimilitude may be defined as the premises on
which truth, justice and other matters can be discussed: if the drama is not verisimilar, its
characters will not interest us, and we will not feel enticed to consider the intellectual
problems posed by the dramatist. Unlike the search for truth, achieving verisimilitude is
therefore closely related to entertainment: if the drama fails to entertain, its characters and
problems will leave us cold too. Hence Da Ponte discusses both characterization and plot
construction in terms of probability and effect, as when he discards Giovanni Battista
Casti‟s libretto Il re Teodoro in Venezia (set to music by Giovanni Paisiello) as imperfect
because the “action was feeble, the characters tedious, the dénouement improbable and
almost tragic”.36 In the Dapontian poetics, „improbable‟ and „tragic‟ are terms of reproach
because the function of theatre is to amuse by imitating reality. The avoidance of tragedy also
points to Da Ponte‟s ambiguous attitude towards the rules of Aristotelian classicism.
Though Da Ponte always aims at verisimilitude in his librettos for Mozart, as prescribed by
the Aristotelians,37 he takes several liberties especially in regard to the Aristotelian unity and
causal logic of action, in which respect he was in agreement with most 18 th-century comedy
writers whose strained relationship to Aristotle was mainly due to the fact that the
philosopher had been more interested in tragedy than in comedy – the traditional home of
such non-Aristotelian concepts as unreason, coincidence and rupture.
But there was also another point on which Da Ponte departed from Aristotle. When
he claims that the favour of Emperor Joseph II was of greater help in his position as court
poet in Vienna “than all the precepts and rules of Aristotle which I had read but little and
studied less”,38 and that “theatrical dogma” demanded that the poet found a way to make

36 Da Ponte 1929: 116.

37 Of course, the dénouement of Don Giovanni could be charged with being both „improbable‟ and „almost
tragic‟, but as I will argue below, Da Ponte‟s rejection of Casti‟s drama implies that the highly improbable
intervention of the Stone Guest should be perceived as a parody of improbability, and that Don Giovanni‟s
cruel death should not be perceived as a tragic ending by the audience.
38 Da Ponte 1929: 111.

26
all the singers appear on stage in the finale of an opera buffa “in despite of good sense and
reason and all the Aristotles on earth”,39 we should not understand this as a break with the
Aristotelian search for effect through verisimilar imitation, but as a recognition that the
learned Greek had had little appreciation of the practicalities and performance issues of live
theatre. Or, as Da Ponte put it in the Extract: “though all the critics, with Aristotle at their
head exclaim against it, I must observe here that the real Aristotle of a dramatic poet are in
general, not only the composer of the music, but also the first buffo, the prima donna and
not very seldom the 2nd 3rd and 4th buffoon of the company.”40 It was the failure of Il re
Teodoro in Venezia, apparently, which taught Da Ponte that in order to write a good play “it
was most necessary to acquire a great deal of practical knowledge, to learn to know the
actors and make their parts suitable to them, to observe on the stage other people‟s
mistakes and one‟s own, and after they had been hissed at by two or three thousand people
to know how to correct them”.41
This clearly established hierarchy between page and stage points to the specifically
Italian brand of Aristotelianism which, in contrast to the Aristotelianism of the French
classicists, conceived of performance, rather than of the dramatic text, as the theatrical
epicentre. This is entirely in line with the traditional Italian view of poetry, drama and
music as performing rather than as textually fixed arts, and of art in general as a social and
persuasive practice. As with the improvisers, the moment of performance is also the
moment when words and tones fuse into an insoluble whole and acquire one shared
meaning which they cannot have when written down.
Having argued that the Italian operatic tradition, in contrast to the German tradition
and due to its underlying conception of art as entertainment and performance, treated song
as the extension of words, and that Lorenzo Da Ponte belonged entirely to this tradition, I
shall argue in the following that the same was the case with Mozart as a composer of vocal
music.

The operatic poetics of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

That Mozart‟s operatic poetics were formulated in private letters rather than in carefully
worked-out autobiographical publications tends to give the impression that he was less

39 Ibid: 114.
40 Da Ponte 1999: 38.
41 Da Ponte 1929: 117.

27
consistent in his opinions on the word-tone relationship than Da Ponte. Thus, in a letter to
his father from 1781, he said about the playwright Johann Gottlieb Stephanie, the librettist
of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, that whether “he has written his plays alone or with the help
of others, whether he has plagiarised or created, he still understands the stage, and his plays
are invariably popular”, from which the composer concluded that he had not the slightest
doubt about the success of the opera, “provided the text is a good one”.42 Two years later,
however, when complaining about Giambattista Varesco‟s libretto for Idomeneo, he seems to
have changed his mind:

Why, I consider it a great insult to myself that Herr Varesco is doubtful about the
success of the opera. Of one thing he may be sure and that is, that his libretto will
certainly not go down if the music is no good. For in the opera the chief thing is the
music. If then the opera is to be a success and Varesco hopes to be rewarded, he
must alter and recast the libretto as much and as often as I wish and he must not
follow his own inclinations, for he has not the slightest knowledge or experience of
the theatre.43

In 1781, apparently, the text was the primary condition of operatic success; in 1783 it was
the music. But the contradiction is only apparent: as with Da Ponte, the keywords are
“understands the stage” and “knowledge or experience of the theatre”, the goal of both the
poet‟s and the composer‟s activities being the theatrical performance, to which the sister
arts of poetry and music must yield. This appears most clearly from a long passage referring
to Die Entführung, whose opening sentence, however, is often quoted out of context by
scholars attempting, like Wagner, to present Mozart as “der absoluteste aller Musiker”:44

[…] I should say that in an opera the poetry must be altogether the obedient
daughter of the music. Why do Italian comic operas please everywhere – in spite of
their miserable libretti – even in Paris, where I myself witnessed their success? Just
because there the music reigns supreme and when one listens to it all else is
forgotten. Why, an opera is sure of success when the plot is well worked out, the
words written solely for the music and not shoved in here and there to suit some
miserable rhyme (which, God knows, never enhances the value of any theatrical
performance, be it what it may, but rather detracts from it) – I mean, words or even
entire verses which ruin the composer‟s whole idea. Verses are indeed the most
indispensable element for music – but rhymes – solely for the sake of rhyming – the
most detrimental. Those high and mighty people who set to work in this pedantic
fashion will always come to grief, both they and their music. The best thing of all is
when a good composer, who understands the stage and is talented enough to make

42 Letter to his Father of 16 June 1781. All quotations from Mozart‟s letters are taken from Anderson 1966.
43 Letter to his Father of 21 June 1783.
44 Wagner 2000: 38-9.

28
 sound suggestions, meets an able poet, that true phoenix; in that case no fears need
be entertained as to the applause even of the ignorant. Poets almost remind me of
trumpeters with their professional tricks! If we composers were always to stick so
faithfully to our rules (which were very good at a time when no one knew better), we
should be concocting music as unpalatable as their libretti.45

It is significant that Mozart quotes opera buffa as an example of a form that gives primacy to
the music, since we have just established that Italian opera is built on the theatrical fusion
of song and words. This alone should prevent us from viewing the composer‟s statement
as a championship of musical autonomy in any 19th- or 20th-century sense, as should his
claim that verses “are indeed the most indispensable element for music”. Furthermore, the
demand that the words are “written solely for the music” clearly anticipates Da Ponte‟s
„State of the Theatre Poet‟, which evokes a sonorous-affective conception of the words in
line with the Italian poetic tradition. The ideal collaboration would be between “a good
composer, who understands the stage and is talented enough to make sound suggestions”
and “an able poet”, which apparently means someone who, like Da Ponte, was in
possession both of poetic gifts and, as the librettist proudly announced, of “knowledge of
the numerous rules and laws and experience required to write a good play”.46
Everything in Mozart‟s operas and in his correspondence tells us that he had a deep
appreciation of the Italian poetic culture, which also appears from the fact that he preferred
setting Italian texts. In 1778 he expressed a desire to compose operas, “but they must be
French rather than German, and Italian rather than either”,47 and even when he claimed
five years later that he preferred writing a German opera to an Italian one, he carefully
avoided comparing the two languages: “Is not German as singable as French and English?
Is it not more so than Russian?”48 Mozart rejected accusations that he did not understand
Italian when composing Idomeneo‟s aria “Fuor del mar”:

The aria is very well adapted to the words. You hear the mare and the mare funesto and
the musical passages suit minacciar, for they entirely express minacciar (threatening).49

Understanding Italian evidently meant highlighting the rhetorically central words musically,
to treat the music as an affective and gestural extension of the word, as appears from the
statement that he conceived “the musical passages” as “expressive” of the words. In a

45 Letter to his Father of 13 October 1781.

46 Da Ponte 1929: 98.
47 Letter to his Father of 7 February 1778.
48 Letter to his Father of 5 February 1783.
49 Letter to his Father of 27 December 1780.

29
discussion of Giambattista Varesco‟s wording in Idomeneo‟s last aria, he further
demonstrates his knowledge of and sensitivity to the declamatory practice of the Italians.
This was Varesco‟s original proposal for the first two lines:

Il cor languiva, ed era The heart languished, and there was

gelida massa in petto50 an icy heap in my breast

To which Mozart reacted in the following manner:

In regard to the ultima aria for Raaff,51 I mentioned that we both wished to have
more pleasing and gentle words. […] The beginning would do quite well, but gelida
massa – again is hard. In short, far-fetched or unusual words are always unsuitable in
an aria which ought to be pleasing.52

Evidently, the musicality of a word consisted of a combination of affect, connotative

meanings and acoustic shape: Mozart not only objected to “gelida massa” because “far-
fetched or unusual words” such as massa might confuse or puzzle the audience and thereby
obstruct the immediate communication, but also because its combination of sonorous and
affective qualities would require the singer to introduce a harsh affect into an aria of
peaceful, optimistic and pleasant sentiments. In the end, Varesco came up with a spring
rather than a winter metaphor in response to Mozart‟s desire that we should hear about the
hero‟s “present condition” and not of “all the misfortune which Idomeneo has had to
endure”:53

Tal la stagion di Flora Thus Flora‟s season

l‟albero annoso infiora adorns the old tree with flowers
nuovo vigor gli dà. and grants it new vigour.

The new metaphor implies a difference in affect and sonority: Mozart had objected to the
word massa also because it is “hard”, probably referring to the double consonants which are
given special emphasis in the Tuscan dialect, forming an obvious contrast to the long
vowels and liquid consonants of the new second line. His required changes substantiate Da
Ponte‟s claim that “Mozart knew very well that the success of an opera depends, FIRST OF
ALL, ON THE POET”, though it is important to stress that the real difference between
“gelida massa” and “l‟albero annoso” will only appear in the performance situation. The

50 Letter from Leopold Mozart to his Son of 25 November 1780 (cf. Heartz 1974: 520).
51 Idomeneo was sung by the German tenor Anton Raaff.
52 Letter to his Father of 5 December 1780.
53 Letter to his Father of 29 November 1780.

30
different affects/sonorities of the two images, the hard abruptness of the former and the
liquid wistfulness of the latter, would have to be enhanced by the singer in performance,
for, as implied in the following letter, the union of words and music ultimately depended
on the performer:

[…] Raaff is the best and most honest fellow in the world, but so tied to old-
fashioned routine that flesh and blood cannot stand it. Consequently, it is very
difficult to compose for him, but very easy if you choose to compose commonplace
arias, as, for instance, the first one, „Vedrommi intorno‟. When you hear it, you will say
that it is good and beautiful – but if I had written it for Zonca,54 it would have suited
the words much better. Raaff is too fond of everything which is cut and dried, and he
pays no attention to expression.55

The less dramatically expressive the singer, it appears, the less Mozart would make the
music suit the text, and the more the music would have to rule alone, musical autonomy in
an aria being – at least in this case – an emergency solution for singers incapable of fusing
words and music into an adequate theatrical whole. Vocal acting essentially turned on the
characteristic and affective delivery of sung words, which was also the reason why Mozart
attached such importance to the recitatives. He conceded that the two scenes between
Idomeneo and Idamante were condensed because Anton Raaff and the castrato Vincenzo
dal Prato “spoil the recitative by singing it without any spirit or fire, and so
monotonously”,56 and he demanded that Arbace‟s accompanied recitative in Act Three was
expanded due to the dramatic gifts of the tenor Domenico Panzacchi:

[…] we must do what we can to oblige this worthy old fellow. He would like to have
his recitative in Act III lengthened by a couple of lines, which owing to the chiaro e
scuro and his being a good actor will have a capital effect. For example, after the
verse: „Sei la città del pianto, e questa reggia quella del duol [you are the city of tears,
and this palace that of woe]‟ there is a slight glimmering of hope, and then! (How
foolish I am! Whither does my grief lead me?) „Ah Creta tutta io vedo, etc! [Ah, I see
all of Crete]‟57

Intriguingly, the metaphor “chiaro e scuro” stems from the pictorial arts and recalls Da
Ponte‟s claim that the composer is, “in regard to a drama, what a painter is in regard to the
colours”, but it is also a concept which within Italian singing technique refers to the bright

54 Giovanni Battista Zonca was an Italian bass employed at the Munich court.
55 Letter to his Father of 27 December 1780.
56 Letter to his Father of 27 December 1780.
57 Letter to his Father of 5 December 1780.

31
and dark colours of the singer‟s voice,58 which were of crucial importance to vocal acting
and thus to an opera‟s theatrical representation. In the nature of the case, il chiaro e lo scuro
cannot be captured in notes; they are added by the performer in the performance situation,
and though of crucial importance to the dramatic effect, they only exist as potentials in the
score, which Mozart expected the dramatically gifted singer to realize. The quoted letter
shows how the composer wanted both poetry and music to be conceived with the singer‟s
presumed application of affective vocal colours in mind: the poet should present a
rhetorical contrast between hope (chiaro) and despair (oscuro), and a corresponding
declamatory interpretation should be suggested by the musical setting.
As singing was conceived of as an extension of the sung word, thus the function of
the orchestra in Mozart‟s operatic numbers and accompanied recitatives was partly to
support and emphasize the declamatory realization through corresponding affective
contrasts in dynamics, harmony, melody, tempo and articulation, and partly to extend the
verbal images affectively and ornamentally, suggesting and emphasizing the body language
of the actor. When Mozart told his father that he in the aria “O wie ängstlich, o wie feurig”
in Die Entführung had “expressed” Belmonte‟s throbbing heart by means of two violins in
octaves, he described the desired effect in this manner:

I wrote it expressly to suit Adamberger‟s voice. You feel the trembling – the faltering
– you see how his throbbing breast begins to swell; this I have expressed by a
crescendo. You hear the whispering and the sighing – which I have indicated by the
first violins with mutes and a flute playing in unison.59

Throughout the history of Italian opera, the basic view of the word-tone relationship, and
hence of the role of the accompaniment, remained virtually unchanged, though an infinite
gap seems to separate the late Verdi‟s lavish orchestra from Monteverdi‟s modest continuo
group: the orchestra was meant to support and enhance the actor‟s delivery and his
movements on stage. That sinfonie and ritornelli, from the very beginnings of opera, were
meant to be accompanied by appropriate stage action appears from Marco da Gagliano‟s
1608 preface to his opera La Dafne, in which the speaker of the prologue is requested to

58 Cf. R. Miller 1977: 78, 96. On 15 December 1770 Leopold Mozart wrote to his wife from Milan, during the
rehearsals of the fourteen-year-old Mozart‟s serious opera Mitridate, re di Ponto, that many of the Italians
“cynically described the music beforehand as miserable immature stuff and thus prophesied its failure,
because, as they maintained, it was impossible for such a young boy, and, what is more, a German, to write an
Italian opera or, great virtuoso though he might be, to grasp and apply the chiaro ed oscuro which is necessary
for the theatre. But since the evening of the first short rehearsal all these people have been silent and not
uttered a syllable.”
59 Letter to his Father of 26 September 1781.

32
“match his step to the sound of the sinfonia, not however with affectation as if he were
dancing but with gravity, in such a manner that the steps are not discordant with the
sound”. When he starts singing, “every gesture and every step should fall on the beat of the
sound of the song”, and between the stanzas he should take “three or four steps, that is,
for as long as the ritornello lasts, but always in time.”60 In other words, song, movement
and accompaniment had to be fused into a seamless whole. In the 18th century, while the
recitativo semplice, or secco recitative, was meant to be performed swiftly and without the
interruption of silent stage action – as was the case with the verse declamation in the
spoken theatre61 – the instrumental passages in arias and accompanied recitatives called for
expressive gestures closely adapted to the pace and character of the accompaniment. This
appears from a remark by the castrato and singing teacher Giambattista Mancini who in
1774 wrote that the function of adding orchestral accompaniment to the recitative was to
“fill the scene when the actor is constrained to remain mute: and thus it follows
throughout, even though the actor speaks, to give greater impact and embellishment to
what he says.”62
In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, actors became more mobile on the stage
than earlier, and when Gluck and Mozart made the orchestra accompany the action
throughout, or at least through greater parts of the action than their predecessors had done,
this indicated that the singers should introduce a larger number of physical actions into
their performances. It is no coincidence that Gaetano Guadagni, Gluck‟s first Orfeo, was a
pupil of the celebrated actor David Garrick who in the 1740s had revolutionized scenic art
by introducing into his performances such „extra-textual‟ pantomimic actions, i.e. an
increase in affective facial and bodily gestures with realistic details which did not serve as a
mere underscoring of the lines, as did the conventional system of rhetorical gestures
practised by baroque actors.63 And when Mozart complained that Anton Raaff was “like a
statue” on stage,64 and that when “he was not singing he stood there like a child at stool:
when he began to sing the first recitative, it went quite tolerably”,65 what we hear is not

60 Gagliano 1994: 55-7.

61 When listening to recordings with 19th-century actors and actresses, such as Sarah Bernhardt, one is struck
by the swiftness of their delivery. It was the late 19 th-century naturalists who began to interrupt the
declamation with frequent pauses and silent stage action, thus slowing down the pace of the delivery (Cf.
Christiansen 1975).
62 Mancini 1967: 72.
63 Cf. Christiansen 1975: 87. On Garrick and Gluck, cf. Heartz 1967-8.
64 Letter to his Father of 8 November 1780.
65 Letter to his Father of 12 June 1778.

33
only a theatrically-minded composer criticizing an incompetent actor, but a man of the age
of modern naturalness reacting against the baroque style. A counterexample is the Italian
tenor Giuseppe Siboni who in 1819 performed excerpts from Mozart‟s La clemenza di Tito
and Spontini‟s La vestale at Copenhagen‟s Royal Theatre: “Even during the longest
ritornellos there was never pause in his acting,” the theatre historian Thomas Overskou
wrote, “and everything he had cleverly devised to fill them with emerged lightly and softly
from the character of his role.”66 The description is of particular interest because Siboni
almost certainly had studied the role of Tito with Domenico Guardasoni in Prague who
had directed the original production of both this opera and Don Giovanni.
The tragic actors of the Baroque had modelled themselves entirely on the orator, and
hence they would face the audience without ever leaving centre stage and would refrain
from acting during the speeches of others, which was considered an unwarranted
disturbance, but the classicist actors were more mobile on stage and would react visually to
their fellow performers. Whereas the baroque actors would locate themselves in a
semicircle facing the audience, each waiting for his turn to speak, emotional response
would prompt the classicist actors to leave their place in the semicircle – which remained
the point of departure in Italian opera throughout the 19th century, however – and seek out
one or more of their fellow actors, together with whom they would form a group, or
tableau.67 In the 17th and the first half of the 18th centuries the virtuoso actors had been the
sole rulers of the stage, but creating a theatrical tableau required the participation of an
outsider, and as the tableau developed into actual ensemble playing, this led to the emergence
of the modern stage director towards the end of the century. Italian opera‟s equivalent to
ensemble playing appears to have been the operatic ensemble – the result of theatrical
rather than musical developments – which was a way of choreographing the interaction of
the performers musically: in the recitatives the performers acted successively; in the
ensembles simultaneously. Indeed, the ensembles in Mozart‟s operas are not necessarily
found in the emotionally most charged situations, but they are invariably found in
situations that require a certain amount of pantomimic interaction from the performers.
Most significantly, Mozart emphasized that even the music in the ensembles should
serve as an affective extension of the text, just as declamation was by no means neglected

66 Overskou 1862 Vol. IV: 598.

67 Christiansen 1975: 125.

34
in the ensemble playing of the contemporary spoken theatre. This appears from his
description of the Quartet in Idomeneo:

I have just had a bad time with him [Raaff] over the quartet. The more I think of this
quartet, as it will be performed on the stage, the more effective I consider it; and it
has pleased all those who have heard it played on the clavier. Raaff only thinks it will
produce no effect whatever. He said to me when we were by ourselves: „Non c’è da
spianar la voce [You can‟t let yourself go in it]. It gives me no scope. As if in a quartet the
words should not be spoken much more than sung. That kind of thing he does not
understand at all. All I said was: „My very dear friend, if I knew of one single note
which ought to be altered in this quartet, I would alter it at once. But so far there is
nothing in my opera with which I am so pleased as with this quartet; and when you
have once heard it sung in concert, you will talk very differently. I have taken great
pains to serve you well in your two arias; I shall do the same with your third one –
and shall hope to succeed. But as far as trios and quartets are concerned, the
composer must have a free hand.‟68

Like his favourite Italian librettist, Mozart, even in his vocal ensembles, evidently conceived
of song as an extension of speech and of the orchestral accompaniment as an affective
support and extension of the performer‟s vocal and gestural communication of the verbal
images, as appears from his descriptions of Belmonte‟s aria and Arbace‟s recitative. It is
important to understand, however, that such a conception of the word-tone relationship
presupposed a specific style of singing, which likewise treated song as the extension of
speech.

The Italian style of singing

Since the German romanticists launched a new operatic theory, renegotiated the word-tone
relationship, promoted the concept of Werktreue and cultivated a more contemplative mode
of listening, it naturally followed that they should develop a new style of singing, too.
Nevertheless, neither modern opera singers nor students of performance practice seem to
have realized how radically the German style of singing actually differs from the Italian
style. According to the Italians, song was the extension of speech, which led – contrary to
widespread belief – to a declamatory style of singing, while music, according to Wagner and
the German romanticists, was the beginning and end of language, which led to an
instrumental style of singing.
Tempo appears to have been one of the fundamental differences between the
traditional German and Italian performance practices, the direct consequence of slowing

68 Letter to his Father of 27 December 1780.

35
down the tempo in an opera being that the listener tends to focus less on the words, their
meaning and delivery than on sheer musical expression. When the famous singing teacher
Mathilde Marchesi heard Verdi conduct Aida in Vienna in 1875, she “once more observed
how constantly German conductors mistake the tempi of the Italian operas, which, as a rule,
they are inclined to drag”,69 and according to the conductor Luigi Ricci, Giacomo Puccini
was always keen that his music was not performed too slowly: “He said that „too slow‟
tempi make the action die, dope it, render it spineless and heavy like all dead things.” 70 The
Verdi and Puccini recordings of Arturo Toscanini who had been an orchestra member in
the original production of Verdi‟s Otello and conducted the world premieres of three of
Puccini‟s operas, also feature markedly faster tempi than those usually chosen by
conductors today, let alone by his contemporary German colleagues Klemperer and
Furtwängler.
That the case was the same in the early 19th century appears from a review of a
performance of Don Giovanni in Leipzig in 1837, which was conducted by Francesco
Morlacchi, the former Kapellmeister of the Royal Italian Opera in Dresden where Luigi
Bassi, Mozart‟s original Don Giovanni, had been director 1815-25. The Italian conductor‟s
fast tempi are compared favourably to the slow tempi of Carl Maria von Weber who was
leader of the German Opera in Dresden 1817-26:

Regarding the current performance of the masterpiece, then I must first with thanks
and praise mention Morlacchi‟s direction which was consistently fiery and energetic.
I at least have previously heard the work with much poorer success under Spontini‟s
conductorship in Berlin and under Weber‟s direction in Dresden. The latter had a
peculiar attitude in this matter; since the music is so old and well-known, he said, I
take the tempi slower than usual in some places, so that the fine art of the harmonic
texture and the brilliant instrumentation becomes more apparent. This reason might
do if we were talking about a rehearsal performance to the instruction of pupils in a
conservatoire, but it will cause the destruction of the theatrical effect. – Moreover,
Weber, who, like Morlacchi, met Bassi in the context of the said official duties, could
with good reason have drawn on him as an authentic interpreter, if not a
misconceived national antipathy, which often and easily tended to confuse the
musical environment in Dresden, came disturbingly between them.71

Though the characterization of Weber‟s direction may be slightly caricatured, the reviewer
does establish a clear contrast between the Italian Kapellmeister who prefers “fiery and
energetic” tempi due to “the theatrical effect” and the German Kapellmeister who prefers

69 Marchesi 1898: 158.

70 Ricci 1954: 11.
71 Heinse 1837 (Appendix VI).

36
slower tempi due to primarily musical considerations. That the rapid „theatrical‟ tempi also
characterized the company for which Don Giovanni was written (it was abolished in 1806)
appears both from an 1811 review of Così fan tutte in Paris, which, as regards the acting,
“was as swift and joyful and, in part, even more fine and piquant than we used to see it
under Guardasoni in Leipzig, except for the at that time singular Bassi”,72 and from the
Bohemian music critic František Xaver Nĕmeček‟s nationalistically tinted critique of the
company from 1800:

The operas are often performed in frantically fast tempi. Guardasoni himself is to
blame for this. If an opera lasts till after 10 p.m. at the first performance, he not only
cuts arias, duets and other things for the second performance, but even urges singers
and orchestra to take a fast tempo, so that the opera is finished at 9.30 p.m. sharp;
for the strange thing called good form orders everyone who wants to be in his
employment to leave the theatre at this point, whether or not the denouement or the
most beautiful moments of the piece are over. Is this oddity encountered anywhere
but here?73

Nĕmeček could only explain the fast tempi of the Italian opera with the manager‟s thrift,
which was indeed one of his recurring complaints against Guardasoni and Italians in
general, but the fast tempi simply seem to have reflected general Italian performance
practice.
That tempo was still one of the central differences between Italian and the German
performance practice a century ago appears most clearly from a comparison of the
recordings of the aria “Casta Diva” from Vincenzo Bellini‟s 1831 opera Norma by two
sopranos who were arguably the most prominent representatives of the Italian and the
German operatic traditions, respectively, in the second half of the 19th century: Adelina
Patti (1843-1919) whom Giuseppe Verdi described as “perfect organization, perfect
balance between singer and actress, a born artist in the fullest sense of the word”;74 and Lilli
Lehmann (1848-1929) who in 1876 was selected by Wagner to sing Woglinde, Helmwige
and the Woodbird in the original production of Der Ring des Nibelungen,75 and was later
considered the foremost Wagnerian soprano of her generation. The two recordings, both

72 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 30 October 1811 (Appendix I).

73 Niemetschek 1995: 51.
74 Letter to Giulio Ricordi of 5 October 1877 IN Busch 1978.
75 Adelina Patti made her two recordings of “Casta Diva”, on which she is accompanied by her nephew

Alfredo Barilli on the piano, at her home, Craig-y-nos Castle in Wales, in June 1906 at the age of sixty-three;
her complete recordings, along with those of Victor Maurel, have been issued on CD by Marston Records
(52011-2). Lilli Lehmann made her recording of “Casta Diva”, on which she is accompanied by an orchestra
conducted by Friedrich Kark, in Berlin on 18 June 1907 at the age of fifty-nine; her complete recordings have
been issued on CD by Symposium Records (Symposium 1207/8).

37
of which were made when the singers were past their active stage careers, display a vast
difference in musical conception, but what we hear are not just two different ways of
singing, but artistic approaches implying two different modes of listening. With Lehmann,
who has opted for the slower tempo and urges us to search for meaning in the musical
phrases, we feel like leaning back in the seats of a darkened auditorium in order to be
enveloped by a world of tones, while Patti, who addresses us with the persuasive
immediacy of an actress, makes us listen to the telling of a story.
On the two recordings the difference between the declamatory and the instrumental
singing styles is further enhanced by their different approaches to rhythm. Whereas
Lehmann stays in fairly strict time save for a few tempo modifications clearly made in
agreement with the orchestra, Patti (who is accompanied only by a piano) takes several
rhythmic liberties that may strike a modern listener as unmotivated by the musical logic,
but which are in fact motivated by declamatory considerations. In the phrase “Queste
sacre, queste sacre, queste sacre antiche piante” (these sacred, ancient trees) she makes a
sudden rubato on the third “queste sacre” (adding a small ornament on “antiche”), which
goes against the tightly held accompaniment. From a strictly semiotic point of view, the
repetitions of “queste sacre” seem senseless, which has apparently led Lehmann to
conclude that they are meant simply to fill out the melody, since she does little to highlight
or distinguish between them. But by manipulating the rhythm, Patti treats the word
repetitions as a gradual affective intensification, which holds the listener‟s attention fast to
the contents of Norma‟s prayer. Indeed, as Jette Barnholdt Hansen reminds us in
connection with the 18th-century da capo aria, repetition “is a profound expression of strong
emotion and one of the oldest poetical and rhetorical means to create pathos and intensify
different types of communication.”76 Furthermore, Patti‟s and Lehmann‟s different uses of
rubato serve as a demonstration of Richard Hudson‟s distinction between an „earlier
rubato‟, in which “the melody is altered, while the accompaniment maintains strict time”,
and a „later rubato‟, which “involves rhythmic flexibility of the entire musical substance”. 77
The so-called earlier rubato, which allows the singer to add emphasis to the individual
words and thereby supports the declamatory approach to phrasing, seems to have been
favoured by the Italian operatic tradition, while the later rubato, which reflects a more
autonomously musical approach, seems to have been more characteristic of German-

76 Barnholdt Hansen 2005: 8.

77 Richard Hudson: „Rubato‟ IN The New Grove.

38
romantic musical practice. That Mozart would have agreed with the Italians appears from a
letter where he, after describing time as “the most essential, the most difficult and the chief
requisite in music”, adds that people were amazed that he could always keep strict time
himself when playing the clavier, since they could not grasp “that in tempo rubato in an
Adagio, the left hand should go on playing in strict time.”78 This conception of tempo rubato
is clearly what Richard Hudson calls the „earlier rubato‟.
Unlike Lehmann, Patti also uses vocal colour and ornamentation to highlight
individual words rhetorically. In an aria which is rarely used for establishing dramatic
conflict, she makes a point of emphasizing the affective contrasts inherent in the words
and thereby makes the tormented priestess come alive before us as a dramatic character.
These are Felice Romani‟s two quatrains for the aria:

Casta Diva che inargenti Chaste Goddess who silvers

queste sacre antiche piante, these sacred, ancient trees,
a noi volgi il bel sembiante, turn upon us your fair countenance
senza nube, e senza vel. without clouds and without veil.

Diva, tu de‟ cori ardenti O Goddess, in the fervent hearts

tempra ancor lo zelo audace, temper once more the audacious zeal,
spargi in terra quella pace spread on earth that peace
che regnar tu fai nel ciel. which reigns, through you, in heaven.

After the opening address to the Moon Goddess, the words “che inargenti” are
unexpectedly invested with an intense sweetness of colour which may indeed be described
as „silvery‟; in the last two lines in the quatrain, a similar contrast, but now enhanced, is
made between the passionate plea of the repeated “a noi volgi” and the sudden rubato and
soft colours of the middle register on “senza nube e senza vel”; but the climax is reached in
the second stanza, when the contrast is given even further emphasis, this time supported by
the rhyme audace-pace: the “audacious zeal” of her countrymen‟s “fervent hears” is depicted
with a defiant, almost spoken quality, the velvety timbre returning when she prays for peace
on earth. The contrast between the two quatrains is also set off by the rhyme inargenti-
ardenti which ends the first lines: the two words are sung to the same music, but most
differently. The affective-rhetorical contrast between passionate supplication and dreamy
introversion, on which Patti builds her interpretation, does not meet the eye if we study the
score, but it is found in the text if read attentively, and only when we have understood the

78 Letter to his Father of 24 October 1777.

39
affective colours of the words can we see that the contrast is supported by Bellini‟s setting.
In the moment of performance, in short, the music is an extension of the affective words
for Patti, as it was for the fathers of Italian opera three centuries before – and as it was for
Bellini himself. This appears both indirectly from the fact that Patti had studied the role of
Norma with her brother-in-law Maurice Strakosch who had been the accompanist of
Bellini‟s original Norma, Giuditta Pasta – whose ornaments Patti uses – and from the
composer‟s description of how he composed his music:

I carefully study the characters of the personages, their dominating passions, and
their feelings. Then, invaded by the feelings of each one of them, I imagine that I
myself have become whichever of them is speaking. And then, shut up in my room, I
begin to declaim the lines of that personage in the drama with all the heat of passion,
and while I am doing that I observe the inflections of my own voice, the haste or
languor of the pronunciation in each circumstance, in short, the accent and tone of
expression that nature gives man in the grip of his passions. And I find the musical
motives and tempos adapted to demonstrating it.79

Lehmann‟s recording is nothing like Patti‟s. With its slow tempo (though the aria is only
marked andante sostenuto assai) and absence of rhetorical accentuations, rhythmic liberties,
added ornaments or colourings, the listener tends to forget about the individual words and
is fascinated instead by the expressively sculpted phrases and soaring high notes. Lehmann
indeed invests the melody with the religious fervour of a prayer, but whereas Patti forces
the listener to follow every move her voice makes, the German singer uses the same
material to create a general atmosphere which invites the listener to enter an introverted
state of musical contemplation. Unlike the Italian singer, Lehmann makes time stand still.
The two artistic approaches are supported by differences in technical approach. With
her forward placing of the tone, Patti makes no use whatsoever of vowel modification: in
accordance with her declamatory ideal, every word projects clearly (Nellie Melba described
Patti‟s diction as “crystalline”),80 which is the prerequisite of enhancing its affective content
through song. This stands in contrast to Lehmann who modifies her vowels in order to
create a round, „domed‟ and more massive sound, which would be necessary in order to
project over the large Wagnerian orchestras to which she was accustomed. In accordance
with her instrumental ideal, a subtle diction is sacrificed in favour of the non-verbal (or
„pre-verbal‟) expressiveness of the melody and the singing voice itself.

79 Quoted in Celli 1959: 44.

80 Quoted in Cone 1981: 1.

40
 Another difference has to do with the ornaments. A much lighter voice than
Lehmann and trained in the traditional Italian school, Patti is equipped with an
extraordinary agility which enables her to handle Bellini‟s complicated fioriture with much
greater ease than the German singer, although her tempo is faster. But the
communicational function of her vocal embellishments is different too. When listening to
Patti one clearly perceives a qualitative difference between melody and ornament: the vocal
graces added by the soprano, as well as those written out by Bellini himself, are treated as
decorative and affective enhancements of the sung words, never to be mistaken for the
melody. This effect is achieved partly by the graceful swiftness and facility with which she
delivers them and partly by the way each musical turn is given its own colour, dynamic or
rhythmical phrasing. In this way, they are placed at the service of linguistic communication,
and even during the longest runs their affinity to the expression of the sung word is felt.
Dennis Libby has emphasized that in the 18th century the ornamentation of Italian
performers was “an essential agent of expression”, though from “a later, composer-
oriented point of view” it has often been dismissed “as extraneous, even impertinent,
decoration”.81 In 1906, however, as is clearly heard on the Patti recording, vocal ornaments
were still, among Italian singers, considered an extension of the stylistic embellishments of
„pleasing speech‟ rather than something extraneous to the musical form and incompatible
with linguistic meaning, as German romanticists and their modernist heirs have tended to
think. Lehmann seems to have been of this opinion. She makes no qualitative difference
between melody and ornament; they are part of the musical substance on equal terms, for
which reason further elaborations would seem to disturb the sound architecture, and since
she infuses expression into the melody rather than into the words, she has no need for
further embellishments.
Just as the Italian literary tradition furthered the emphasis on language as speech,
thus the Italian operatic tradition focussed on the operatic performance, of which the score
was merely the basis and point of departure. In contrast, the German-romantic tradition
focussed on the artistic vision underlying the operatic score, of which the performance is
merely the realization. This difference is reflected in the fact that the Italian composers of
the 17th century talked of “speech” and “song”, while Wagner talks of “language” and
“music”: speech and song may be described as the performance of language and music,
respectively.

81 Libby 1989: 16.

41
 Recognizing the centrality of performance to the tradition of the Italians has wide-
ranging implications for the ontological status of their operatic scores. Dennis Libby has
linked the characteristic Italian view of the word-tone relationship to the performer-
oriented character of musical practice in 18th-century Italy, stressing that the creative
function was divided between composer and performer, in contrast to the more composer-
oriented practice within German musical life in the 18th and 19th (let alone the 20th)
centuries. He maintains that the Italian composer “determined the general character and
structure of the composition and filled in its main outlines, leaving the surface detail to be
supplied spontaneously by the performer in the heightened state induced by performance”,
but for this to work, “a close rapport – almost a symbiotic relationship – had to exist
between composer and performer.”82 Because Italian composers wrote specifically for their
singers, “taking into account, as far as they were able, their character and abilities as
performers, singers were not only permitted but encouraged to develop (within general
limits of style and taste) their full individuality”.83
Though Patti‟s recording was made over a century after the period discussed by
Libby, it clearly appears that her basic approach was the same. Norma‟s dramatic conflict as
we hear it on her recording of “Casta Diva” is not to be found in the score; it may be
deduced from the words, but it is Patti alone who in the moment of performance infuses
Bellini‟s music with the emotions inherent in Romani‟s poetry and thereby creates the
seamless „Italianate‟ unity of tones and words. Her individual contribution is particularly
evidenced by the fact that she manages to create a dramatic intensification throughout the
aria which culminates in the second stanza. In effect, this stanza, which is both more
heavily ornamented and more vividly coloured as a consequence of the more insistent
character of the text, becomes both dramatically and musically indispensable, although
Bellini has set the two quatrains to identical music except for the closing cadenza. The
contrast is striking when we turn to Lehmann who has simply omitted the second stanza –
presumably because the slower tempo did not allow her time enough to sing the whole aria
on one record side, but the fact that the second stanza is dispensable at all shows that she,
as a performer who finds meaning in the music rather than in the words, would have found
but little in musical repetitions which could add to the expression.

82 Ibid: 16.
83 Ibid: 17.

42
 Though Adelina Patti seems to draw a theatrical character out of the music, which is
not evident from the score, the performer was, as Libby emphasizes, traditionally expected
to be sensitive to “the character of the music as the composer had determined it, for it was
the performer‟s task to intensify that character”. It is also in this sense that we should
understand Mozart‟s insistence on a correct performance of his music: in his letters he is
clearly quite keen that his music should be sung with the right expression and with good
taste. When the audience claimed that no aria had affected them as did Aloysia Weber‟s
performance of “Non sò d‟onde viene”, which Mozart had composed for her, he added
that “she sang it as it ought to be sung”, with “accuracy in interpretation, piano and
forte”,84 or, as he later put it, “with the interpretation, with the method and the expression
which I desired”.85 When coaching her in the scene “Ah, lo previdi”, he told her “to watch
the expression marks – to think carefully of the meaning and the force of the words – to
put yourself in all seriousness into Andromeda‟s situation and position! – and to imagine
that you really are that person”.86 Similarly, he maintained that the art of playing the clavier
prima vista consisted in “playing the piece in the time in which it ought to be played, and in
playing all the notes, appoggiaturas and so forth, exactly as they are written and with the
appropriate expression and taste, so that you might suppose that the performer had
composed it himself”.87 The right expression, evidently, was found by studying the score
closely, by obeying the composer‟s indications of tempo and dynamics, the right vocal
accents being found by reading the words attentively.
In these letters Mozart undeniably operates with a notion of Werktreue, but a
Werktreue as far removed from Hoffmann‟s idealistic Werktreue and modernism‟s literal
Werktreue as it is from the postmodernist conception of the score as a mere „material‟ to
which the performer is by no means committed. These three views of the musical artwork
are products of the mass distribution of printed music, in which the score has been
increasingly detached from its authorial source and intention, which has been idealized or
eliminated in turn, whereas Mozart‟s idea of Werktreue was associated with the close
collaboration with the performers.
One thing that invariably strikes a 21st-century listener is that Lilli Lehmann‟s style
seems quite modern and easily accessible, while that of Adelina Patti seems in comparison

84 Letter to his Father of 24 March 1778.

85 Letter to Aloysia Weber of 30 July 1778.
86 Letter to Aloysia Weber of 30 July 1778.
87 Letter to his Father of 17 January 1778.

43
like a relic from distant past. In the round, full sound and instrumental phrasing of
Lehmann‟s singing one immediately recognizes the style of some of the great dramatic
sopranos of the post-war period, while Patti clearly represented a tradition which is no
more. Nevertheless, it was clearly Patti who, trained as she was within the classical Italian
tradition, came closest to the style Mozart would have expected from his performers.
Famous as a Mozart singer, her Zerlina was in fact widely admired and seems to have been
modelled on a traditional Italian interpretation of the role: like Norma, she studied it with
Strakosch who had learnt it from Pasta who had sung it in the 1820s. According to the
famous singing teacher Manuel Garcia, Patti‟s rendition of the role was “correct”,88 and he
spoke with some authority, since his sister, the famous Maria Malibran, was praised highly
by Lorenzo Da Ponte himself: she “distinguished herself and shone in the part of
Zerlinetta” when he heard her sing in New York in 1826, with Garcia as Leporello.89 “Batti,
batti” is among the arias recorded by Patti, and the Garcia pupil Herman Klein described
her interpretation of the role, in which her “instinct for variation or contrast” enabled her
“to realize Mozart‟s exact intention” through a “delicate differentiation” between the two
arias, which she made “partly by instinct and partly because she had been trained in the
right tradition”:

Her singing of „Batti, batti‟ was always marked by a mixture of coquetry and flattery
obviously meant to coax Masetto into forgiving her for her flirtation with the
amorous Don. Zerlina know, of course, that her simple sweetheart would never raise
a finger to hurt her, but she offers to submit to corporal punishment all the same.
On the other hand, in „Vedrai, carino‟ one could instantly perceive, when Patti sang
it, the tone of unaffected regret and anxious sympathy aroused by Masetto‟s physical
suffering, even with the undercurrent of humour that accompanies the air.90

Klein goes on to describe how Patti achieved this effect through different kinds of
phrasing, applying an expressive portamento in the second aria, which was almost absent
from the first. Like her recording of “Casta Diva”, this indicates how crucial contrast and
variation were to the Italian performance tradition, though this is not always evident from
the scores.

88 Klein 1923: 40 (note).

89 Da Ponte 1929: 368.
90 Klein 1923: 40-1.

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 If we compare Patti‟s recording of “Casta Diva” with that of Claudia Muzio (1889-
1936)91 who belonged to the last generation of Italian singers actually to work with the
composers in whose operas they sang (she was the first Giorgetta in Puccini‟s Tabarro),
there are striking stylistic differences, but the basic approach to the word-tone relationship
is the same. Muzio adds no ornaments and takes fewer rhythmic liberties, which reflects
the growing power of conductors and the more orchestral, and hence „score-oriented‟, style
of Puccini, Umberto Giordano and the other verismo composers, and her round, warm and
more equalized voice, which was characteristic of the verismo technique, contrasts with the
lightness and sweetness of Patti‟s voice. But her interpretation is still declamatory: it still
centres on the expression of the words, and each word repetition is still given a different
colour and emphasis, which makes us perceive the aria as a dramatic soliloquy rather than
as a piece of music. Muzio‟s singing indeed seems even closer to spoken declamation than
does Patti‟s – she has obviously sacrificed perfect agility and clarity of tone in favour of
more speech-like dramatic accents – but it would probably be more correct to say that
Muzio‟s declamatory ideal was different from that of her predecessor. Whereas Patti
adhered to the ancient Italian unity of speech and song, which was conventionally related
to the verse declamation of the spoken theatre, the verismo singers were influenced by the
late 19th- and 20th-century ideals of naturalistic acting, in which the declamation should
approach the prosaic accents of everyday speech. This inevitably conflicted with the
indispensable Italian principle that song was the extension of speech, as is audible on
Muzio‟s recordings where speech – especially on emotional climaxes – threatens to
penetrate or even defeat song. The foundations of the seamless unity of words and tones
which had formed the raison d’être of Italian opera for more than three hundred years were
clearly crumbling in the interwar period, when Muzio was the most celebrated Italian
soprano, and their final collapse through the victory of the modernist conception of the
word-tone relationship is surely a major cause of the „death‟ of Italian opera.
At this point, a comparison with the Norma of Maria Callas is important, since the
famous Greek-American soprano, after her sensational breakthrough in the 1950s, was
hailed as the artist who had revived the forgotten art of bel canto, the one and only Italian
style of singing.92 If one listens to “Casta Diva” on Callas‟ 1954 studio recording of the

91 Claudia Muzio‟s recording of “Casta Diva”, on which she is accompanied by an orchestra and a chorus
conducted by Lorenzo Molajoli, was made for Columbia Records in Milan in 1935; Claudia Muzio: the complete
Columbia recordings (1934-35) have been issued by Romophone (B000001S3I).
92 Cf. Jürgen Kesting‟s comparison of Callas to Giuditta Pasta (Kesting 1986 Vol. III: 1764).

45
opera,93 however, it is striking that her singing resembles Lehmann‟s rather than Patti‟s. Her
approach is clearly instrumental rather than declamatory, which should immediately rule
out the idea that the famous soprano returned to any „forgotten‟ Italian ideals. Quite on the
contrary, it might be argued that Callas, by supplanting the taste for verismo singing alla
Muzio in favour of a recasting of the Italian tradition on what is basically German-
modernist premises, was an important nail in the coffin of the Italian tradition. It was
Callas who propagated the idea that bel canto is “a schooling of the voice so as to develop it
as an instrument”;94 she described herself as “the first instrument of the orchestra”,95 and
she emphasized that truth was found in the music rather than in the words:

I had to go by the music, by the libretto. The music itself justifies it, so the main
thing is not the libretto, though I give enormous attention to the words. I try to find
truth in the music.96

Most interestingly, however, Callas herself seems to have been partly aware that she was
actually reinventing, rather than reviving, the Italian style:

In a sense, […] opera is today an old-fashioned form of art. Whereas before you
could sing “I love you” or “I hate you”, now you can still sing about it but you must
express the corresponding feeling through music rather than through the words. It is
our duty to modernise our approach so that we can give opera a bit of fresh air – cut
lengthy repetitions (repetition of a melody is usually not much good; the sooner you
come to the point, the better it is), cut redundant movement so that it must become
credible to the audience.97

Here it seems as if Callas knew that the original Italian singing style had been declamatory,
and that her rejection of that ideal was a deliberate choice made in order to comply with a
modern audience with different dramatic and musical expectations. It also appears that she
was conscious that inverting the traditional word-tone relationship made musical
repetitions meaningless, since the repetition was traditionally justified by the novel
colouring of the words. On her recordings, Callas will indeed quite often leave out musical
repetitions, and though retaining both stanzas of “Casta Diva” she makes no noteworthy
attempt to distinguish between them or colour the music with dramatic contrasts drawn
from the words – and she adds no ornaments. In her own words, “even the fioritura and

93 Maria Callas‟ 1954 studio recording of Norma, on which she is accompanied by the orchestra and chorus of
the Teatro alla Scala conducted by Tullio Serafin, was made for EMI (B000002RXP).
94 Interview in The Observer, 8 and 15 February 1970 IN Lowe 1987: 63.
95 Radio interview by Norman Ross, Chicago, 17 November 1957, quoted in Jellinek 1960: 317.
96 Quoted in Galatopoulos 1976: 202.
97 Quoted in Ibid: 213.

46
trills, all the coloratura things have a reason in the composer‟s mind, […] they are the
expression of the stato d’animo of the character – that is, the way he feels at that moment,
the passing emotions that take hold of him”.98 In short, ornaments (and, significantly, she
speaks only of the composer’s ornaments) are motivated by psychology rather than by
declamation; and since psychological „truth‟ is already contained in the score and must be
deduced from the music rather than from the words, according to Callas, there is no reason
why the singer should add her own ornaments. It is the same logic which seems to underlie
Lehmann‟s avoidance of new ornaments, as well as her overall approach. Since the two
stanzas in “Casta Diva” are set to identical music, Callas does not differentiate in her
delivery of them, and hence we are given no sense of dramatic development in the aria.
Like Lehmann‟s performance, but unlike Patti‟s and Muzio‟s, her „realization‟ of the score
seems to abolish time and to situate the listener in a contemplative world of tones.
Callas‟ „modernized‟ approach, according to which feelings are expressed “through
music rather than through the words”, is one of the central keys to her art and what
arguably establishes her as the singer who introduced modernism into Italian opera, if we
understand modernism as an approach celebrating the autonomy of the individual arts and
thus the separation of musical from verbal meaning. This autonomy, grown out of the
German-romantic tradition, was provided with optimum conditions by the 20th-century
developments in sound technology. With the gramophone, opera lovers did not need to go
the theatre; they could listen to perfected recordings in solitude and imagine their own ideal
performance, and from being a theatrical form, opera thus became an increasingly musical
form.99 It is no wonder that the sung word lost in importance in this development, since
words are, ultimately, more interhuman, and hence theatrical, than absolute music.
Just as Maria Callas represented a modernist way of singing and of listening to opera,
she represented a modernist way of approaching and studying Italian scores, whose
influence on the performance and hence indirectly on the academic reception of Italian
opera in the post-war period has been enormous. As I have tried to show in my
comparison of the four Normas, word-tone relationship, listening mode and work-concept
are not only interrelated and form – explicitly or implicitly – the basis of any dramaturgical
analysis of an operatic number; they are also, to a very large extent, dependent on the
musical choices made by the performer. The score-oriented academic approach to Italian

98Quoted in Maguire 1968: 49.

99André Tubeuf has described how Callas in fact represented this historical development, emphasizing that
her true medium was the record rather than the stage (Tubeuf 1987: 110-1).

47
opera, which has dominated in the post-war period, does not merely reflect a failure to
acknowledge this fact; it presupposes the score-oriented, or werktreue, performance style of
Lehmann, Callas and their modern followers. For those who want to understand Italian
opera in its historical context, however, there is every reason to be on guard against this
approach, since the modernist, score-oriented approach is rooted in German Romanticism.
In the following chapter I will try to show how the score-oriented approach practised by
influential opera scholars in the post-war period has tended to distort the modern view of
Mozart‟s operas.

Score-oriented approaches to Italian opera

It is significant that two of the scholars who exerted most influence on the modernist
approach to Italian opera within the field of musicology, Joseph Kerman and Carl
Dahlhaus, were Wagnerians above all. Dahlhaus published widely on Wagner, and already
the title of Kerman‟s influential history of opera from 1954, Opera as Drama, betrays its
aesthetic and ideological point of departure.
In Kerman‟s claim that the relationship or interplay between “action and music” is
“the perennial central problem of operatic dramaturgy”,100 which clearly echoes Hoffmann
and Wagner, the words are conspicuous by their absence: like Callas, who was creating a
sensation at the time he was writing his book, Kerman tried to find truth in the music
rather than in the words. With “action” he refers neither to the actor‟s movements on stage
(the word “theatre” appears only a few times in his book) nor to meanings originating with
the words, but above all, as was the case with Callas and the romanticists, to a drama
enacted within the music. With “music” he clearly means the music as it may be read in the
score, which betrays his view of performance as the mere realization of pre-existent
meanings. Since it was the performer who in Italian opera united words and tones and
thereby established the actual dramatic conflict and progression within the music, and since
Kerman searches for these in the scores alone with their numerous closed forms and
musical and verbal repetitions, he finds neither conflict nor progression – at least not in the
scores of the 18th and early 19th century – and this inevitably leads to his famously
deprecatory views of the seria and so-called bel canto operas. 18th-century opera seria is
dismissed as “a faint and tedious concert in costume”,101 in which the central dramatic role

100 Kerman 1988: 58.

101 Ibid: 40.

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is carried by “neutral, devitalized secco recitative”,102 while the operas of Rossini, Donizetti
and Bellini allegedly suffer from a similar “abysmal lack of integration of lyricism into a
sensible dramatic plan.”103 Only in the operas of Mozart and Verdi does he find
“continuity”, which he reads as “a tendency toward the more even flow of literary
drama”,104 apparently without considering that any musical and theatrical performance is
continuous by definition: repetitions cannot suspend the theatrical illusion, but they can
give us the impression that time stands still if they are not delivered differently from the
first statements. In fact, this is often the case with Lilli Lehmann and Maria Callas, but with
traditional Italian performers like Adelina Patti and Claudia Muzio who colour every
repetition differently, time never seems to stand still.
In Kerman‟s view, Mozart‟s contribution to opera consisted in bringing action “into
the musical continuity”, thereby making music “psychologically complex”,105 and as a true
modernist, he draws his musical standards from instrumental music, arguing that Mozart‟s
dramaturgy has to be “approached from the standpoint of his general musical style,” which
requires “an understanding of the workings of symphonic „drama‟ […] at its most articulate
in the sonata form.”106 That Mozart‟s operatic ensembles and finales are often more
numerous and more freely structured than those of his contemporaries – something due to
theatrical developments, as suggested above – is explained with reference to the
developmental structure of the classical sonata form which allegedly inspired the composer
to include action “within a single musical continuity”.107 “And to have replaced some of the
neutral recitative used for action in baroque opera by a genuinely musical carrier was plainly
advantageous”, as Kerman reasons: “action could now be presented on the imaginative
level of music, so as to share the emotional dignity of the aria introspections.”108 His
modernist biases are obvious: since words can have no real significance in opera, recitative
– the historical purpose of which was, in fact, to enhance the effect of the performer‟s
declamation – is judged from a strictly score-oriented perspective, leading to its rejection as
“neutral” and “devitalized”. Kerman has clearly formed his conception of recitative from
reading scores rather than from listening to dramatically gifted singers declaiming in song.

102 Ibid: 48.

103 Ibid: 121.
104 Ibid: 109.
105 Ibid: 58-9.
106 Ibid: 61.
107 Ibid: 68.
108 Ibid: 68.

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 Carl Dahlhaus‟ equally influential Dramaturgy of Italian Opera from 1988 is another
example of what conceptions of opera result from approaching performance-oriented and
declamation-based operas from a score-oriented perspective with little regard for the words
and their delivery. Like Kerman, Dahlhaus bases his theory on the hypothesis that “the
primary constituent of an opera as a drama is the music”,109 which allows him to describe
the words in Verdi‟s cabaletta of the trio “Di geloso amor sprezzato” from Il trovatore as
being “extended by poeticism, paraphrase, and repetition into a pseudo-language, which
functions only as a substratum of the music and cannot be taken literally as poetry or
dramatic text: precisely because it has no substance and says all but nothing, it makes room
for music to transform the situation into sound.”110 As in Kerman‟s view, music and words
are not fused in Italian opera, but remain two irreconcilable perceptual modes, which claim
reflects Dahlhaus‟ dualistic (and non-Italianate) stance: words are “reason” and music is
“emotion”. In effect, recitative is the unimportant vehicle of “the rational (or
pseudorational) argumentation forming the manifest content of the dialogue” in a spoken
play,111 while “the affects, the emotions, and the emotional conflicts expressed musically
onstage in the form of arias, duets, and ensembles” are “the “true” musical drama”.112 That
Dahlhaus‟ approach is fundamentally Platonic appears most unambiguously from the
following formulation: “to the extent that the action of a drama is regarded as appearance,
the purpose of which is to reveal the essence – the interior drama as a configuration of
states of mind – so the essence can be manifested in musical forms exactly as in verbal
ones.”113 The “essence” is “the internal drama” manifested in the music, while the
“appearance” is “the action of a drama”, manifested above all in the visual stage action,
since words can have no real significance in opera. The link to Hoffmann and Wagner is
obvious.
Dahlhaus admits that there are different ideas about the tone-word relationship. He
quotes Claudio Monteverdi‟s famous dictum: “let speech be the mistress of harmony, not
its servant”, and Christoph Willibald Gluck‟s preface to Alceste: “I have striven to restrict
music to its true office of serving poetry”, but as “everyone‟s favorite version” of the
antithesis, he quotes Mozart‟s famous letter of 13 October 1781 (which, as has just been
established, in fact contradicts Dahlhaus‟ claim): “In an opera the poetry simply must be
109 Dahlhaus 2003: 73.
110 Ibid: 112.
111 Ibid: 116.
112 Ibid: 73.
113 Ibid: 120.

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the music‟s obedient daughter.”114 In other words, Mozart is presented as the most
prominent example of the tradition that gives precedence to music over language, in which
respect Dahlhaus seems in full agreement with Kerman.
A score-oriented modernist, Dahlhaus does not make a single reference to an actual
singer or performance in his long essay, but as with Kerman it indirectly appears that his
theory presupposes a specific performance style when he describes it as “undoubtedly an
important factor” that “sung text is only partly understood”,115 and claims that stating “the
obvious fact that the tempo of sung text is slower than that of spoken seems no more
necessary than mentioning the difference between recitatives, which are closer to the speed
of real speech and sometimes exceed it, and closed numbers, in which time expands or
even stands still in order to give sufficient space to an expression of feeling removed from
time.”116 By taking an instrumental phrasing and slow tempi for granted – against which
Italian conductors and composers reacted throughout the 19th century – Dahlhaus betrays
that he presupposes a German-modernist performance style.
In other words, Kerman and Dahlhaus project, uncritically, a modernist performance
practice rooted in German Romanticism onto the Italian scores, and it is on this basis that
they play down the importance of the words in Italian opera. This leads me to one of the
methodological premises of this dissertation, the observation that a musical score never
lives in immaculate detachment from the way we have heard it, or imagine it to be
performed. Every silent reader of a score will automatically form in his „mind‟s ear‟ an
„internal sound picture‟, viz. an imagined performance which will often be influenced by
the musical practices of the reader‟s own time, by contemporary ideals of articulation,
texture, timbre, tempo and dynamics, and, in the case of established classics, by known
performances or recordings. Without a critical awareness of the historicity of performance
and performance practices, our readings will be shaped unconsciously by such culturally
and historically determined sound pictures, and as a consequence we become „deaf‟ to
alternative performance possibilities inherent in the musical text. Claiming to hear this and
that when listening to “Casta Diva” is not an unproblematic statement; what we hear is the
aria sung by this or that performer, or, if we are simply reading the score, the aria as if sung
by this or that performer – and our attention will mostly be guided by the intentions and
focuses of that specific performer. To a large extent, it is the singer‟s decision whether we

114 Ibid: 94.

115 Ibid: 103.
116 Ibid: 107.

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listen to the text, to the musical structure, or to her characteristic „vocality‟. Arias can be
performed in quite different ways, and in each case they will, in an important sense, be a
different piece of music. Whether we discuss or listen to opera today, however, the sound
of the Platonic-instrumental tradition seems almost inescapable. It meets us whenever we
go to the opera house, whenever we put on an opera record, and indeed whenever we open
an operatic score, for its basic principles are so deeply embedded in our very conception of
what classical singing is and should be that our internal sound pictures almost prevent us
from reading the scores in any other way. To resist the spell of this tradition therefore
requires a conscious will to read against the current, to evoke in the mind‟s ear different
theatrical spaces, different orchestras and balances, different vocal gestures and timbres,
different tempi and types of phrasing, different focuses and intentions, in short: an
altogether different conception of opera.
For the last thirty years, Mozart scholarship has seen, especially among American
musicologists, a reaction against the organic work-concept, the cult of musical autonomy
and the search for abstract musical structures in Mozart‟s operatic scores characteristic of
the romantic-modernist paradigm. While the New Musicologists have fought to resituate
Mozart‟s scores within the social, generic and stylistic contexts of the late 18 th century and
thereby expose their dependence on the dramatic and musical conventions of the time, I
have come across no attempt to include the issue of performance in a dramaturgical
analysis of Mozart‟s operas along the lines suggested by Dennis Libby, which testifies, after
all, to the haunting power of the score-oriented work-concept.
In her pioneering study Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro and Don
Giovanni from 1983, Allanbrook claimed that the rhythmic topos “lies at the base of almost
all of Mozart‟s affective vocabulary, and in opera especially.” With topos she refers primarily
to 18th-century dances along with their cultural connotations and characteristic gestures and
body language, so “the subject is explicitly the actions of human beings, and rhythmic
gestures choreograph the movements of each character in the drama.”117 The rhythmic topos
becomes the tool with which Allanbrook prises Mozart out of the hands of modernist
autonomy and situates him within the social world of his time, her studies of the individual
operas being invaluable for their uncovering of intertextual and parodic layers in the

117 Allanbrook 1983: 8.

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scores.118 She remains within the romantic-modernist paradigm, however, when claiming
that the music may overrule the words, or, as she puts it, that Mozart‟s dramatic music can
“contradict, question, interpolate, or reinterpret” the text, that it has become “the prime
mover, and Mozart a choreographer of the passions”.119
Unlike Allanbrook, John Platoff has challenged the idea that the music outdoes the
words in Mozart‟s operas, reacting specifically against the modernist notion that the
musical numbers in Mozart‟s opere buffe are structured on abstract formal principles such as
the sonata form or high-level tonal plans.120 Instead, he focuses on the dynamic and poetic
structure of the libretto as the basis of the musical structure with a “readiness to discard as
inappropriate many of our preconceptions, derived from instrumental music, about how
musical works are structured”.121 His insistence that the music should be studied as a setting
of the text indeed seems closer to the traditionally Italian view of vocal music as an
extension of the words and represents a reaction against long-held notions about musical
autonomy with roots in the 19th century. But Platoff neglects the performance aspect too,
as appears from the fact that he focuses almost exclusively on the structure of the text: on
the entrance and exit of characters, on the distinction between “active and expressive
passages”,122 on shifts in poetic metre and from dialogue to tutti. This betrays a
structuralist-typographic conception of language, and hence his disregard of the sonorous
and affective dimensions of the words which are given life by the performer. His
conclusion that the use of a long repeated section in the first finale of Don Giovanni, “which
states over and over words that do not need repeating, suggests that, in the stretta, dramatic
values are by convention subordinated to musical ones”,123 is symptomatic of a lack of
distinction between printed and sung words. Like the word repetitions in “Casta Diva”, the
repetition of the same sentence does indeed seem semantically absurd on the page, and this
is apparently what has led him to believe that repetitions constitute a reduction of language
to its purely acoustic aspect, but as Patti and the rhetoricians remind us, the same sentence
may, or rather must, acquire a new meaning every time it is uttered, which implies an
extended conception of language, which includes its oral, performative dimension and

118 For analyses of Don Giovanni with a focus on musical topoi, cf. Allanbrook 1983, 1992 & 2000; see also
Hunter 2000.
119 Allanbrook 1983: 9.
120 Cf. Platoff 1989; 1990; 1992; 1996a; 1996b; 1997.
121 Platoff 1989: 228-9.
122 Ibid: 197.
123 Ibid: 226.

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rejects the dualistic opposition of verbal content and musical form. Within the Italian
operatic tradition there was no dichotomy between dramatic and musical values: the
moment the actor entered the stage and breathed meaning and dramatic life into the music,
there was drama.
A more radically dismissive attitude towards the sung word underlies Carolyn
Abbate‟s interest in musical, i.e. half- or nonverbal, „narratives‟, prompted as it is by her
questionable, Dahlhausian observation that narrations in opera “generate for most listener-
spectators some sense of deflation, of having been abandoned by action on one hand and
music on the other”.124 Abbate creates a distinction between „reflexive‟ narrating, in which
the narrator exploits the narration or the narrative itself becomes reflexive, and „monaural‟
narrating, which is “designed to convey concisely an accurate and unfictionalized report of
real events”,125 both forms sharing the “basic technical problem, that the words are not to
be treated as mere acoustic roughage.”126 In Mozart, monaural narrating is synonymous
with “ordinary, brief, and realistic narrating, factual reportage, and the half-music of
recitative”, while reflexive narrating is “accompanied by musical transformations of many
sorts”.127 Here we again encounter the structuralist-dualistic conception of language as an
impersonal sign system clinically purged of emotions, whose musical equivalent is the dry
recitative, while all the interesting stuff is located in the orchestral music.
Arguably, Abbate goes even further than the romanticists when awarding the music a
discursive power and thus the ability to contradict the words. This is related to the
postmodernist concept of „multivalence‟, which within Mozart studies has been promoted
by Abbate and James Webster in particular. In „Dismembering Mozart‟, Abbate and Roger
Parker trace the general assumption “that, ideally, the music will correspond precisely to
verbal or staged events, and unfold in parallel to text and action; the glorious
correspondence generating operatic drama” back to the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, which
“has been privileged by one hundred years of late-nineteenth-century and twentieth-century
opera criticism, and has become our dominant code for reading opera.”128 Likewise,
Webster reacts against the search for “artistic unity in the modern sense”, which arose in
the early 19th century in connection with the romantic interest in „absolute‟ instrumental

124 Abbate 1991: 61.

125 Ibid: 63.
126 Ibid: 69.
127 Ibid: 68.
128 Abbate & Parker 1990: 188.

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music129 and “tends to entail the use of hierarchical methods, which reflect the organicist
belief that a central or fundamental entity must be replicated in the detail of all subsequent
levels,”130 or that there exists an ideal “congruence or correspondence between music on the
one hand, and text and stage action on the other”.131 The concept of „multivalence‟, on the
other hand, implies “that the various „domains‟ in an opera (plot, stage-action,
characterization, text, vocal music, orchestral accompaniment, etc.) often function more or
less independently, that their temporal patternings are not necessarily congruent and may
even be incompatible, and that the resulting complexity and lack of unity is often a primary
source of effect”, for which reason it is of particular relevance to 18 th-century „number‟
operas, “whose generally rigid distinction between recitative (or dialogue) and concerted
music is inherently multivalent.”132
Though I agree with Abbate and Webster when they reject the application of sonata
forms and large-scale tonal plans as leftovers from German romanticism, „unity‟ is a
concept far too vague to characterize the Wagnerian paradigm. Both scholars associate the
unity of text, music and stage action with the word „ideal‟, i.e. with an implicit romantic-
Platonic aesthetic, though in fact „unity‟ is not a Platonic concept at all, but an Aristotelian
one (artistic expression must be unified in order to be pleasing and effective), and therefore
much closer to Mozart‟s classicist poetics than „multivalence‟. The „organic unity‟ favoured
by Wagner reflected a hierarchical conception of music as the beginning and end of
language and of the „interior drama‟ as embedded within the musical score, everything
dominated by a unifying artistic vision, but that Mozart‟s Italian operas did not adhere to
this operatic conception does not mean that they were free of hierarchical or unifying
principles! The hierarchy and the desired unity were simply of a different kind: song was
the extension of speech, the accompaniment enhanced and supported the delivery and
movements of the actors, and the union of these dimensions occurred in performance. The
fundamental difference between the classicist-Mozartian and the romantic-Wagnerian
conception of operatic music is that in the latter the emotional and dramatic meaning of
the music is, in degree, more independent of the words, and hence of the performance.
Abbate and Webster do not address the issue of performance, however; they accept, in

129 Webster 1990: 200.

130 Ibid: 217.
131 Ibid: 200.
132 Webster 1991: 103-4.

55
other words, the privileged status allotted to the score in the 19th and 20th centuries, thus
remaining on firm Wagnerian ground.
In the light of my previous discussions of the Italian tradition, the Dapontian-
Mozartian operatic poetics and the singing style of Adelina Patti, it should be clear that
both the concept of multivalence and the notion that musical or verbal repetitions are
somehow contrary to drama and verbal communication are alien both to Mozart‟s operas
and to Italian opera in general. The latter idea seems to have been unconsciously influenced
by Wagnerian and post-war performance practice, while Abbate and Webster may have
been inspired to promote the concept of multivalence by postmodernist opera directors
like Peter Sellars who tend to treat music and visual action as separate „tracks‟ framing and
commenting on each other. This approach has little to do, however, with the way Italian
operas were originally conceived, produced and performed. In the next chapter I will argue
that the modern reception of Don Giovanni has been strongly influenced by the score-
oriented conception of opera discussed here.

56
 Modern Reception of Don Giovanni
Reading Don Giovanni backwards
Among the countless critical interpretations of Don Giovanni to have seen the light during
the 19th and the 20th centuries, it is possible to distinguish between two major traditions: a
psychological tradition and a metaphysical, or subjectivist, tradition, both of which are rooted in
the 19th century and both of which insist on finding meaning in the music rather than in the
words. The psychological interpretations were particularly popular in the 1950s, 60s and
70s, but from the 80s onwards the subjectivist interpretations have become increasingly
popular and appear to be dominant today.
As a representative of the psychological tradition we may turn to Joseph Kerman
who roundly discards Da Ponte‟s text as “an object lesson in the range of frustration that
librettos can cause a composer”,133 but since Mozart “was a dramatic genius as well as a
musical genius,” he “understood the problem that he was faced with by Da Ponte‟s
cobbled-up libretto” and “devised his own radical way of dealing with it, a strictly musical
way”, which is in full accordance with Kerman‟s oft-repeated dictum: “In opera, the
dramatist is the composer.”134 Proceeding from the central premise that an operatic
character is portrayed by musical rather than by verbal or scenic means, Kerman runs into
problems when confronted with Mozart‟s seducer, however, for “until the end almost all of
the action and musical expression goes to illuminate the people with whom he is involved,
not Don Giovanni himself.” From Kerman‟s perspective, this is simply “a dramatic
mistake”, since we in opera “trust what is done most firmly by the music”, 135 and Don
Giovanni‟s lack of a grand, „self-reflective‟ aria thus prevents the opera from meeting his
demands to music drama.
According to other critics in the psychological tradition, who follow the same score-
oriented logic but prefer a less dismissive view, Don Giovanni‟s lack of an „introspective‟
aria, his alleged lack of characterization, makes him an empty character. According to
Stefan Kunze, “Don Giovanni is from the beginning a figure who does not surrender his

133 Kerman 1988: 92.

134 Kerman 1990: 115.
135 Kerman 1988: 102.

57
identity; the born seducer, he is a Proteus who always appears in a new transformation,
who knows of no continuity in his actions, and who tries to leave no traces behind that
might bind him or put him under obligations”.136 Massimo Mila claims that he,
psychologically, “from a human viewpoint, is a void: almost a hole, an abyss at the centre
of the opera”,137 and Julian Rushton speaks of “the impossibility of penetrating a character
so mercurial, whose music says so little about his motivation”.138
In an essay written over thirty years after Opera as Drama Kerman seems willing to
reconsider Don Giovanni, though he still insists that the key to its protagonist “cannot be
found in a brilliant throwaway hidden in one of the plot‟s backwaters [i.e. in the recitatives];
it must be found in “Fin ch‟han dal vino”, “Là ci darem la mano”, the Act I Introduction,
the scene with the Commendatore – in the major scenes – or not at all.”139 He finally
decides that we “have to hear him in his famous Act I aria, the invincibly effective „Fin
ch‟han dal vino‟”,140 which Kerman describes as “ferocious” and “enraged”:141 “the special
force, the menace of this aria comes from its projection of anger with precedent”, and this
“unmotivated anger (unmotivated by the dramatic action) is anger associated with, about,
at, or in sex.”142 To Kunze, who likewise regards the aria as “the dynamic centre of the
work”, it reveals the outbreak of chaos, a fire of “consuming force”, and an “explosive
chain dance” whose “concentrated vitality and gaiety is probably without precedent in
music”,143 while Mila hears “a song of desperation, a manifestation of the tedium vitae, a
tragic confession of the impotence of an empty interior”.144 In all three cases, however, it is
imposed on this short number to uncover the void of Don Giovanni‟s character.
The other traditional interpretation, which focuses less on Don Giovanni‟s character
than on his role in the history of subjectivity and hears metaphysical, or near-metaphysical,
depths in Mozart‟s musical setting, is perhaps even more dismissive towards the words.
Thus, Julia Kristeva probably speaks for many when she claims that reading Da Ponte‟s
libretto while ignoring the music would be “a wrong-headed choice, truly difficult to

136 Kunze 1984: 355.

137 Mila 1988: 137.
138 Julian Rushton: „Don Giovanni ii‟ IN The New Grove 1992.
139 Kerman 1990: 121.
140 Ibid: 117.
141 Ibid: 118, 120.
142 Ibid: 119.
143 Kunze 1984: 413.
144 Mila 1988: 140.

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maintain rigorously”;145 Don Juan‟s seduction “found within music the direct language of
amoral eroticism” and so he was able “to resonate over the entire world as a hymn to
freedom”,146 the air resounding “with the pure jouissance of a conqueror, to be sure, but a
conqueror who knows he has no object, who does not want one, who loves neither
triumph nor glory in themselves, but the passing of both – the eternal return, infinitely
so.”147 According to Michel Poizat, who writes along similar lines, Don Giovanni holds a
special place in the history of operatic subjectivity due to the final death cry of the hero, the
“sheer, unmodulated cry, the supreme vocal manifestation”: “completely caught up in a
certain form of linguistic transgression, Don Giovanni, in defying the Commendatore‟s
injunction to recognize and obey his law, has recourse only to that supreme transgression
of speech which is the cry, which occurs here as an upsurge of the voice at the edges of this
gap in meaning.”148 In both cases, Don Giovanni‟s musical voice subverts language, as it
does with Peter Conrad who maintains that “Don Giovanni‟s existence is musical not
verbal”,149 claiming elsewhere that even though Da Ponte‟s words “may narrate a snatch-
and-grab career of sordid intrigue, Mozart‟s music hears beneath them a drama of spiritual
perdition”:150 Don Giovanni‟s music “has such sensuous immediacy that we seem to be
listening to the life-force, fleetly keeping ahead of mortality and exuberantly protesting
against extinction”.151 According to Ivan Nagel, we cannot get the hero into our heads
“because he is body, not mind”;152 to comprehend Don Giovanni, “we must open our eyes
to the story and its protagonist, open our ears to the unprecedented vocal character (fusing
mellifluence and brutality) of the Kavalierbaryton who is no cavalier”,153 the scandal of the
hero being “that the individual achieves liberation (eliminates God, expropriates the
sovereign) by opting not alone for his rational but for his animal self.”154 Like Poizat and
Nagel, Gary Tomlinson assigns to Don Giovanni a key role in the formation of a new
subjectivity, as he counts it among those of Mozart‟s operas “that push beyond absolutism
to foreshadow new possibilities for subjective autonomy”:155 He suggests that it was Don

145 Kristeva 1987: 192.

146 Ibid: 191.
147 Ibid: 193.
148 Poizat 1992: 65, 143.
149 Conrad 1990: 84.
150 Conrad 1987: 102.
151 Conrad 1990: 84.
152 Nagel 1991: 112.
153 Ibid: 113.
154 Ibid: 115-6.
155 Tomlinson 1999: 62.

59
Giovanni who in the late 18th century issued the manifesto of “a truly new voice” that
needed to be founded, “unlike the buffa voice, in a new relation to metaphysical realms”, 156
Don Giovanni leaping across, or attempting to leap across, the distance that separated
subject and divinity in the 18th century, “offering the spectacle of a subject whose hubris,
materialized as vocal prowess, might once more make metaphysics a tangible prospect.” 157
Mladen Dolar, too, takes her starting point in Don Giovanni when declaring that “only music
can reach beyond the social to nature and the gods”,158 Don Giovanni embodying “the
power of the new subjectivity,” only he is “its destructive face, pure autonomy without the
mask of equality and fraternity.”159 Focussing on the immediate, sensual and pre-linguistic
effects of Don Giovanni‟s music while playing down or rejecting the question of
characterization, these critics seem to agree that the hero mirrors the advent of the
romantic subject.
That the critics focussing on subjectivity, too, restrict themselves to examine the
music invariably leads them to the same aria which was the centre of the psychological
interpretations: “Fin ch‟han dal vino”. Thus Wolfgang Willaschek, who subscribes to the
conventional viewpoint that Mozart “mostly composed away disrespectfully in order to lay
bare a meaning behind the content of the words which can only be captured in music”,
thinks that the composer shattered Da Ponte‟s text “beyond recognition”, and that the
words “founder in the maelstrom of the music, dissolve in the incomparable aura of a
character who cannot be grasped, if not in the orgiastic moment”,160 and according to Gary
Tomlinson, it is in this very aria that Don Giovanni musters “a voice that can try to grasp,
or at least grapple with, metaphysics”.161
That the same aria can be heard as “a song of desperation, a manifestation of the
tedium vitae, a tragic confession of the impotence of an empty interior” (Mila) and as a song
of jouissance, a manifestation of “the incomparable aura of a character who cannot be
grasped, if not in the orgiastic moment”, gives food for thought. If we accept the romantic-
Platonic premise underlying both critical traditions, that Mozart‟s music outdoes the
meaning of the words, we may conclude from this difference in opinion that “Fin ch‟han
dal vino” is open to radically different interpretations; if we insist, with the Italian

156 Ibid: 63.

157 Ibid: 133-4.
158 Dolar 2002: 57.
159 Ibid: 49-50.
160 Willaschek 1995: 216.
161 Tomlinson 1999: 67.

60
Aristotelians, that the music serves as an extension of the words, we can but notice the
general arbitrariness of interpretations based on a refusal to consider the text but
apparently proceeding exclusively from a reading of the notes – “apparently”, because the
critics seem to read modern performances into the score. When Joseph Kerman says that
“Don Giovanni sings at full tilt continuously, save for one two-bar rest which allows him a
big gulp of air (or champagne) but which he manages to cede to the orchestra almost
derisively, eight bars after it was their due” and describes how a single motif (“Se trovi in
piazza” etc.) “is barked out ten times near the top of the baritone‟s tessitura”, 162 he
obviously has a specific performance or performance tradition in mind, though he fails to
acknowledge the fact. It seems to be this ghost performance, Kerman‟s internal sound
picture, which has given him the impression that the aria is about “unmotivated anger”,
just as an unacknowledged performance underlies Willaschek‟s characterization of the same
aria as an “orgiastic moment”.
As mentioned in the Introduction, virtually all interpretations presuppose one
analytical premise, which has been formulated most succinctly by Nicholas Till:

[…] everything about the music for Don Giovanni‟s damnation tells us that Mozart
intended his audience to be shattered by it. His reasons for this can only be
understood in relation to his perception of the seriousness of Don Giovanni‟s
transgressions. Very simply: the punishment fits the crime, and, for Mozart, so
serious are Don Giovanni‟s crimes that only the ultimate punishment can serve. So
only when we have understood the enormity of Giovanni‟s crimes can we assess the
appropriateness of his punishment.163

Interpreting everything in the light of the ending is equal to reading the drama backwards.
That critics have traditionally reasoned in this way appears indirectly from the fact that
many find a need to justify Don Giovanni‟s death. According to Hermann Abert, “a force
of such reality as Don Giovanni‟s life instinct can only be conquered by an even more
powerful reality, demon can only be conquered by demon”,164 and Gary Tomlinson
declares that “Giovanni‟s autonomy is such that it assumes […] the form of a singular force
or principle rather than of a variegated psyche”, which is the reason why “only heaven itself
is a match for him”.165 According to Nino Pirrotta, only Don Giovanni‟s “egotism, his
wicked obdurate pride, his utter contempt for the feelings and lives of other beings could

162 Kerman 1990: 118.

163 Till 1992: 200.
164 Abert 1956 Vol. II: 383.
165 Tomlinson 1999: 63.

61
justify the majesty and anguish of supernatural intervention and punishment.”166 And
ascertaining the absence of a concluding forgiveness scene as in Figaro, Stefan Kunze asks
rhetorically how this could be possible “in a plot governed by Don Giovanni, the “anima di
bronzo”?”167 To Massimo Mila, Don Giovanni‟s crimes “transgresses the measures of every
human law and category: his crimes „are not of this world‟, and therefore his punishment
must be the same”,168 and according to Lawrence Schenbeck, “an unvarnished Counter-
Reformation idea: that only divine intervention can banish evil” lies at the core of Don
Giovanni, according to which men are basically wicked and “must rely on salvation through
grace, or else face damnation”;169
Other critics who, with the wisdom of hindsight, point out that the French
Revolution occurred less than two years after the premiere, have seen the Stone Guest as a
representative not of the divine order, but of the upcoming bourgeois era. According to
Attila Csampai, Mozart and Da Ponte did not present Don Giovanni‟s fall as the result of
moral necessity, but “as the consequence of a historical process that eliminates the old
image of man”, his death by the Stone Guest taking the form of a mercy killing which
protects the aristocratic hero from “the hideously profane and brutal invasion of bourgeois
barbarity.”170 Anthony Arblaster, on the other hand, sides with the revolution: “the
disruption caused by this entirely egoistic figure is so damaging, so disturbing, that no
reconciliation, no truce with those he has wronged and abused, is possible.” And since
aristocratic privilege allegedly prevented pre-revolutionary society from checking,
containing or punishing such people, “only supernatural intervention can override its
abuse”, and hence the Commendatore‟s arrival “can be seen as a mythical picturesque
parallel to the Revolution itself”.171 Since the attribution of such specific political meanings
onto the Stone Guest is entirely at the authors‟ own peril, Charles Ford can view the same
figure as a theatrical counterpart of Joseph II who defended the ascendant bourgeoisie
from the feudal nobility, and who, like the Stone Guest, was “imbued with a transcendent
moral authority.”172

166 Pirrota 1980-1: 69.

167 Kunze 1984: 320.
168 Mila 1988: 35.
169 Schenbeck 1995: 8.
170 Csampai 1981: 24-5.
171 Arblaster 1992: 31.
172 Ford 1991: 122.

62
 Bernard Williams, finally, does not attribute any specific moral or political values to
the Stone Guest, but simply beholds his advent as a matter of cause and effect: he is “a
terrible and unforeseen natural consequence of Giovanni‟s recklessness”, for Don
Giovanni “was without love, compassion, and fairness, to mention only a few of the things
that he lacked”, and his “single-minded determination to live at the fullest energy, at the
extreme edge of desire, neglects consequences to himself as much as to others.”173
All these critics unblinkingly accept the seducer‟s punishment as a direct moral,
metaphysical, historical or logical consequence of his behaviour, and therefore it is most
interesting to observe that the first critic to seriously consider the justification of Don
Giovanni‟s punishment, E. T. A. Hoffmann in his 1812 short story „Don Juan‟, did not
find the relation between cause and effect as evident as his successors:

If we consider the libretto of Don Giovanni174 without imparting a deeper meaning to

it, so that only its narrative aspect comes into view, then we can scarcely hope to
understand how Mozart could conceive and execute such music for it. A jolly fellow
who loves wine and women to excess, who brazenly invites to his boisterous table
the stone image of the old father whose life he has cut short in defense of his own
paltry existence – herein, to be sure, lies very little of the poetic. Indeed, such a
person is certainly not worthy to have the infernal powers grant him the distinction
of being a prize specimen of Hell; to have the stone man, inspired by the holy spirit,
descend from his horse in order to exhort the sinner to repent at the eleventh hour;
to have, finally, the Devil send his very best henchmen to transport him in the most
gruesome fashion to the nether world.175

Clearly, Hoffmann was puzzled by the ending – unlike the modern interpreters – and his
puzzlement induced him to introduce the backward reading and to conclude that the
justification of the seducer‟s death is to be found in Mozart‟s music alone. It is the music,
which in Hoffmann‟s interpretation elevates the opera to a spiritual realm and transforms
Don Giovanni into a superman: “Nature endowed Giovanni, her favorite child, with all
that lifts man towards a closer relationship with the divine”176 Like the 20th-century
interpreters, Hoffmann locates the hidden centre of Don Giovanni‟s character in the aria
“Fin ch‟han dal vino”, his description clearly anticipating modern readings by Kerman,
Kunze, Mila and others:

173 Williams 1994: 88, 90.

174 In the German original, the opera and its title hero are referred to as “Don Juan” throughout.
175 Hoffmann 1945: 512.
176 Ibid: 512.

63
 In the wild aria, Fin ch’han dal vino, Don Giovanni openly reveals his inner, lacerated
character, his disdain for the little people around him who exist only to satisfy his
desire to interfere with their humdrum deeds and impulses. Here his eyebrow
muscles twitch more violently than before.177

In his no less influential interpretation in Enten-Eller (Either/Or), written thirty years later,
the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard betrays between the lines that he had been
equally puzzled by the ending, but he, too, ended up opting for a backward reading:

If Don Juan is interpreted ideally as force, as passion, then must heaven itself be set
in motion. If this is not the case, it is ill-advised to use such strong measures. The
Commandant need not in truth have troubled himself, since it is far easier to have
Mr. Paaske throw Don Juan into a debtor‟s prison.178

Kierkegaard reasons exactly as Hoffmann did: since the Stone Guest is taken for a divine
emissary, Don Giovanni must be more than a common rake in order to deserve his
punishment. The need for this „more‟, which led Hoffmann to furnish the seducer with a
Faustian subtext, leads Kierkegaard to interpret him “ideally as force, as passion”: Don
Giovanni is not simply a character, but “constantly hovers between being an idea, that is to
say, energy, life – and being an individual”, and this hovering is “the musical trembling.” 179
As with Hoffmann, in other words, the „more‟ is attributed to the music, and as with
Hoffmann, “Fin ch‟han dal vino” is made the dynamic centre of the opera, this being the
logical consequence of conceiving of Don Giovanni as “absolutely musical”:180

Here is the clear indication of what it means to say that the essence of Don Juan is
music. He reveals himself to us in music, he expands in a world of sound. Someone
has called this the champagne aria, and this is undeniably very descriptive. But that
which especially needs to be noted is that it does not stand in an accidental
relationship to Don Juan. His life is like this, effervescent as champagne. And just as
the bubbles in this wine ascend and continue to ascend, while it seethes in its own
heat, harmonious in its own melody, so the lust for enjoyment sounds through the
primitive seething which is his life. Therefore, that which gives this aria dramatic
significance is not the situation, but the fact that the keynote of the opera here
sounds and resounds in itself.181

Of course, it is most striking how differently Hoffmann and Kierkegaard interpret this aria,
considering that they both conceive of it as Don Giovanni‟s central moment: to Hoffmann,

177 Ibid: 507.

178 Kierkegaard 1959 Vol. I: 111. In Johan Ludvig Heiberg‟s Danish adaptation of Molière‟s Dom Juan, Hr.
Paaske corresponds to M. Dimanche (Ibid Vol. I: 449 (note)).
179 Ibid Vol. I: 91.
180 Ibid Vol. I: 101.
181 Ibid Vol. I: 133-4.

64
Don Giovanni is presented here as “wild” and “lacerated”, while to Kierkegaard he is as
“effervescent as champagne”: the same contrast which is found today between the
psychological and the subjectivist interpretations.
The influence of Hoffmann and Kierkegaard on Don Giovanni‟s history of reception
has been enormous: as already suggested by these quotations, it was who Hoffmann
launched the tradition for psychological readings of the opera, Kierkegaard who launched
the tradition for metaphysical-subjectivist readings. But they also introduced the backward
reading, according to which the inner logic of the drama is attributed to the music. It is
important to note, however, that the two 19th-century authors actively chose this reading
because the libretto alone – as they reasoned – did not make sense: Don Giovanni‟s death
was not justified by the text.
What was a revolutionary analytical choice at the beginning of the 19 th century,
however, is a commonplace today: as appears from the above discussion, modern score-
oriented interpreters routinely refer to “Fin ch‟han dal vino” when justifying Don
Giovanni‟s infernal punishment. As suggested by Kerman‟s reading of the aria, these
interpretations rely on modern performance practice, but later I will show that Mozart
wanted the aria performed in a manner that positively contradicts the readings of
Hoffmann, Kierkegaard and their followers.
This leads to the crucial question whether Da Ponte and Mozart really wanted us to
read the opera backwards. Till paraphrases the closing lines of the libretto, “the death of
the faithless equals their life”,182 but is this moral, sung by Don Giovanni‟s enemies, really a
judgment to be taken at face value? Surely, in this world, the deaths of the wicked do not
always equal their lives, nor are harsh punishments reserved for them. Is it not possible,
rather, that reading the drama backwards was exactly what the authors did not want us to
do? That their intention was, on the contrary, to expose the absurd disproportion between
Don Giovanni‟s actual offences and the atrocity of his death?

Reading Don Giovanni forwards

When scanning the vast critical literature on the opera from this perspective, one is struck
by the fact that practically no one has taken this viewpoint until quite recently. In the essay
„The figures of hell in the Don Giovanni libretto‟, which must count as the most meticulous

182“[…] e de‟ perfidi la morte / alla vita è sempre ugual.” (1430-1). All quotations from the libretto are taken
from Da Ponte 1995.

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and perceptive close-reading of Da Ponte‟s libretto to date, Felicity Baker begins with the
beginning, scrutinizes the verbal imagery of the text and re-evaluates each of its dramatic
situations with startling results. The reason why Felicity Baker‟s moral defence of the
seducer is probably the first ever, despite the fact that no other opera has received so much
critical attention during the centuries as Don Giovanni, is apparently that she, as a literary
scholar, systematically avoids the one issue on which most others have thrown themselves
in the first instance: Mozart‟s music.
Since I later intend to show how the original production of Don Giovanni supported
Baker‟s reading in several important respects, it seems necessary to sum up the most
important of her points. Baker states that the question of whether the seducer deserves
damnation hangs not on the vehemence of his punishment (or on his music, we might
add), but “on our judgment of how violent he is”, the indications that he is not
fundamentally violent being so insistent “that we must conclude that composer and poet
were alert to the risk of their [producers‟] distortion of their viewpoint and did what they
could to ward it off.”183
The duel with Donna Anna‟s father is an obvious case in point. Leporello and
Donna Anna, neither of whom has actually seen the duel, later describe the death of the
Commendatore as “murder”,184 and the other characters, who are “ever ready to believe the
worst of the seducer”,185 never question this assumption. But Baker emphasizes that this is
not what happens on stage. When the Commendatore enters in the opening scene, he
instantaneously assumes, probably wrongly, that Don Giovanni has raped his daughter, and
then challenges him to fight: Don Giovanni refuses, the Commendatore accuses him of
cowardice, and Don Giovanni acquiesces unwillingly to the duel. He thus speaks in full
accordance with the truth when claiming afterwards that his opponent “wanted to be
injured”,186 and as Baker reminds us, death in a duel, “particularly when the victim initiated
the challenge and insisted on fighting,” is not murder.187
Throughout the opera, Don Giovanni is – like Don Ottavio – characterized as a
“sword-rattler, a characteristic of men of his class and period”,188 and – like all the other

183 Baker 2005: 98.

184 “LEPORELLO: […] sforzar la figlia ed ammazar il padre.” (54); “DONNA ANNA: Ah l‟assassino / mel
trucidò.” (67-8); “DONNA ANNA: […] Quegli è il carnefice / del padre mio.” (452-3) (my italics).
185 Baker 2005: 99.
186 “L‟ha voluto, suo danno.” (55).
187 Baker 2005: 99.
188 Ibid: 99.

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male characters – he shows “a tendency to threaten violence when provoked”.189 But
though the other characters insist on calling him an assailant, he is not actually violent, and
Baker lists all the examples in the opera when he abstains from violence. When Masetto
objects to his seduction of Zerlina in I.viii, Don Giovanni merely “shows him his sword”
(“if you don‟t leave at once without further objections, watch out, Masetto, for you‟ll regret
it”),190 and when he in I.xvi discovers the peasant in the alcove where Zerlina has hidden
him because she expects Don Giovanni to become violent (“if he finds you, poor thing,
you don‟t know what he might do”),191 he simply becomes “a little confused”192 and then
invites the couple to his party. During the contredanse in the ballroom scene, he “leads
Zerlina towards a door and makes her enter almost by force”193 (my italics), and when he
emerges from another door shortly afterwards, sword in hand and holding Leporello by the
arm – while Don Ottavio points a gun at him – he “pretends to want to wound him
[Leporello], but the sword will not leave the sheath”194 (my italics).195 Again, the other
characters are quick with harsh judgments: everyone decries the incident that appears to be
no rape at all as “the horrendous and black misdeed”,196 and Leporello accuses Don
Giovanni for “almost slaughtering me”, to which Don Giovanni, with some justification,
retorts that it was merely “a practical joke.”197 In the comical disguise scene in II.ii, Don
Giovanni jokingly “points a pistol at Leporello‟s nose”198 in order to make him partake in
the deception of Donna Elvira, and in the following scene he “pretends to kill someone with
his sword”199 (my italics) in order to chase the mock-amorous couple away. As Baker
observes, none of these devices warrants the name of violence: “from the conclusion of the
duel, in the first moments of the opera, Don Giovanni is dangerous only to himself.” 200 In
the cemetery scene, having heard the mysterious voice, he “draws his sword and searches
the cemetery here and there, sometimes striking the statues”,201 which immediately prompts

189 Ibid: 100.

190 “se subito / Mostrandogli la spada. senza altro replicar non te ne vai, / Masetto guarda ben, ti pentirai.” (293-
5).
191 “se ti trova, poveretto, / tu non sai quell che può far.” (614-5).
192 “Un poco confuso.” (649).
193 “Ballando conduce Zerlina presso una porta e la fa entrare quasi per forza.” (729).
194 “Conduce seco per un braccio Leporello e finge di voler ferirlo, ma la spada non esce dal fodero.” (742).
195 Baker 2005: 100-1.
196 “[…] il misfatto orrendo e nero” (754).
197 “LEPORELLO: […] quasi ammazzarmi! / DON GIOVANNI: Va‟ che sei matto! / Fu per burlar.” (777-

9).
198 “Mette presso il naso una pistola a Leporello.” (865).
199 “Finge di uccider qualcheduno colla spada alla mano etc.” (888).
200 Baker 2005: 101.
201 “Mette mano alla spada, cerca qua e là pel sepolcreto dando diverse percosse alle statue etc.” (1152).

67
an indignant admonition from the statue about respecting the peace of the dead, though
this too hardly counts as a violent act. As contrasts, we may point to the Commendatore,
Masetto and Don Ottavio who all want Don Giovanni dead, which seems to imply that the
other male characters are more violent than the seducer.
According to Baker, the beating of Masetto in II.v, which is “usually staged today as
the great opportunity for displaying the seducer‟s violence,” is a key scene that “actually
represents his non-violence.”202 Disguised as Leporello, Don Giovanni encounters Masetto
who wants to kill him. Don Giovanni asks if it “would not be enough to break his bones
and smash his back”, but Masetto insists: he wants “to kill him” and “tear him to pieces.”203
Having tricked his musket and pistol from him, Don Giovanni then “beats Masetto with
the flat side of his sword” (“this is for the pistol… this for the musket…”) and leaves while
“threatening him with the weapons” (“Shut up or I‟ll kill you: this is for killing him… this
is for tearing him to pieces…”).204 In the following scene, Zerlina quickly ascertains that
her bridegroom is not hurt “so badly”205 – which does not prevent her from declaring later
that the assailant “cruelly maltreated my Masetto”.206 Pointing to the latter‟s punishment as
a parallel to Don Giovanni‟s in the supper scene, Baker concludes that “Masetto‟s plan to
murder Don Giovanni is far in excess of the humane though insulting lesson he receives,
the mild chastisement of the beating; thus the beating scene serves to demonstrate, by
contradistinction, that Don Giovanni‟s death by torture is far in excess of the disturbance
he has caused in his society and the pain he has inflicted on women.”207
Baker argues that the principle behind Don Giovanni‟s death is the Dantean concept
of contrapasso, the idea that the infernal punishment fits the crime, or, to quote the opera‟s
moral once more, that “the death of the faithless equals their life.” Thus all the seducer‟s
offences come down on his head in the supper scene: not only the duel and the beating of
Masetto, but also Don Giovanni‟s transgressions as a seducer. In I.ix he had seduced
Zerlina with the false promise of a marriage pledge:

202 Baker 2005: 103.

203 “DON GIOVANNI: E non ti basteria rompergli l‟ossa… / fracassargli le spalle… / MASETTO: No no,
voglio ammazzarlo, / vo‟ farlo in cento brani…” (942-5).
204 “DON GIOVANNI […] Batte col rovescio della spada Masetto. questa per la pistola… / questo per il

moschetto… […] Minacciandolo colle armi alla mano. Taci o t‟uccido: / questa per ammazzarlo… / questa per
farlo in brani…” (950-5).
205 “Via via non è gran mal, se il resto è sano.” (972). In a discussion of 18th-century weapons, Baker suggests

that being beaten with the flat side of a light walking sword of the kind Don Giovanni was probably meant to
carry “would inflict no physical injury” (Baker 2005: 103).
206 “Dunque quello sei tu che il mio Masetto / poco fa crudelmente maltrattasti?” (1053-4).
207 Baker 2005: 104.

68
 Là ci darem la mano, There we will join hands,
là mi dirai di sí; (337-8) there you shall give me your yes;

But in the supper scene the image of the false promise recurs:

Dammi la mano in pegno. (1355) Give me your hand in pledge.

The Stone Guest invites Don Giovanni to supper, but his counter-invitation turns out to
be an act of deception: instead Don Giovanni is sent to hell. Everything seems to follow an
inexorable divine logic, but as Baker points out, “we cannot fail to observe an imbalance
between the causes and the effects that make up the contrapasso: the seducer‟s misdeed or
moral fault may be more or less real, more or less grave, but the punishment of death by
torture seems on the whole too severe.”208
By exposing this imbalance, by characterizing Don Giovanni as a young man who is
“genuinely funny and usually frank and truthful, when not seducing someone”,209 but who
suffers an undeserved “death by torture”, Baker indicates that his condemnation is human,
not divine, that the religious imagery cloaks a social revenge, the supernatural aspect
serving “as a figure of the superior force of the social group over the sum of the individuals
who are its members.”210 The events do not follow a religious, moral or natural logic, but a
“persecutory structure” that “progressively dominates the work as one social force after
another identifies the seducer and his tricks as the incarnation of evil, the cause of all their
troubles; this structure is based on a „diabolical causality‟.”211
Da Ponte tells the Don Juan story in its traditional form, but as a poet of the secular
Enlightenment he “erects a huge question mark above it.”212 For in the late 18th-century
context, in which the drama is set, seduction could be recognized as a two-way relationship:
“even though women‟s equality remains to be won, women are conscious subjects who
may participate actively in any sexual exchange that is not rape.”213 From a modern gender
perspective, this makes the scapegoating of Don Giovanni particularly dubious, and so
Baker ends her essay with a broadside at the modern productions that follow this path:

208 Ibid: 94.

209 Ibid: 101.
210 Ibid: 94.
211 Ibid: 100.
212 Ibid: 95. Baker does not discuss the libretto‟s relation to the traditional Don Juan story, but announces

that she is “preparing a monograph, Don Giovanni’s Reasons, which explores the tension between the verbal
text of the Mozart-Da Ponte opera and the force of the myth.” (Ibid: 83 (note)).
213 Ibid: 105.

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“Translating on stage a highly critical reworking of our culture‟s myth of human sexuality,
as if the opera itself were nothing but that myth, present-day productions appear to be
willing to condemn us beyond recall to an appalling definition of our sexual dimension, in
which women are eternal victims of the violent man, the violent man is eternally punished,
and that is the best our society can do to improve human life.”214
The solution of the other readings quoted above was to magnify Don Giovanni‟s
offences, or rather to attribute to them a covert significance in order to justify, or at least
explain, his fate. Naturally, this is bound strongly to affect the general atmosphere of the
piece: the realistic portrayal of 18th-century social interactions in which the Stone Guest
figures as grotesque incursion has to be elevated to a „higher‟ level, whether symbolic,
allegorical, or metaphysical. Don Giovanni cannot simply be an ordinary rake, but must be
viewed as half idea, half man, or at least as a rebel against God or society, though nothing
he does „on the surface‟ merits the name of blasphemous or rebellious action. As a
consequence, the duel with the Commendatore, the seductions of Donna Anna and
Zerlina, the trick played on Donna Elvira, the beating of Masetto, the supper invitation to
the statue and the final refusal to repent need to have a secret, serious meaning.
The historical sources all agree that Don Giovanni was originally intended as a comedy:
it was written for an Italian buffo company, Mozart entered it into the catalogue of his
works as an “opera Buffa”,215 and the poet Lorenzo Da Ponte called it a dramma giocoso
(comic drama).216 But if Don Giovanni‟s offences are taken too seriously, they cannot be
truly comical.
E. T. A. Hoffmann and Søren Kierkegaard searched for dramatic logic in Da Ponte‟s
libretto and found none because there is none. Determined as they were on finding in Don
Giovanni a romantic tragedy or a metaphysical parable, respectively, it did not occur to
them, however, that the missing logic was intended as a grotesque-comical effect. Instead,
they searched for the missing link in Mozart‟s music and thereby launched the idea that
operatic music can convey a drama independently from the words. This idea prompted Dr.

214 Ibid: 106.

215 Plath & Rehm: „Zum vorliegenden Band‟ IN Mozart 1968: ix.
216 Already thirty years ago, Frits Noske showed that this designation was given to unambiguously comical

works in Mozart‟s time (Noske 1977: 78). Nevertheless, a lot of ink has been spilled on its explication since
then, especially by critics attempting to pull Don Giovanni in the direction of tragedy. Thus, Daniel Heartz
argues that it signifies an amalgam of comedy and heroic drama, “inasmuch as dramma by itself signified at the
time the grander, heroic world of opera seria, while „giocare‟ means to play or frolic, also to deceive or make
fool of” (Heartz 1979: 993), and this alleged ambiguity permits him to interpret Don Giovanni as fundamentally
a tragedy when he claims in a later article that the “basic framework is tragic, and [that] no amount of comic
relief can change that” (Heartz 1990: 174).

70
Feuerstein to exclaim that “When Mozart composed operas, he became our poet”, against
which notion Da Ponte reacted, insisting that Mozart was aware of the importance of
poetry, as his letters indeed tell us that he was.
The reasons why the dramaturgical intentions behind Don Giovanni could have been
misunderstood so radically, however, are complex; they are also closely related to the fact
that the cultural image of Don Juan underwent a significant change around the turn of the
19th century. In the following chapters I will take a closer look of Da Ponte‟s and Mozart‟s
take on this famous figure.

71
 The Making of a Musical Myth
The original reception of Don Giovanni in Germany
In Oper und Drama, Richard Wagner characterized Lorenzo Da Ponte as “a frivolously
bright opera-text-maker”,217 explaining Mozart‟s apparently awkward literary choices with
the fact that he “was wholly and entirely musician, and nothing but musician”.218 Nothing
was more typical of his career as an opera composer, therefore, “than the arbitrariness with
which he approached his work: it so little occurred to him to think about the opera‟s
underlying aesthetic scruples that he rather, with the greatest unconcern, commenced the
composition of every opera text imposed on him, not even worrying whether the text
would be rewarding for him as a pure musician or not.”219 The 19th century gave birth to
the myth of Mozart as an „eternal child‟ living in a world of tones – a myth perpetuated, it
seems, by Milos Forman‟s Amadeus – and there is, of course, no need to think too long
about the literary choices of children, however brilliant. Furthermore, German romanticists
tended to think of 18th-century opera composers as enslaved by conventions, an idea which
underlies Wagner‟s assertions that Mozart‟s librettos had been “imposed” on him, and, as
he said elsewhere, that he “had not finished” Don Giovanni, that he had had “to work too
much in a jiffy”, and that “too much convention” therefore still stuck in him.220 Anything
that could not be explained with reference to romantic aesthetics in the opera could be
explained with reference to stifling Italian conventions.
As for Don Giovanni, the idea that Mozart would set whatever text laid before him to
divine music arose already in his own lifetime, with the first productions of the opera in
Germany. But in this context, it is important to understand that the Germans did not get to
know Don Giovanni as an Italian opera buffa, but as a strongly readapted German singspiel
(with spoken dialogue instead of recitatives) in which the drama had been turned in the
direction of farce. Significantly, Goethe, Hoffmann, Kierkegaard and Wagner, even if they
knew Da Ponte‟s original libretto, had only, or at least originally, seen the opera performed

217 Wagner 2000: 38.

218 Ibid: 37.
219 Ibid: 37.
220 Cosima Wagner‟s diary entries on 29 May 1870 and 11 March 1878 (Cosima Wagner: Die Tagebücher,

Munich & Zürich 1976, Vol. I: 236; Vol. II: 56, quoted in Voss 1997: 1472).

72
as a singspiel, which appears to have influenced their impressions in important ways. When
the opera was finally produced with recitatives and in translations closer to Da Ponte‟s
original in Germany, the romantic interpretation was too firmly established for it to make
any difference.
These were the reactions to the premiere in Mainz, which took place on 13 March
1789, presenting the first singspiel version and the first production mounted without the
composer‟s supervision:

Much pomp and noise for the general public; insipid and jejune stuff for the
educated section! The music too, although great and harmonious, is difficult and
artificial rather than pleasing and popular […]221

A legend in Father Kochem‟s vein, to which the glorious – if here and there too
artful – music by Mozart is about as well suited as Raphael‟s manner to the ideas of a
Teniers or a Calot. But although the whole is a monkish farce, I must admit that the
scene in the churchyard filled me with horror. Mozart seems to have learnt the
language of ghosts from Shakespear. – A hollow, sepulchral tone seemed to rise from
the earth; it was as though the shades of the departed were seen to issue from their
resting-places.222

The piece will soon be past its term here. The music is not popular enough to arouse
general interest.223

Evidently, the critics were puzzled at the contrast between the farcical text and the
sophisticated music, and this puzzlement formed the basis of the romantic and modernist
(and indeed postmodernist) myth of Mozart as indifferent towards the texts: his music
began to live its own life.
Whereas the reviewer of the Bonn premiere, which took place on 13 October 1789,
simply noted that the music “greatly pleased the connoisseurs”, while the action “was not
liked”,224 the Hamburg premiere, which took place on 27 October 1789, elicited the most
thorough review of Don Giovanni written in Mozart‟s lifetime. The astonishment at the
combination of frivolous action and complex music, to which the dramatist and
dramaturge Johann Friedrich Schink gives voice, is strikingly unknown to modern critics. It
seems from Schink‟s critique, furthermore, that the suppression of the „sympathetic‟ view
of Don Giovanni began with the singspiel adaptations of the opera:

221 Dramaturgische Blätter, Frankfurt am Main 1789, Vol. II, 3rd Quarter, No. 9: 131ff, quoted in Deutsch 1990:
336.
222 Ibid Vol. II, 1st Quarter, No. 8: 116, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 341.
223 Ibid Vol. II, 1st Quarter, No. 8: 116, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 341.
224 Theater-Kalender für 1791, Gotha: 199, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 384.

73
 According to the operatic ideal which the Italian poets have given us in their musical
works, and according to the impression which these products of the Italian mind
have made on our public, a more fit and proper subject for a Singspiel could hardly
have been found than this originally Spanish absurdity which Herr Mozart has
endeavoured to glorify with his excellent composition. Don Juan combines all the
nonsensical, extravagant, contradictory and unnatural features that ever qualified a
poetic absurdity of a human being for the role of an operatic hero. He is the
stupidest, most senseless creature imaginable, the misbegotten product of a crazed
Spanish imagination. The most dissolute, base and profligate fellow, whose life is an
uninterrupted series of infamies, seductions of the innocent and murders. A
hypocrite and atheist, a dissipated voluptuary and crafty betrayer, a double-dealer and
a fop; the most treacherous and malicious beast, a scoundrel without conscience and
without honour. He commits the greatest abominations with a coldness and
equanimity as though he were drinking a glass of water, fells a man as though he
were going to a ball, and seduces and betrays female virtue as though he were taking
a pinch of snuff. And all these horrors amuse him, all these bestialities are great sport
for him. At any spoken play such a caricature would be chased off the stage with
oranges and nutshells and hissed into the wings; but in an opera he is found
uncommonly entertaining, and as he is a personality on the musical stage, his
infamies are considered delightful things, and provoke laughter and pleasure. […] A
stone statue sings, receives an invitation to dinner, which it accepts, dismounts from
its horse and duly arrives at the right moment. Delicious! A pity it does not eat as
well, for only then would the fun be complete! Some honest man among the
spectators thought this singing statue without rhyme or reason, but probably owing
to his sheer lack of operatic theory. Those acquainted with that theory will hardly
find it so. I for one would hardly have been surprised even if the stone guest‟s stone
horse had sung, or indeed shown itself off in an aria di bravura. […] Now, if Don Juan,
for all these praiseworthy characteristics of a true operatic hero, did not after all make
the universal fortune which his qualities had led one to expect, the fault is hardly to
be found in the subject but – may the artist forgive my frankness! – in Herr Mozart’s
composition. What induced him to write such unoperatic, beautiful, great and noble
music for such a truly Italian operatic theme? Is such magnificent, majestic and
powerful song really stuff for ordinary opera-lovers, who only bring their ears to the
Singspiel and leave their hearts at home? […] The beauty, greatness and nobility of the
music will never appeal anywhere to more than a handful of the elect. It is not music
to every one‟s taste, merely tickling the ear and letting the heart starve.225

Clearly, Mozart‟s music was considered „high art‟ for the connoisseurs due to its complexity
and its appeal to the emotions. The noble „German‟ music, however, was experienced as
incompatible with the trivial „Italian‟ subject matter with its farcical improbabilities and
frivolous morality. German nationalism had begun to shape the general view of the opera
and pave the way for a general devaluation of the words, both in this specific opera and –
since Mozart was soon to be saluted as the supreme German opera composer – in opera in

225 Dramaturgische Monate, Schwerin 1790, Vol. II: 320-30, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 353-6.

74
general: a direct line goes from Schink over Wagner to Kerman. It appears, furthermore,
from the second Mainz review‟s comparison of the libretto to one of the Capuchin friar
Martin von Kochem‟s naïve religious tales and from Schink‟s ridicule of the Stone Guest,
which contrast with virtually all romantic and modern readings of the opera, that Don
Giovanni‟s infernal punishment was not taken seriously as a satisfactory moral ending. This
appears no less clearly from the reviews of the Berlin premiere which took place on 20
December 1790:

Whim, caprice, pride, but not the heart created Don Juan, and we would rather admire
his [Mozart‟s] great musical potentialities in an oratorio or some other solemn piece of
church music, than in his Don Juan, the end of which is tolerably analogous to a
depiction of the Last Judgment in which the graves burst open like soap-bubbles, the
mountains split and the Lord‟s Avenging Angel blows the awakening on his dread
trumpet.226

The composition of this Singspiel is fine, but very artificial here and there, difficult
and overloaded with instruments. The contents of the play are the old, well-known
subject, which pleases the general public only because of the burlesque jests of
Leporello, whilom Jack Pudding, and of the stone Commendatore on horseback
[…]227

[…] full of the highest anticipations I went, to see and hear a musical drama in
which, to my mind, the eye was feasted, the ear enchanted, reason offended, modesty outraged, and
virtue and sensibility trampled upon by vice. […] many may regret that the excellent Mozart
was not more careful in his choice. I myself could not refrain from wishing, “Oh
hadst thou not thus squandered the power of thy spirit! had thy sentiments been
more in harmony with thine imagination and not led thee to take such unclean steps
to greatness! How more deeply would thy song and thy harmony penetrate into the
souls of thy hearers, were they not constantly arrested by the thought of the ignoble
text! No, beloved man! Be less cruel in future towards thine amiable Muses! Seek to
extend the halls of thy fame upon pillars before which the upright man is pleased to
tarry and which the honest maiden may pass without a blush! What could it avail thee
if thy name were to be inscribed in letters of diamond upon a golden tablet – and this
tablet were to hang on a pillory of shame?”228

The audience of the Munich premiere, finally, which took place on 7 August 1791 after the
Bavarian Elector‟s overruling of the censor‟s prohibition of the opera, agreed with the rest:
“The music pleased extraordinarily; the libretto was found tasteless.”229

226 Chronik von Berlin, 5 February 1791, Vol. IX, No. 201: 132f, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 380.
227 Journal des Luxus und der Moden, Weimar, February 1791: 76, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 381.
228 Chronik von Berlin, 9 April 1791, No. 212: 316-20; 16 April 1791, Nos. 213-4: 327; 14 May 1791, Vol. IX,

Nos. 221-2: 452-4, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 391-2.

229 Allgemeines Theaterjournal, Frankfurt and Mainz 1792, Vol. I, No. 1: 62, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 399.

75
 Obviously, audiences wondered deeply why an elitist composer like Mozart, whose
music was often considered “difficult” and “artful” by others than the connoisseurs, had
chosen to set such a frivolous libretto fraught with improbabilities. Accordingly, the
reviews clearly contradict Wagner‟s judgment that “too much convention” still stuck in
Mozart when he wrote Don Giovanni. Quite on the contrary, the 18th-century audiences
clearly expected something which they did not get and reacted with disbelief to Mozart‟s
choice of libretto. Instead of concluding, therefore, that Mozart was a slave of
contemporary conventions, or that he was devoid of literary taste, maybe we should
conclude that quite the opposite was the case: that Mozart had very good reasons for
choosing this controversial subject matter, but that his contemporaries failed to understand
why, partly because Don Giovanni‟s dramatic intricacies were just as “difficult” and “artful”
as the music, and also appealed mostly to “a handful of the elect”, and partly because the
play with guilt and sympathies which Felicity Baker has uncovered in the original libretto
was drowned in the farcical incidents and supernatural spectacles of the German singspiel
adaptations.
Always proud of his own craftsmanship, Mozart indeed appears to have been
particularly interested in pleasing the connoisseurs, though he once assured his father, who
was worried that he might forget “what is called the popular taste” in Idomeneo, that “there
is music in my opera for all kinds of people, but for the long-eared.”230 Two years later he
had said of two newly composed clavier concertos that they were “a happy medium
between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and
natural, without being vapid”; in some passages only the connoisseurs could derive
satisfaction, “but these passages are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to
be pleased, though without knowing why.” Mozart did not consider it necessary to write
music “which is so inane that a fiacre could sing it”, but he objected to music “so
unintelligible that it pleases precisely because no sensible man can understand it”.231 This all
bears witness to Mozart‟s desire to communicate – often on more than one level – and to
his emphasis on the respectability and nutritive contents of genuine entertainment.
If this was Mozart‟s view of music, it would have been strangely inconsistent if he
did not take the same view of the librettos he set. When Da Ponte first met Mozart, he
“readily perceived that the greatness of his genius demanded a subject which should be

230 Letter to his Father of 16 December 1780.

231 Letter to his Father of 28 December 1782.

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ample, elevated and abounding in character and incident”,232 and Mozart‟s wish to set
Beaumarchais‟ scandal-ridden comedy Le Mariage de Figaro, which had been banned from
the stage by the Emperor, is certainly an indication that he did not aim merely at pleasing
the multitude. The opera indeed seems to have caused some political stir: in the Wiener
Realzeitung of 11 July 1786 one spectator observed, with a quotation from Beaumarchais‟
Barbier de Séville, that “What is not allowed to be said these days, is sung”,233 and protests were
heard when the opera was chosen for performance in the presence of the newly-wed
Archduchess Maria Theresia in Prague: Mozart described the thwarted attempt of “one
very high and mighty” lady to prevent the performance,234 and Count Karl von Zinzendorf
found that Figaro was “not at all appropriate” for the fêting of a newly-married woman.235
Social, dramatic and musical challenge went hand in hand in Figaro, and so Da Ponte could
speak in his preface to the libretto of the joint desire of poet and composer “to offer as it
were a new kind of spectacle to a public of so refined a taste and such just
understanding.”236
As for Don Giovanni, the reason why the German theatres had chosen to translate Da
Ponte‟s sophisticated comedy into a farce was that they, like the modern producers
criticized by Felicity Baker, had mistaken “a highly critical reworking of our culture‟s myth
of human sexuality” for “nothing but that myth”. Only the Don Juan story had not really
attained the status of „myth‟ around 1790, but was referred to rather as “the old, well-
known subject, which pleases the general public only because of the burlesque jests of
Leporello, whilom Jack Pudding, and of the stone Commendatore on horseback”. The
subject which the cultured reviewers spoke of with such ill-concealed disgust, but which
the “general public” found “uncommonly entertaining” due to its “pomp and noise”, was
originally a commedia dell’arte scenario of Spanish origin which in Italy went under the title of
Il convitato di pietra (The Stone Guest) and which had formed the basis of several opere buffe.
In Germany, the play was known as Der steinerne Gast, or Das steinerne Gastmahl, and it was
known primarily from low-class entertainments such as puppet shows, pantomimes and
popular farces. If read closely, it appears that Schink‟s criticism of Don Juan is not really
directed at the protagonist of Mozart‟s opera, but at the protagonist of “this originally
Spanish absurdity” who “combines all the nonsensical, extravagant, contradictory and
232 Da Ponte 1929: 129.
233 Quoted in Deutsch 1990: 278.
234 Letter to Gottfried von Jacquin of 15 October 1787.
235 Diary entry of 19 October 1787, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 301.
236 IN Deutsch 1990: 274.

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unnatural features that ever qualified a poetic absurdity of a human being for the role of an
operatic hero.” In other words, the critics made no distinction between the conventional
Steinerne Gast and Da Ponte‟s treatment, assuming that the libretto was simply another noisy
variation on the hackneyed theme. This appears indirectly from the fact that Friedrich
Schröder, whose adaptation and translation of the libretto was used for the Hamburg and
Berlin productions,237 had changed Da Ponte‟s original title into Don Juan, oder der steinerne
Gast. In other words, Da Ponte‟s “highly critical reworking” was transformed back into the
traditional burlesque version of the story while Mozart‟s highly complex music was
retained. No wonder, in short, that the spectators were puzzled!
In the late 18th century the story of Don Juan and the Stone Guest did not yet enjoy
the cultural status which it was to enjoy in the 19th century – mainly due, ironically, to the
popularity of Mozart‟s opera. Don Juan was a myth only in the sense that Tarzan or King
Kong are myths today: he was a fictional figure of fairly recent origin, fundamentally
associated with mass entertainments devoid of moral, intellectual or psychological
implications, who could, however, be treated seriously at will. It was part of the anti-
classicist tendency of Romanticism to have taken figures from popular culture such as Don
Juan and Faust, to have elevated them to the level of classical myths, and to have imbued
them with „ideal‟ meanings. Arguably, one fundamental reason why Da Ponte‟s dramaturgy
has been misunderstood is the radical change which the reception of the Don Juan story
underwent at the turn of the 19th century: modern producers and critics have tended to
adopt the romantic-idealist view of myths, such as Kerman who claims that “the conflict
between the glamour and the irrevocability of sin” is inherent in the Don Juan “legend”.238
In order to get a grasp of Da Ponte‟s and Mozart‟s approach to the traditional story
of Don Juan, it is necessary to understand the intertextual knowledge which their treatment
presupposed, and we should therefore take a look at the way the subject was traditionally
presented and received. Indeed, most detailed scholarly discussions of Da Ponte‟s libretto
make due reference to its derivation from the popular Don Juan plays of the 17th and 18th
centuries and their operatic equivalents, but a discussion of his and Mozart‟s critical take on
the tradition is still lacking. From Otto Jahn to Charles C. Russell, most commentators
have assumed – in line with the early German reviewers – that Da Ponte simply mined his
predecessors for characters and situations in order to construct his own playable version of

237 Julian Rushton: ‟Don Giovanni ii‟ IN The New Grove.

238 Kerman 1988: 102.

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the story, and that he took no critical stance towards its conventional contents. But in fact,
the opera can be understood as a conscious parody of Il convitato di pietra, subtly
manipulating its situations and turning its morality inside out.
Apparently unaware of the cultural image of Il convitato di pietra, Felicity Baker makes
only cursory reference to the Don Juan story, while laying undue stress on the libretto‟s
references to Dante‟s Inferno instead. Since the parody of Il convitato di pietra seems to have
been Da Ponte‟s primary intertextual concern, however, I consider it necessary to discuss
his models at some length.

Don Juan and the impossible Stone Guest

The figure of Don Juan first appeared in the Spanish Mercedarian friar Gabriel Tellez‟
drama El burlador de Sevilla y el convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone
Guest), which was first performed in Madrid sometime between 1616 and 1625.239 The
play, which Tellez later published under his pseudonym Tirso de Molina, contains all the
fundamental plot elements of the story. Set during the reign of Alfonso XI of Castile
(1312-50), it opens in a darkened room in the palace of the King of Naples where Don
Juan Tenorio – who is presented unambiguously as an embodiment of lechery and
deception – is in the act of seducing the Duchess Isabela. Due to the darkness, Isabela
takes him for her fiancé, the Duke Octavio, Don Juan‟s friend. The seducer is discovered
and flees to Spain with the help of his uncle Don Pedro, the Castilian ambassador to
Naples. His ship founders off Tarragona, however, and along with his servant Catalinón,
who criticizes the moral dissolution of his master throughout the play, he is saved by a
fisherman‟s daughter, Tisbea, whom he then seduces. Afterwards, on their way to Seville,
master and servant interrupt a rustic wedding where Don Juan manages to outmanoeuvre
the groom, Batricio, and seduce the bride, Aminta. Having arrived at the Castilian court, he
tries to repeat the trick he played on Isabela: under the cover of night, he enters the private
chambers of a friend‟s mistress, Doða Ana de Ulloa, and attempts to rape her, but he is
interrupted by the girl‟s father, Don Gonzalo de Ulloa, comendador of the order of Calatrava,
whom he kills in an ensuing duel. Later, when Don Juan seeks refuge in a church, he
encounters Don Gonzalo‟s statue and invites it to dinner. The statue actually appears as a
guest in his house and returns the invitation, but when Don Juan shows up in the chapel he
is swallowed up by hell, vainly crying for absolution.

239 Edwards in Molina 1986: xx.

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 The play was Tirso‟s contribution to a contemporary theological controversy
regarding the role of confession and repentance in the attainment of divine mercy. Don
Juan holds the view that as long as he formally repents at the moment of his death, he can
indulge in unrestrained vice without fearing for his salvation, but the author obviously
regarded this attitude as gambling with God‟s mercy: one must be able always to answer for
one‟s actions, since death may take us by surprise without granting us time to repent. 240
Tirso adds extra weight to this point by introducing the return-invitation motif from
popular folklore: a young man insults a dead man – in the shape of a skull or sometimes of
a statue – whom he mockingly invites to dinner; the dead man accepts the invitation and
invites the young man to dinner in return, on which occasion the latter is sometimes
punished by death.241
Tirso‟s play reached Italy as early as 1625, and it was soon adopted by commedia
dell’arte troupes who used its general outline as the basis for improvised farces. The number
of characters was reduced in order to fit the size of the troupes, and their names Italianized
into Don Giovanni, Don Ottavio, Donna Anna (who in Tirso appears only as an off-stage
voice), the Commendatore etc. Also retained were the servant of Don Juan and the rustic
bridal couple, but the pastoral and realistic low-class characters of the Spanish original were
transformed into fully-fledged commedia dell’arte characters whose names depended on the
troupe performing. Thus, Don Giovanni‟s servant was acted by Passarino, Zaccagnino,
Pollicinella and Arlecchino in different versions, while the bride was called Brunetta,
Spinetta, Rosetta etc. The Italian troupes also tended to include stock characters like the
Doctor and Pantalone who usually acted as Don Ottavio‟s servant, the bridegroom, or the
bride‟s relatives.242
This is all indicative of the fundamental change which the Don Juan story underwent
when El burlador de Sevilla y el convidado de piedra became Il convitato di pietra. Commedia dell’arte
consists of a basically amoral universe, which meant that Tirso‟s theological points were
completely eliminated, even though the Stone Guest and Don Juan‟s eternal damnation
were retained: divested of their didactic purpose, the supernatural elements became
spectacular devices of a make-believe world – especially the damnation scene, which
provided an excuse for a chorus of comical devils. In all subsequent Don Juans, as Jan Kott
has put it, “the miracles are pure theater and to believe in them would be a mockery of the

240 Ibid: xxiv-xxv.

241 Ibid: xxi-xxiv.
242 Cf. Bragaglia 1943: 15; Macchia 1995: 253; Oreglia 1964: 42; Spada 1969: 102.

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church‟s teachings about heaven and hell.”243 The difference is especially evident in the
ending, in which the Don Giovanni of the Italian farce refuses to repent, whereas the Don
Juan of Tirso‟s play begs for absolution.
The Italian version‟s baroque combination of farce and infernal spectacle remained a
tremendous hit with the general public in the 18th century when it was adapted to such
popular genres as pantomime, puppet theatre and comic opera. It would be impossible to
number the Convitati di pietra given during the 17th and 18th centuries throughout Europe,
but it should suffice to mention that Da Ponte‟s and Mozart‟s Don Juan opera was the
third ever given in Bohemia, and that theirs was only one out of four new Don Juan operas
premiered in Europe in 1787.244
The stock situations of Il convitato di pietra allowed for endless variation, but all
treatments followed the same basic plot, ultimately derived from Tirso‟s play, and it was,
arguably, against this plot, as it is outlined in extant commedia dell’arte scenarios and in the
18th-century librettos collected by Charles C. Russell that Da Ponte and Mozart intended
their opera to be understood. It was also this basic plot, along with its traditional
performance style and reception, against which the German reviewers of the singspiel
version reacted, echoing a long line of educated people who, since the 17 th century, had
condemned the subject as immoral and improbable. The primary target had always been
the revenge of the Stone Guest which was rejected either as a caricature of divine justice or
as a grotesque leftover from an extinct theatrical convention. Thus Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe who saw one of the other Don Juan operas given in 1787, in all probability Il
convitato di pietra by Giambattista Lorenzi and Vincenzo Fabrizi, described the show in
terms characteristic of the enlightened spectators‟ dismissive attitude towards the subject:
“So I experienced in Rome how a Don Juan opera (not Mozart‟s) was given every evening
for four weeks, with which the city was so excited that the lowliest shopkeeper families
with all their members resided in pit and boxes and that no one could live without having
seen Don Juan fry in hell and the Governor [i.e. the Commendatore] ascend into heaven as
a blessed spirit.”245

243 Kott 1996: 39.

244 The other operas were: La pravità castigata by Eustachio Bambini (Brno, 1734); Il convitato di pietra o sia Il
dissoluto by Nunziato Porta and Vincenzo Righini (Prague, 1776); Don Giovanni o sia Il convitato di pietra by
Giovanni Bertati and Giuseppe Gazzaniga (Venice, 5 February 1787); Il nuovo convitato di pietra by Giuseppe
Maria Foppa and Francesco Gardi (Venice, 5 February 1787); and Il convitato di pietra by Giambattista Lorenzi
and Vincenzo Fabrizi (Rome, Fall 1787). All five libretti are reprinted in Russell 1993.
245 Letter to Karl Zelter of 17 April 1815 IN Goethe 1970 Vol. I: 418.

81
 Despite the dismissive attitude towards Il convitato di pietra expressed by high-minded
critics,246 there had been a few noteworthy attempts to use the subject for more profound
dramatic purposes, albeit in very different ways and from very different motives. The most
famous example is, of course, Molière‟s prose comedy Dom Juan ou Le festin de Pierre, which
was first performed in Versailles in February 1665. Molière based his plot on the scenario
of the Italian comedians, but exchanged the vaguely historical context of the original for a
world of theatrical artifice which cloaks a satire of contemporary society. In contrast to the
entirely comedic Don Giovanni of the Italians, Molière‟s Dom Juan is a libertine and
something of a philosopher, the author‟s moral attitude towards whom has been a matter
of debate ever since. It has been pointed out, in particular, that the servant Sganarelle is
incapable of rebutting his master‟s atheistic arguments convincingly, which deeply
provoked one of Molière‟s contemporaries, Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti: “Is
there a more openly atheist school than in Festin de Pierre, where, after a most spirited
atheist is made to utter the most dreadful impieties, the playwright confines God‟s cause to
the valet who, to support this, he makes speak the greatest nonsense in the world?” By
reducing the events surrounding the Commandeur and his unseen and unnamed daughter to
a minimum and locating them in the past, furthermore, Molière exposed the revenge of the
Stone Guest as an artificial superimposition, subtly parodying the deus ex machina device of
his Italian model. This point was not lost on the Prince de Conti either who claimed that
Molière “pretends to justify the end of this blasphemous comedy with a farce which has
the ridiculous ministry of God‟s revenge”.247 Conceivably, Da Ponte and Mozart, both
acquainted with Molière‟s comedy,248 were inspired by the French playwright‟s parodic use
of Il convitato di pietra when designing their own subversive version of the play.
The second notable attempt to remove Il convitato di pietra from its purely farcical
image was Carlo Goldoni‟s verse comedy Don Giovanni Tenorio o sia Il dissoluto (Don Juan
Tenorio, or The Rake), which was premiered in Venice in 1736. Distancing himself from
the traditional commedia dell’arte version, Goldoni jokingly suggested that Italian comedians
themselves claimed that the author of Il convitato di pietra “had entered into a compact with

246 For further quotations, see Dent 1947: 128-9, Kunze 1972: 10; Russell 1993: 57.
247 Traité de la comédie et des spectacles selon les traditions de l'Église, 1667, quoted in Fischer-Lichte 2002: 107.
248 In 1778, Fridolin Weber, Mozart‟s future father-in-law, “made me a present of Molière‟s comedies (as he

knew that I had not yet read them) with this inscription: Ricevi, amico, le opere del Molière in segno di
gratitudine, e qualche volta ricordati di me.” (Letter from Mozart to his Father of 24 March 1778). At the
time of his death, Mozart‟s library included the third volume only of J.-B. P. Molière: Sämtliche Lustspiele I-IV
(transl. Friedrich Samuel Bierling), Hamburg 1752 (Deutsch 1990: 174, 601).

82
the devil to support it”,249 and so he protested to have written his own play in order to be
“on somewhat decent terms with the devil.”250 Among the many aspects of the traditional
play which Goldoni found offensive were the indecent behaviour of the aristocratic
women, the servant Arlecchino with whom Don Giovanni “gracefully exchanges
invectives, improprieties and kicks”251 and the disregard of general verisimilitude. Breaches
of the latter included “the marble statue, erected in a few moments, who speaks, walks,
dines out, invites people to supper, threatens, revenges itself, and works miracles”. Worst
of all, however, was the damnation scene with the comical devils: “all the spectators, alive
and in good health, travel to the Devil‟s abode in company with the protagonist, and while
mixing laughter with terror it saddens the devout and causes the disbelievers to laugh.”252
In accordance with the classicist conception of the dignity of the stage, Goldoni
omitted Don Giovanni‟s servant altogether, limiting all comic relief to the rustic couple,
and purged Donna Anna of the overt indecencies of which she made herself guilty in Il
convitato di pietra when mistaking Don Giovanni for her paramour in the darkness of her
bedroom. No wonder that the audience at the first performance, as Goldoni relates in his
memoirs, “did not know what to make of the air of dignity which the author had given to
an old piece of buffoonery.”253 The most striking feature of his comedy, however, is the
omission of the Stone Guest and the infernal spectacle. Divine intervention instead takes
the shape of a bolt of lightning which strikes the protagonist dead, whereupon he is
swallowed up by the ground. Goldoni considered this solution less offensive to general
verisimilitude, since the event “might either be an immediate effect of the wrath of God, or
might proceed from a combination of secondary causes under the direction of the laws of
Providence.”254 This fundamental deviation from the traditional plot was necessary in order
to make the villain‟s damnation serious and thereby “inspire terror and repentance in those
who should recognize in themselves a copy of Don Giovanni.”255 As in Molière – and in Il
convitato di pietra itself – the Stone Guest was, obviously, regarded as a figure too absurd to
be taken seriously as a genuine divine agent, as also appears from the German reviews of

249 Goldoni 1926: 174.

250 Ibid: 174.
251 Goldoni 1950-6 vol. IX: 215.
252 Goldoni 1950-6 vol. IX: 215-6.
253 Goldoni 1926: 175.
254 Ibid: 174.
255 Goldoni 1950 vol. IX: 218.

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Don Giovanni, and as Da Ponte and Mozart could only have been aware when they created
their own version of the story.
The last treatment of Il convitato di pietra to be considered is Giovanni Bertati‟s and
Giuseppe Gazzaniga‟s comical opera Don Giovanni, o sia Il convitato di pietra, the immediate
source of Da Ponte‟s libretto, which was premiered in Venice on 5 February 1787. It was
conceived as the second part of a double bill, the first part of which, Il capriccio drammatico
(The Dramatic Caprice) – also by Bertati but with music by Giovanni Valentini and others
– features the members of an itinerant opera troupe planning a performance of Il convitato di
pietra in a German town. The short companion piece gives a vivid insight into the generally
dismissive view of the subject in 1787, clearly betraying that Bertati was not attempting to
approach it from a serious, or even original, angle. On the contrary, Il capriccio drammatico
serves as an ironical framing of the familiar story, perhaps in order to make it more
palatable to spectators who were only too conscious that witnessing a Convitato di pietra was
truly in bad taste. Policastro, the manager of the troupe, proposes to put it on in order to
set up failing attendance: “Here they have not yet seen that commedia in musica reduced to a
single act, which they did in Provence”, but one of the prima donnas objects that the action
“is not verisimilar, the libretto does not follow the rules, I don‟t know what to say of the
music; and in fact I foresee that with this, things will turn from bad to worse.” The
pragmatic impresario replies: “But do you really think that people care about the rules?
They care about what they like, and often one makes more money with the oddities of this
piece than with studied, regular and judicious things.”256 Later on, the protector of the
company, one Cavalier Tempesta, suggests that their Convitato di pietra will turn out “a
pretty and stupendous piece of trash”,257 and Policastro‟s intention of presenting the piece
in a new guise is met with the comment that it‟s older “than the invention of the meat
spit”, and that comedians have done it “bellowing, for two centuries, but only for the
rabble.” Policastro agrees, but insists that their comedy, “condensed as it is from the

256 “[POLICASTRO:] In questa piazza / non hanno ancor veduta / quella commedia in musica / ridotta a un
atto solo / che si fece in Provenza. [NINETTA:] Potrebbe darsi / che qui in Germania … Ma … […]
L‟azione è inverisimile, il libretto / è fuori delle regole, / la musica non so che sia; / ed in fatti preveggio /
che con questa si andrà di male in peggio. / POLICASTRO: Ma credete voi forse / che si badi alle regole? /
Si bada a quel che piace, e spesse volte / si fanno più denari / con delle strampalate / di quelle che con cose /
studiate, regulate e giudiziose.” (I.ii). All quotations from Il capriccio drammatico are taken from Bertati 1993a.
257 “[…] io decido / che questa vostra [commedia] sia / una bella e stupenda porcheria.” (I.vi).

84
Spanish comedy by Tirso de Molina, from the one by Molière, and from that of our own
comedians – however it may be – at least has not been seen before.”258
Bertati‟s Don Giovanni indeed combines elements from Tirso, Molière and the
Italians, but in order to present an entirely conventional version of Il convitato di pietra.
Bertati‟s drama features four women, the two leading female roles being the peasant bride
Maturina, whose name is an Italianization of Molière‟s Mathurine, and Don Giovanni‟s
betrothed, Donna Elvira, who is an almost direct copy of the same poet‟s Done Elvire,
whereas Donna Ximena and Donna Anna are insignificant secondary roles. In general, the
characters are limited to comedic expressions of lust, wrath, spite, etc., with no pretensions
to the sympathies of the audience, Don Giovanni appearing as the traditional villainous
intriguer of Il convitato di pietra. Towards the women his behaviour is cruel and cynical,
towards the statue of his victim it is scornful and arrogant, and towards the men –
especially Biagio, the peasant bridegroom – it is characterised by the violent slapstick
humour which Goldoni resented. Bertati‟s most important innovation, which seems to be
owed exclusively to the limitations of the single-act format, is the omission of the supper in
the cemetery: when Don Giovanni accepts the re-invitation he is sent directly to hell
instead – an element which Da Ponte put to sophisticated dramatic use by exposing the
Stone Guest as a fraudster on a par with Don Giovanni.
This, then, was the state in which Il convitato di pietra found itself in 1787, when Da
Ponte and Mozart set out to create their own version of this story, and it is in the light of
this tradition that we should understand not only the German reviewers‟ rejection of the
singspiel adaptations of Don Giovanni, but also the dramaturgical conception of the authors.
When the terrifying opening chords of the Overture sounded for the first time in Prague‟s
National Theatre on 29 October 1787, they were heard by an audience who associated the
story of Don Juan with a popular farce featuring Harlequin and his callous, brutal,
blasphemous intriguer of a master; they would have expected to witness lots of slapstick
humour and lewd allusions, the show ending with the advent of a comical walking statue
and a spectacular infernal scene peopled with comical devils. They may, however, have
been puzzled by the fact that Mozart had chosen this subject for his new opera, and they

258“[IL CAVALIER TEMPESTA:] Ce la volete dar per cosa nuova, / ed è vecchia all‟opposto / più ancor
dell‟invenzion del menarrosto. / La fanno i commedianti / da due secoli in qua con del schiamazzo, / ma
solamente per il popolazzo. / POLICASTRO: Signor sì, ve l‟accordo. / Ma la nostra commedia, / ridotta
com‟ell‟è fra la spagnuola / di Tirso de Molina, / tra quella di Molière / e quella delli nostri commedianti, /
qualunque sia, non fu veduta avanti.” (I.xi).

85
would have had good reason to be, for surely he did not intend simply to give them what
they expected.

Da Ponte, Mozart and Il convitato di pietra

One reason why Mozart‟s and Da Ponte‟s dramaturgical conception has been so widely
misunderstood is surely that they have left us tantalizingly few clues to why they chose it.
In his notoriously unreliable Memorie, which were published 1823-7, Da Ponte prided
himself on having suggested the story of the legendary seducer to Mozart:

[…] Martín, Mozart and Salieri […] all came to me at once asking me for a play. I
liked and esteemed all three, and hoped with their aid to make amends for past
failures and to increase my modest theatrical fame. I considered whether it would not
be possible to satisfy them all three and write three operas at one and the same time.
[…] Mozart and Martín left the choice entirely to me. For the former I chose “Don
Giovanni,” a subject which pleased him exceedingly […].
Having found these three subjects, I went to the Emperor, put my ideas before
him and informed him that I intended to write these three operas
contemporaneously.
“You won‟t succeed,” he replied.
“Perhaps not,” I answered but I shall make the attempt. At night I shall write
for Mozart, and I shall regard it as reading Dante‟s Inferno; in the morning I shall
write for Martín, and that will be like reading Petrarch; in the evening for Salieri, and
that will be my Tasso.” He thought my parallel very good.259

This all sounds very well, but in his Extract from the Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte from 1819, the
poet had, in the context of defending the quality of his dramatic poetry, offered a
somewhat different version of the story:

Why did Mozart refuse to set to music the Don Giovanni (of evil memory) by Bertatti
[sic], and offered to him by one Guardassoni [sic] (“non adhibeo testes dormientes”),
manager of the Italian theatre of Prague? Why did he insist upon having a book
written by Da Ponte on the same subject, and not by any other dramatist? Shall I tell you
why? Mozart knew very well that the success of an opera depends, FIRST OF ALL, ON
260
THE POET […].

It was not Da Ponte, then, but Domenico Guardasoni, the impresario, director and co-
manager of Pasquale Bondini‟s opera company in Prague, who presented Mozart with
Giovanni Bertati‟s libretto Don Giovanni, o sia Il convitato di pietra, which had been premiered

259 Da Ponte 1929: 152-3. Vicente Martín y Soler‟s dramma giocoso L’arbore di Diana was premiered at the
Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 October 1787; Antonio Salieri‟s dramma tragicomico Axur, re d’Ormus was premiered
in the same theatre on 8 January 1788.
260 Da Ponte 1999: 58.

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in Venice in February, and on which Da Ponte has long been known to have modelled
large parts of his libretto. What is important in this context is the fact that the subject of Il
convitato di pietra was neither Da Ponte‟s idea, nor Mozart‟s, but that the latter may have
been persuaded to accept it, maybe because it suited the troupe in Prague, or maybe
because of its popularity. It was apparently the enormous success of Le nozze di Figaro in
Prague that prompted the managers of the Italian opera company to commission a new
opera from Mozart, and what Guardasoni had in mind must therefore have been a kind of
„sequel‟ to Figaro: a tuneful opera buffa rich in comical incident that suited the singers in his
troupe. Guardasoni or Bondini may even have recalled the success of another Don Juan
opera, Nunziato Porta‟s and Vincenzo Righini‟s Il convitato di pietra, o sia Il dissoluto, which
had received its world premiere in Prague in 1776.261
That Da Ponte and Mozart must have considered Bertati‟s and Gazzaniga‟s Don
Giovanni an utterly conventional work, which under no circumstances could have appealed
to the connoisseurs, appears indirectly from the fact that Da Ponte in his Memorie described
Gazzaniga as “a composer of some merit but in a style no longer up-to-date”262 and Bertati
as “nothing so much as the frog swollen with wind”.263 He described the latter‟s Don
Giovanni as “of evil memory”, and, according to Johann Peter Lyser, Luigi Bassi – the
creator of Mozart‟s Don Giovanni – described Gazzaniga‟s score as “an opera buffa in the
ordinary taste of the time, with an infernal music à la Wenzel Müller264 at the end.”265
Granted that Bassi really said something in that vein, he is most likely to have known the
opera from discussions in Prague surrounding the creation and original production of
Mozart‟s Don Giovanni, which means that his opinion may well have reflected that of
Mozart. In the light of Da Ponte‟s and Mozart‟s take on Il convitato di pietra, it is striking that
the finale with the Stone Guest and the Furies in the Bertati-Gazzaniga opera should have
been singled out as particularly light and conventional.
But even if the subject of Il convitato di pietra was not Da Ponte‟s idea, could it be that
the specific take on it was his idea, and that this was what “pleased” Mozart “exceedingly”?
In Johann Peter Lyser‟s historical short story „Don Juan‟ from 1837, which deals with the
opera‟s genesis and Mozart‟s stay in Prague in a typically romantic fashion, but which draws
on anecdotes which Lyser had heard from Bassi‟s acquaintances, occurs a meeting between
261 Righini‟s opera was given again in 1777, the same year as it was premiered in Vienna (Volek 1987: 38).
262 Da Ponte 1929: 129.
263 Ibid: 197.
264 Wenzel Müller (1759-1835) was an Austrian composer of light Viennese singspiels.
265 Lyser 1856 (Appendix XII C).

87
Mozart and the singer in which the former describes his view of the libretto in the
following terms:

I have a fine libretto, Bassi! A bold, crazy thing, but full of spirit and fire! Du Ponte
[sic] has written it for me – he said he could not have made it for anyone else, for they
would not have the courage for such a thing.266

It is not unlikely that Mozart really described the libretto to Bassi as challenging, which
would only be consistent with his choice of Beaumarchais‟ provocative comedy as the
model of his previous opera. In his art novella „Don Giovanni‟, which was written almost
twenty years later as a revision of the earlier story, Lyser elaborated on Mozart‟s
characterization of the libretto: “When Da Ponte first suggested it to me, it did not appeal
to me at all, for I only thought of the old puppet and pantomime plays, and since even the
music of the great Gluck did not elevate the story particularly,267 I was really afraid that I
wouldn‟t do any better; then I took up the libretto and read it through.” Then follows a
lengthy, enthusiastic and unmistakably romantic eulogy to the libretto as the coming of
spring, before Mozart ends with the following words: “this was very much my state of
mind when I had finished reading Da Ponte‟s libretto, though I had to admit that many
serious and most sensible people will judge quite differently and anathematize me for
having chosen to compose such a crazy, adventurous, even outrageous, libretto „devoid of
common sense‟.”268
What lends some credibility to the anecdote is the fact that Lyser published his
novella in 1856, at a time when the Don Juan story was no longer associated, at least not to
the same degree, with “the old puppet and pantomime plays” and when the rejection of the
libretto by 18th-century German reviewers as “nonsensical, extravagant, contradictory and
unnatural” (Schink) had been superseded by Hoffmann‟s influential interpretation. Lyser,
who based parts of the novella directly on Da Ponte‟s Memorie, obviously accepted the
poet‟s later claim that he was the one to have suggested the subject to Mozart, but if we
change the first sentence into “When Guardasoni first suggested Bertati’s libretto to me, it did
not appeal to me at all […]; then I took up Da Ponte’s libretto and read it through”, it tallies
with the version published by Da Ponte in 1819, which Lyser did not know.

266 Lyser 1837b (Appendix V).

267 Christoph Willibald Gluck‟s and Gasparo Angiolini‟s ballet-pantomime Le Festin de Pierre was premiered at
Vienna‟s Burgtheater on 17 October 1761. It is possible that Mozart saw it when it was performed in
Salzburg in 1779-80 (Gluck 1966: x) and he almost certainly knew Gluck‟s score which was widely popular.
268 Lyser 1856 (Appendix XII A).

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 This not only suggests that Mozart originally rejected Bertati‟s libretto as a
conventional Convitato di pietra, but also that Da Ponte‟s treatment of the same subject was
designed to be just as provocative as Figaro. That Mozart did not care much for the “many
serious and most sensible people” who might take offence at his “crazy, adventurous, even
outrageous” opera is quite characteristic of the personality we encounter in his letters who
would happily write music “for all kinds of people, but for the long-eared.”
This interpretation is supported by another presumed Mozart quotation, which is
found in Georg Nikolaus Nissen‟s biography from 1828: “Of Don Giovanni he said: This
opera is not written for the Viennese, more for the people of Prague, but mostly for me
and my friends.”269 Nissen, the second husband of Mozart‟s widow, was no reliable
historian and would uncritically reproduce whole pages from earlier biographies or other
questionable sources, but sometimes he would pass on information from Constanze. This
seems to be the case with the said quotation which is not found in other sources and which
is an interesting modification of the nationalistically tinted story found in the Bohemian
music critic František Xaver Nĕmeček‟s biography of the composer from 1798, a revised
edition of which appeared in 1808:

The Bohemians are proud that he [Mozart] had recognized and done honour to their
good taste in opera, by creating this work with all the power of his genius. „Don
Giovanni was written for Prague‟ – more need not be said to prove what great respect
Mozart had paid to the musical perception of the Bohemians.270

As pointed out by William Stafford, however, nothing in Mozart‟s letters suggests any
particular preference for Prague or its musical life.271 The quotation in Nĕmeček‟s
biography is likely to have derived from polite compliments paid to the musicians and
wealthy patrons who had invited him to Prague, who let him stay in their homes, who
commissioned him to write music for them, and who may have been fishing for
compliments from the great man in order to substantiate their nationalist self-image as a
people of outstanding musical resources and connoisseurship. In the light of the quotation
found in Nissen‟s biography, Mozart‟s statement that “Don Giovanni was written for
Prague” seems rather to imply that it was not written for Vienna, though he in a letter

269 Nissen 1828: 512.

270 Niemetschek 1956: 37-8.
271 Stafford 1991: 250. In fact, on 15 January 1787, Mozart wrote to Gottfried von Jacquin: “I must frankly

admit that, although I meet with all possible courtesies and honours here and although Prague is indeed a
very beautiful and pleasant place, I long most ardently to be back in Vienna; and believe me, the chief cause
of this homesickness is certainly your family.”

89
written in the Bohemian capital to his friend Gottfried von Jacquin a few days after the
premiere expressed the wish that “perhaps my opera will be performed in Vienna after
all!”272
But why did Mozart consider the opera unsuited for Vienna? The answer is found all
over in his letters which leave us in no doubt as to his opinion of the Viennese taste. In
1781 he had described Johann Gottlieb Stephanie‟s libretto for the singspiel Zaide as “very
good, but not suitable for Vienna, where people prefer comic pieces”;273 later the same year
he described the Janissary chorus in Die Entführung aus dem Serail as “all that can be desired,
that is, short, lively and written to please the Viennese”,274 and when planning, in 1783,
Giambattista Varesco‟s buffa libretto for the aborted L’oca del Cairo, he emphasized that the
“chief thing must be the comic element, for I know the taste of the Viennese.”275
In other words, Don Giovanni was not written for the Viennese because it was not
light enough. That Mozart conceived of his and Da Ponte‟s treatment of Il convitato di pietra
in serious terms is confirmed by a reference in the 1865 memoirs of one of Da Ponte‟s
American friends, Dr. John W. Francis, of conversations with the poet:

The opportunities which presented themselves to me of obtaining circumstantial

facts concerning Mozart from the personal knowledge of Da Ponte, were not so
frequent as desirable, but the incidents which Da Ponte gave were all of a most
agreeable character. His accounts strengthened the reports of the ardent, nay, almost
impetuous energy and industry of Mozart; his promptness in decision, and his
adventurous intellect. The story of Don Juan had indeed become familiar in a
thousand ways; Mozart determined to cast the opera exclusively as serious, and had
well advanced in the work. Da Ponte assured me, that he had remonstrated and
urged the expediency on the great composer of the introduction of the vis comica, in
order to accomplish a greater success, and prepared the role with Batti, batti, Là ci
darem, Etc.276

Daniel Heartz uses these reminiscences to conclude that Mozart‟s “main vision of the work
was a tragic one”,277 but „serious‟ is not quite the same as „tragic‟. The vague reference to
the “thousand ways” in which the Don Juan story “had indeed become familiar” rather

272 Letter of 4 November 1787. I cannot agree with Hans Ernst Weidinger who in the small word doch (“after
all”) finds an indication that Mozart had begun composing Don Giovanni without a commission, hoping to see
it performed in Vienna (Weidinger 2002 Vol. I: 125). There see no plausible reason why Da Ponte should
have invented Guardasoni‟s proposal to Mozart about setting Bertati‟s libretto.
273 Letter to his Father of 18 April 1781.
274 Letter to his Father of 26 September 1781.
275 Letter to his Father of 21 May 1783.
276 John W. Francis: Old New York, or, Reminiscences of the Past Sixty Years, New York 1865, quoted in Heartz

1990: 174.
277 Heartz 1990: 174.

90
suggests, as does his rejection in Lyser‟s novella of the story as narrated in “the old puppet
and pantomime plays”, that he did not want a conventionally farcical Convitato di pietra in
the taste of the Viennese.
In fact, Mozart‟s views of genre appear quite clearly from his letters. Evidently, he
was no enemy of comedy, and he reflected that “there should be as little frivolity and as
much seriousness and solidity” in an opera seria, as “there should be little seriousness and
the more frivolity and gaiety” in an opera buffa. As a classicist adhering to the ideals of
naturalness and the concomitant mixing of genres, which had been promoted above all by
French dramatists and dramatic theorists like Diderot and Beaumarchais, he added,
however, that “in music the Merry Andrew has not yet been banished, and in this respect
the French are right”.278 That Da Ponte supported this approach entirely appears both
from his recognition that Mozart needed a subject which was “ample, elevated and
abounding in character and incident” and from his dismissal of the traditional Italian buffo
librettos which he found in the Viennese library of one Signor Varese:

Poor Italy! What stuff they were! They had no plot, no characters, no interest, no
scenic effects, no charm of language or style, and, though they were written to make
people laugh, one would rather have thought they had been written to make people
weep. Not a line of all those wretched pastiches showed any attractiveness, or any
display of fancy or elegant turn of speech which in any way would make one want to
laugh. They were so many masses of tiresome conceits and stupidity and buffoonery.
Such were Signor Varese‟s „jewels‟ and the comic plays of Italy! I hoped it
would be an easy matter to write better than this, that at least here and there in my
plays there should be found some amusing passages, some wit and jests, that the
language would be neither uncouth nor indecent, that should be possible to read the
ariette without disgust, and that if I found an amusing subject with interesting
characters and plenty of incident, I could not even if I tried write a play as bad as
those I had read.279

Importantly, Da Ponte did not only reject the existing librettos because of their inferior
quality, but also because of their style which he dismissed as „buffoonish‟, „uncouth‟ and
„indecent‟. One of the stylistic characteristics of late 18th-century theatre consisted in mixing
the genres of tragedy and comedy in order to approach a more „natural‟ expression and
avoid the extremes of, on the one hand, the typified representation of passions, the poetic
conceits and the oratorical virtuosity which in the Baroque had characterized the serious
style, and, on the other, the typified characters and physical humour which had

278 Letter to his Father of 16 June 1781.

279 Da Ponte 1929: 112-3.

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characterized the comical style derived from the commedia dell’arte. Da Ponte‟s pursuit of an
„elevated‟ style, „charming‟ and „elegant‟ language and „interesting‟ characters points to his
French-inspired ideals, as does his rejection of most of the contemporary buffo dramatists,
among the most detested of whom were Nunziato Porta, who had written the previous
Convitato di pietra for Prague, and Giovanni Bertati, whose Convitato di pietra Mozart
rejected.280 That Mozart agreed with Da Ponte in his attitude towards the traditional Italian
libretti appears from his dismissal of the “miserable libretti” of the standard opere buffe in his
famous letter of 13 October 1781 and from his remark in 1783 that he had “looked
through at least a hundred libretti and more, but I have hardly found a single one with
which I am satisfied”.281
From this it appears that casting the well-known story of Don Juan “exclusively as
serious” was not equal to turning it into a tragedy. „Serious‟ seems to mean that the most
farcical features of the traditional Convitato di pietra should be eliminated or softened and
that its stock characters should become interesting and three-dimensional and behave with
greater naturalness and decorum. In addition, there is the more profound dramaturgical
choice of viewing the morality of the story from an enlightened perspective. It was, in all
probability, these features that designated Don Giovanni as a „serious‟ comedy unsuited for
the Viennese who preferred farces, but also for the “many serious and most sensible
people” who would fail to appreciate the parodic elevation of the “crazy, adventurous, even
outrageous” Convitato di pietra.
That the opera was indeed not perceived as a tragedy by the original audience
appears, indirectly, from the testimony of Nĕmeček who had been present at the premiere
and who in his biography of Mozart claimed that “Don Giovanni is recognised as the
greatest masterpiece – great art and infinite charm are happily united.”282 „Infinite charm‟ is
certainly far removed from both romantic and modern ideas about what makes the opera
great, but it gives us some impression of how it was originally performed.
That Da Ponte and Mozart should have disagreed as much about the dramaturgy of
the opera as Heartz and others will have us believe is a romantic notion ultimately derived
from the early German reception of the opera. Surely, poet and composer must have

280 “The Portas, the Zinis, Palombas, Bertatis and other dramatic scribblers like them, who have never had
any idea of poetry, much less any knowledge of the numerous rules and laws and experience required to write
a good play, were the Euripides and Sophocles of Rome, Venice, Naples, and even of Florence and all other
important towns of Italy.” (Da Ponte 1929: 98).
281 Letter to his Father of 7 May 1783.
282 Niemetschek 1956: 81.

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agreed about the overall take on the story: presenting the opera as a very sophisticated jest
appealing above all to their „friends‟ the connoisseurs who were capable of relishing
intelligent comedy. The idea that Da Ponte‟s fear that the „serious‟ approach should fail to
appeal to a broader audience prompted him to pull the drama in quite a different direction
is simply inconceivable, considering what we know about Mozart‟s collaboration with his
librettists. All he did was probably suggest that some of the traditional burlesque elements
were retained, which is indeed what Francis‟ anecdote implies. It is difficult to gauge exactly
what Mozart had prepared in a “serious” vein before Da Ponte intervened, but the fact that
the scenes centring on Don Giovanni‟s ball (I.xv-xx; including “Batti, batti”) and on his
and Leporello‟s subsequent change of costumes (II.i-x; Nos. 11-21) have no equivalent in
Bertati‟s libretto may point to these two sequences as Da Ponte‟s “introduction of the vis
comica”, especially since the latter feature most of the opera‟s traditional buffo episodes.283
When compared with extant commedia dell’arte scenarios and opera buffa libretti,
including Giovanni Bertati‟s Don Giovanni, on which Da Ponte based about half of his
libretto, it appears that the poet gave all the conventional situations a subtle twist. Today,
most critics admit that Da Ponte‟s libretto is superior to Bertati‟s in every respect, but it
remains to be shown how it subtly subverts each of the scenes lifted from its model.
Arguably, Da Ponte simply used the earlier libretto as a prototype of the conventional
Convitato di pietra, taking it as a starting point for his parody of the traditional plot,
subjecting such stock situations as the rape of Donna Anna, the duel with the
Commendatore, the rejection of Donna Elvira, the seduction of the peasant bride, the
thrashing of the bridegroom, the scorning of the statue, Don Giovanni‟s infernal
punishment and the rejoicing of the remaining characters to a critical reading from an
enlightened perspective. Most importantly, Da Ponte and Mozart could rely on the
familiarity of their audience with the traditional version of the story, being certain that no
one would mistake the walking statue for a serious representative of any kind of higher
justice. This was to change with the creation of the „Don Juan myth‟ in the 19th century.

283That “Là ci darem la mano” was a later insert by Da Ponte may very well have been a misunderstanding
on the part of Francis. The duet, which is the equivalent of Maturina‟s aria “Se pur degna voi mi fate” in
Bertati‟s libretto, in all probability formed part of the original layout.

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The original reception of Don Giovanni in Prague
But how was this „serious‟ treatment of Il convitato di pietra received by the original audience?
The fact that the Prager Oberpostamtszeitung twice referred to Mozart‟s new opera as Das
steinerne Gastmahl284 suggests that the Prague spectators associated the subject as much with
low-brow farces as did their German contemporaries, but apparently this did not prevent
them from taking the opera seriously. On 4 November Mozart described the success of his
opera in a letter to Jacquin:

My opera „Don Giovanni‟ had its first performance on October 29th and was received
with the greatest applause. It was performed yesterday for the fourth time, for my
benefit. […] How I wish that my good friends, particularly you and Bridi, were here
just for one evening in order to share my pleasure! But perhaps my opera will be
performed in Vienna after all! I hope so. People here are doing their best to persuade
me to remain on for a couple of months and write another one.

Several weeks later, on 19 December, Mozart told his sister about Don Giovanni‟s
“triumphant success”, and the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, who had been absent from the
premiere, stated in his memoirs that Mozart had sent him a letter informing him of the
“wonderful reception” of the opera, and also claimed to have received a letter from
Domenico Guardasoni, which contained the following eulogy: “Long live Da Ponte! Long
live Mozart! All impresari and performers ought to bless you. As long as you two live, hard
times will be unknown in the theatre.”285 Five years later, the poet visited Prague where he
claimed to have heard Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – the three Mozart
operas for which he had provided the librettos – and in his Memorie he recalled their
reception:

284 “Prague, 4 October. / Our celebrated Herr Mozart has again arrived in Prague, and the news has spread
here since that the opera newly written by him, Das steinene [sic] Gastmahl, will be given for the first time at the
National Theatre.” (6 October 1787, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 299). “Prague, 1 November. / On Monday the
29th the Italian opera company gave their ardently awaited opera by Maestro Mozard, Don Giovani [sic], or das
steinerne Gastmahl.” (3 November 1787, quoted in Ibid: 303).
285 Da Ponte 1929: 157. This is Da Ponte‟s account in his Memorie (1823-7), but the poet is never accurate

regarding historical facts, to say the least. In An Extract from the Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte (1819) he had given a
somewhat different version of the story: ““Our opera of Don Giovanni” said he [Mozart] in a letter written to
me from Prague “was represented last night to a most brilliant audience. The princess of Tuscany, with all her
company, was present. The success of the piece was as complete as we could desire. Guardassoni came this
morning almost enraptured with joy, into my room. „Long live Mozart, long live Da Ponte‟, said he: „as long
as they shall exist, no manager shall know distress‟. Adieu! my dear friend. Prepare another opera for your
friend Mozart”.” (Da Ponte 1999: 62). In the Memorie, Guardasoni‟s eulogy appeared in a letter written to Da
Ponte, however, and the fact that Archduchess Maria Theresia was absent from the premiere shows that the
poet could not be quoting a letter by Mozart. Nevertheless, the fact that Da Ponte chose to quote
Guardasoni‟s words in both versions speaks for their authenticity, whether they were addressed to Mozart or
Da Ponte.

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 The enthusiasm of the Bohemians for the music of these operas is not easily
describable. The pieces least admired in other countries are by them considered
divine, and what is most remarkable is that while only after many performances do
other nations discover the great beauties of the music of that rare genius, the
Bohemians perceive them thoroughly at the first hearing.286

According to Lyser, Bassi had given a description of the initial reception, which rings
slightly false due to its echo of Guardasoni‟s (alleged) exclamation in Da Ponte‟s memoirs
(which Lyser knew), but the claim that the approbation increased after the premiere seems
to indicate that the audience was somewhat puzzled in the beginning:

“Figaro electrified, delighted both the Prague audience and us singers, but Don
Giovanni carried us away – delighted us and filled us with enthusiasm; all of Prague
exulted: “Eh viva, Mozart! Eh viva, da Ponte! Eh viva il Don Giovanni!”” – With short
intervals the opera was repeated almost twenty times, until the singers could no
longer bear it, and at each performance the enthusiasm of the audience increased.287

That the opera was given “almost twenty times” with “short intervals” is also mentioned in
the first volume of the actor and opera singer Eduard Franz Genast‟s Aus dem Tagebuche
eines alten Schauspielers from 1862, though there is no indication that the enthusiasm increased
after the premiere. Genast, who had known Bassi personally himself, quoted his father, the
actor and director Anton Genast, who had been a friend of the singer and had witnessed
the world premiere of Don Giovanni:

A competent judgment concerning all musical matters ruled in Prague back then, in
which respect one was ahead of all German cities, and so this masterpiece was bound
to score an enormous success already at the first performance. The opera was given
twenty times in a row to packed houses.288

But was Don Giovanni really such am unqualified success as Mozart, Da Ponte, Lyser and
Genast want us to think? As to Da Ponte‟s claim that the Bohemians perceived the
beauties of Mozart‟s music “thoroughly at the first hearing”, one should recall that he had
been absent from the premiere and may very well have been influenced by the reports of
others, and Lyser and Genast, who wrote over half a century later, drew on second- and
third-hand reports. Nĕmeček, who was present at the premiere, described in his biography

286 Da Ponte 1929: 203.

287 Lyser 1856 (Appendix XII A).
288 Genast 1862 Vol. I: 4-5.

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of Mozart how the audience received the composer when he entered the pit, but there is,
significantly, no description of their reception of the opera:

When Mozart appeared at the piano in the orchestra at the first performance,
everybody in the crowded theatre applauded by clapping enthusiastically. In fact, in
Prague, Mozart continually received great and indubitable proof of respect and
admiration, which were certainly genuine, as neither prejudice nor fashion but pure
feeling for his art was the cause. His beautiful works were loved and admired; how
could one remain indifferent to the great composer himself?289

Later in his book, Nĕmeček indeed hints that the opera was not fully appreciated at the
premiere:

The masterpieces of Rome and Greece are appreciated the more often they are read
and the maturer our taste becomes. This applies equally to knowledgeable as well as
ignorant people when listening to Mozart‟s music, particularly to his dramatic works.
Those were our feelings at the first performances of Don Giovanni and especially La
Clemenza di Tito.290

That Don Giovanni appealed primarily to people with a „mature‟ taste, i.e. to the
connoisseurs, was mentioned again later in the book:

It is now ten years since it was first performed – and it is still being heard with
pleasure and still attracts a large audience. In short, Don Giovanni is the favourite
opera of the élite of Prague.291

In 1837 Friedrich Heinse, a friend of Luigi Bassi, quoted the singer for a more detailed
description of the original reception, which has escaped the notice of scholars and is
quoted here for the first time. It seems that Bassi here openly stated what is only subtly
implied in the accounts of Nĕmeček and Lyser:

At the first performance of Don Juan the Prague audience, whom Mozart himself
held in esteem for their susceptibility and insightful love of music, as is well known,
received Don Juan‟s and Zerlina‟s duet, the aria “Fin ch‟han dal vino”, the
magnificent and glorious Act One Finale, and the Serenade in Act Two with
enthusiastic fervour, demanding the repetition of the smaller pieces with storms of
applause. To the Quartet, however, as well as to the Trio and the Sextet in Act Two,
they listened quite coldly and somewhat astounded and open-mouthed: a proof that
Mozart was ahead of his time in regard to these admirable inventions, this being
precisely the true hallmark of genius.292

289 Niemetschek 1956: 38.

290 Niemetschek 1956: 55. La clemenza di Tito received its world premiere in Prague on 6 September 1791.
291 Ibid: 38.
292 Heinse 1837 (Appendix VI).

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Don Giovanni was an opera for the connoisseurs. This was the “serious” comedy with
farcical origins which Mozart had written not “for the Viennese, more for the people of
Prague, but mostly for me and my friends” and for which many “serious and most sensible
people” would “anathematize” him – which was based on a “crazy, adventurous, even
outrageous” libretto, to which Da Ponte had been inspired by reading Dante‟s Inferno, and
which he would not have prepared for any other composer than Mozart, “for they would
not have had the courage for such a thing”. That the premiere audience was indeed puzzled
appears between the lines of this review which was printed in the Prager Oberpostamtszeitung
on 3 November:

Prague, 1 November.
On Monday the 29th the Italian opera company gave the ardently awaited opera
by Maestro Mozard, Don Giovani, or das steinerne Gastmahl. Connoisseurs and
musicians say that Prague had never yet heard the like. Herr Mozard conducted in
person; when he entered the orchestra he was received with threefold cheers, which
again happened when he left it. The opera is, moreover, extremely difficult to
perform, and every one admired the good performance given in spite of this after
such a short period of study. Everybody, on the stage and in the orchestra, strained
every nerve to thank Mozard by rewarding him with a good performance. There
were also heavy additional costs, caused by several choruses and changes of scenery,
all of which Herr Guardasoni had brilliantly attended to. The unusually large
attendance testifies to a unanimous approbation.293

In the proud Bohemian self-image, “the ardently awaited” Don Giovanni, which the great
Mozart had composed specifically for Prague‟s National Theatre, had to be a success.
Accordingly, the fact that the majority of the audience “listened quite coldly and somewhat
astounded and open-mouthed” to its most innovative passages, had to be embellished
(Nĕmeček) or ignored (the Oberpostamtszeitung). That the connoisseurs, rather than the
general public, proclaimed the opera a masterpiece, reads between the lines of the review
which betrays no great enthusiasm itself: “Connoisseurs and musicians say that Prague had
never yet heard the like […] The opera is, moreover, extremely difficult to perform […] The
unusually large attendance testifies to a unanimous approbation”. Like Nĕmeček‟s
observation that Don Giovanni was the favourite opera of the elite of Prague, the review hints
that average opera-goers were not much thrilled with their new acquisition.
Though the majority of the Prague audience originally may have found Mozart‟s
music just as difficult and inaccessible as most audiences did in Germany, one difference

293 IN Deutsch 1990: 303-4.

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between the Bohemian accounts and the German reviews is striking: there is no reference
to the subject matter as being in any way absurd, undignified or unsuited to the music.
Both the reviewer of the Oberpostamtszeitung and Nĕmeček seem to have perceived the opera
as a whole, as a unity of words and music – which is probably due to the fact that the
audience who saw Da Ponte‟s, Mozart‟s and Guardasoni‟s original (Italian-language)
production recognized Don Giovanni as being „high comedy‟, which is indeed implied in
Nĕmeček‟s above-mentioned characterization of the work as “great art and infinite charm
[…] happily united”. But if Bohemian connoisseurs recognized that Don Giovanni was a
comedy, does this also imply that they recognized the opera‟s treatment of the Don Juan
story as a parody of its conventional aspect, that they recognized its social provocation,
which Mozart, apparently, intended „mostly for himself and his friends‟? It is impossible to
answer these questions, but even if some spectators recognized the subtle ironies of the
dramatic construction, they have certainly left no lasting trace behind. In fact, it seems
more probable that the Prague connoisseurs, already largely influenced by the nationalism
that was to dominate German operatic criticism in the next century, focussed on Mozart‟s
music in its own right without giving much thought to the drama. In this way, even the
Prague production of Don Giovanni lent itself to romantic interpretations, as was obviously
the case with the sixteen-year-old Václav Jan Křtitel Tomášek, later a composer of some
note, who heard the opera at the National Theatre in 1790 together with his brother and
who described his youthful impressions in an autobiography from 1845:

Wrapped in our coats, we sat next to each other, awaiting the beginning. The
Overture begins; its grand ideas and its quicker continuation, with its rich
orchestration, altogether the noble life of that organic work of art, moved me to such
an extent that I sat there like a dreamer, hardly breathing; and in my heavenly joy I
saw a sun rising, felt as something darkly imagined my whole soul warmed with a
magical force. My interest in the whole grew with each moment, and during the
scene where the ghost of the Governor appears, my hair stood on end with fright.294

Evidently, Tomášek‟s fascination with the „organic work of art‟, the composer‟s sublime
vision, the Gothic horror and the orchestra is closer to Romanticism than to the theatrical
approach characteristic of the Italianate, classict audience. That members of the Prague
audience who heard Mozart‟s operas performed in Italian and by the original singers,
nevertheless heard his music differently from their German contemporaries who knew only
the singspiel adaptations, appears from Nĕmeček‟s biography of the composer. Though a

294 IN Libussa, 1845: 367, quoted in Robbins Landon 1990: 110.

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staunch Bohemian nationalist with a deep-felt hatred towards everything Italian, Nĕmeček,
who had witnessed the world premieres of Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito, still had a
conception of Mozart‟s music which differed from that of modernist musicology:

However great, however original, Mozart may be in his instrumental work, his
mightiest achievement is revealed in his settings of songs for the human voice. […]
The meaning of the text is always so conveyed, that one feels like exclaiming: „Truly
the music itself seems to speak‟.295

Having heard the opera performed by its original cast, Nĕmeček knew that Mozart‟s music
first of all conveyed the “meaning of the text”, but he was writing in 1797, the year that
Goethe announced Don Giovanni to be the prototypical romantic artwork, and though he
was not quite there yet himself, he was, when declaring that “the music itself seems to
speak”, certainly moving in the same direction.

Don Giovanni’s stepfathers I: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The first evidence of Mozart‟s Don Giovanni being re-evaluated according to romantic
premises, which, significantly, also contains one of the first indications that the reception of
the Don Juan story underwent a radical change with the advent of Romanticism, is found
in the correspondence of Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller. As early as 30 January 1792,
only three months after Mozart‟s death, Goethe had premiered his own production of the
singspiel version of Don Giovanni at the Weimar Court Theatre,296 and five years later
Schiller wrote to him, asking for a copy of the libretto as he intended to write a ballad on
the subject. Goethe applauded the idea: “Placed in a new light through a poetic treatment,
the well-known legend as you have it at your disposal will create a good effect.”297 Here
Don Juan was thought of as a character from a “legend” rather than from a farcical play –
and indeed from a legend which Goethe apparently considered faithfully reproduced in Da
Ponte‟s libretto.
Later the same year, Don Giovanni recurred in the correspondence of the two poets,
this time in connection with Schiller‟s envisioned reform of German drama. His idea was
“to secure art air and light through the dislodgement of the plain imitation of nature”,
which could best happen “through the introduction of symbolic means that should replace

295 Niemetschek 1956: 58-9.

296 Carlson 1987: 73.
297 Letter of 3 May 1797 IN Goethe & Schiller 1955 Vol. I: 311. Schiller‟s ballad „Don Juan‟ only exists as a

fragment (Schiller 1974 Vol. I: 466-9).

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the object whenever this does not belong to the poet‟s true art world, and thus should not
be represented, but merely implied.” The promotion of a drama faithful to “the poet‟s true
art world” in place of a drama based on Aristotelian mimesis (“the plain imitation of
nature”) reads as a Platonic-romantic manifesto. Interestingly, Schiller saw a central place
for opera in the new theatre to arise from this symbolic aesthetic:

I always had a certain confidence in opera; that tragedy in a nobler form would
extricate itself from opera as from the choruses of the ancient Bacchus festival. In
opera the servile imitation of nature is really suspended, if only in the name of
indulgence, by which road the ideal could steal into the theatre. Through the power
of music and through the freer harmonic effect on the senses, opera induces a more
beautiful conception in the mind; here pathos is really allowed a freer scope because
accompanied by music, and the marvellous which is tolerated here would necessarily
make the audience indifferent to the subject matter.298

In his oft-quoted reply Goethe gave Don Giovanni the place of honour which it retained
throughout the Age of Romanticism and which it still retains in the criticism of Kristeva,
Poizat, Conrad, Tomlinson and Dolar: “The hope that you placed on opera you would
recently have seen fulfilled to a high degree in Don Juan, but in this piece alone, and
through Mozart‟s death all prospects of something similar have been thwarted.” 299
Describing Don Giovanni as the only opera to suspend the imitation of nature in favour of
the symbolic communication of ideal truth is virtually the same as calling it the first
romantic opera, which indeed appears to have been how Goethe conceived of it. Over
thirty years later, at least, when his friend Johann Peter Eckermann expressed the hope that
a composer would some day write an opera that did justice to Faust, the poet rejected the
idea on the following grounds:

“It is quite impossible,” Goethe said. “The times dislike the repulsive, foul, awesome
qualities which it would need to contain in certain places. The music would have to
be in the character of Don Juan; Mozart should have composed Faust. Meyerbeer
might be able to do it; only he would not undertake such a thing; he is too
interwoven with Italian theatres.”300

Not only did Goethe obviously consider Don Giovanni a serious drama related to the
„fantastical‟ in romantic literature, but what is only implicit in his correspondence with
Schiller is made clear here: Mozart‟s opera was seen as a German contrast to Italian opera

298 Letter of 29 December 1797 IN Goethe & Schiller 1955 Vol. I.

299 Letter of 30 December 1797 IN Ibid Vol. I.
300 Eckermann‟s diary entry on 12 February 1829 IN Eckermann 1948.

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with its classicist focus on beauty, pleasure and the imitation of nature. In a conversation
with Eckermann less than a year before his death, he again drew attention to Don Giovanni
as a German-romantic counterexample of the Aristotelian artwork:

“[…] No less unseemly,” Goethe continued, “is the term „composition‟ used by the
French when they talk of the products of nature. If I had put together, piecewise, the
individual parts of a machine, I might refer to such an object as a composition, but
not when what I have in mind are the individual parts of an organic whole, made
alive and pervaded by a joint soul. […] It is a quite infamous word […] which we
owe to the French, and of which we should seek to rid ourselves again as soon as
possible. How can one say that Mozart composed his Don Juan! – Composition! – As
if it were a piece of cake or a biscuit stirred together by eggs, flour and sugar! – It is a
spiritual creation, the parts as well as the whole due to one spirit and casting and
pervaded by one breath of life, in which the producer by no means attempted and
pieced together and set about it at pleasure, but in which the demonic spirit of his
genius had him in its power and forced him to carry out its commandments.”301

Goethe draws attention to Don Giovanni as a primary example of the organic artwork which
was characteristic of the romantic worship of the creative genius. As in his letter to Schiller
and in the earlier conversation with Eckermann, he uses the opera to distance himself from
French and Italian culture, the traditional strongholds of Aristotelian classicism with its
more technical approach to the creative process. Don Giovanni, on the other hand, is an
autonomous artwork: like Plato‟s poet, the composer (if we dare use that unseemly word)
was inspired by a demonic, almost divine, power which eliminated what he might have had
of personal or rhetorical intentions. By detaching the work from Mozart‟s authorial will,
Goethe indirectly allows us to interpret the music without considering the text: the musical
idea of the artist exists independently from external (including linguistic) limitations.

Don Giovanni’s stepfathers II: E. T. A. Hoffmann

When Goethe had his conversations with Eckermann, however, it was already several years
since the Romantic Movement in Germany had established Don Giovanni as “die Oper aller
Opern”. This epithet was coined by E. T. A. Hoffmann in his short story „Don Juan‟, with
the subtitle „Eine fabelhafte Begebenheit, die sich mit einem reisenden Enthusiasten
zugetragen‟ (A Marvellous Adventure Which Befell a Travelling Enthusiast),302 which
established once and for all the romantic reception of Don Giovanni. Written in 1812, after
Hoffmann had left his post as music director in Bamberg, „Don Juan‟ was first published

301 Eckermann‟s diary entry on 27 June 1831 IN Ibid.

302 Hoffmann 1945: 510.

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anonymously in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1813 and then included in the first
volume of his Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier the following year. It was instantly received as
the authoritative reading of Don Giovanni, is routinely quoted in the Mozart literature of the
first half of the 19th century and demonstrably influenced the opera‟s performance
tradition. After Hoffmann‟s tale, Don Giovanni was considered a romantic opera, and even
though it is generally agreed today that the tale is a rather free fantasy on the subject of
Mozart‟s opera, its basic approach to Don Giovanni had enormous influence on romantic
opera in general and hence on modern conceptions of opera.
The story runs as follows: the narrator, an opera composer who appears to be the
author‟s alter ego (when the story was written, Hoffmann was himself the composer of two
grosse romantische Opern), is staying at a hotel in an unnamed German town when he is
suddenly woken up one evening by the sound of an orchestra tuning. A serving-man
informs him that the hotel is connected to a theatre where Don Giovanni is about to be
given by a visiting Italian company, and the narrator is let into the hotel‟s “Visitors‟ Box”
through a secret doorway. The dreamy atmosphere of the story‟s opening also characterizes
the ideal performance of “the divine master‟s glorious work”303 which the narrator then
evokes in great detail. In the intermission between the acts he has a surreal encounter with
the Donna Anna who, mysteriously, has been seated behind him in the box throughout the
act. She begins talking to him about the opera, and “it was as though now for the first time
the depths of the masterwork were revealed to me and I could see clearly into them and
distinctly recognize the fantastic apparitions of a strange world.”304 After this revelation, the
second act appears even more sublime than the first, the narrator noticing the emotional
exhaustion of the Donna Anna which is due to her complete identification with the role.
After the performance, however, he overhears a conversation between other audience
members at the hotel‟s late-night dinner, which reveals that no one else has fathomed the
depths of the masterpiece, and the frustrated narrator hurries back to his room and the
empty auditorium. Here, in the second part of the story, he is seized by inspiration and tells
the story‟s addressee, Theodor (Hoffmann‟s second name), how he suddenly understood
Don Giovanni for the first time: “Only the poet understands the poet; only a Romantic spirit
can fathom the Romantic; only the poetically sensitive spirit who has been consecrated in

303 Ibid: 512.

304 Ibid: 509.

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the heart of the temple can understand what the consecrated expresses in his ecstasy.”305 At
2 a.m. he seems to hear the voice of Donna Anna singing her second aria as from afar, and
in a short epilogue that takes place the following morning he learns that the singer expired
at exactly this hour.
In to Da Ponte‟s libretto, as Hoffmann reads it, Don Giovanni is characterized
merely as a “jolly fellow who loves wine and women to excess”, but in Mozart‟s music he is
characterized as follows:

Nature endowed Giovanni, her favorite child, with all that lifts man towards a closer
relationship with the divine, out of and above the rabble, above the mass-products
that are ground out of the workshop – those nonentities, those ciphers that must
first have a number written in front of them in order to be worth anything. Nature
endowed him with qualities that destined him to conquer, to rule. A vigorous, noble
body, a form from which radiate sparks that strike the heart, kindling presentiments
of the highest order; a profound spirit, an agile mind.306

But Don Giovanni gets caught in the struggle between the divine and the demonic powers
within himself; he is “inspired by his claims on the life that has brought about his physical
and mental make-up; an ever-burning desire sends his blood boiling through his veins,
driving him on so that, greedily and tirelessly, he seizes upon all phenomena of the earthly
world, vainly hoping to find satisfaction in them!”307 Hoping to appease his yearning
through love, the idea is instilled in his mind that he can attain “even on earth that which
dwells in our heart only as a heavenly promise”:

Flitting restlessly from pretty woman to one still more beautiful; drinking in their
charms with feverish ardor to the point of satiety and ruinous intoxication; always
believing himself cheated in his choice, always hoping to find the ideal of final
satisfaction, Don Giovanni must end by finding life flat and insipid; and, despising
mankind, he revolts against the phenomenon that, although he prized it above all else
in life, has so bitterly disappointed him. Every pleasure he now takes of womankind
is no longer a satisfaction of his sensuality, but rather a wanton defiance of Nature
and the Creator. Deep contempt for life‟s ordinary customs, which he considers
beneath him, and bitter scorn for those people who, contented in love and in its
homely unions, can expect only the feeblest gratification of the higher desires that
nature malignantly places in our breast, drive him on to revolt. Plotting destruction,
he battles determinedly against such mundane relationships wherever they appear,
defying an unknown, fate-ridden existence which seems to him the work of a
malicious monster who stages a grim pageant with the lamentable creatures of his
mocking whimsy. – Every seduction of an adored bride, every lovers‟ happiness

305 Ibid: 512.

306 Ibid: 512.
307 Ibid: 512-3.

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 destroyed by an irreparably harmful blow, is a resounding triumph over that
opposing force, a triumph that lifts Don Giovanni ever further out of restricting life
– above nature – above the Creator! – He desires to exact ever more from life, even
though he be cast into Hades.308

As in many of the modern interpretations, Don Giovanni is a destructive rebel who

despises mankind and finds no genuine sensual enjoyment in seducing women. With some
modifications it is not difficult to recognize the seducer of Abert, Kunze, Pirrotta, Mila,
Williams and others in this description.
In Hoffmann‟s story, Don Giovanni‟s counterpart is Donna Anna, “a divine woman,
over whose spotless soul the Devil has no power”, the narrator describing how their
relationship “seems to be revealed to me in the music, without any consideration of the
text.”309 She is the one woman who could have redeemed Don Giovanni by revealing his
underlying divine nature to him, but he meets her too late and ruins her along with the rest:

She was not rescued! When he ran from the house, the deed was already an
accomplished fact. The fire of a superhuman sensuality, glowing coals from Hell,
overwhelmed her, and made all resistance useless. Only he, only Don Giovanni could
kindle in her the voluptuous frenzy with which she embraced the man who sinned
with the all-powerful, ravaging, inner fury of a hellish demon.310

These excerpts are all taken from the second part of the story, in which the narrator
reflects on the performance described in the first part. In this section we are told exactly
where in the music Don Giovanni‟s and Donna Anna‟s doomed, romantic love is revealed;
as when he attributes the following subtext to Don Giovanni‟s first lines, when the seducer
is struggling with Donna Anna in order to flee her house in the opening scene, threatening
her and calling her a fool:

In vain does Don Giovanni strive to tear himself free. – Does he really want to do
so? Why does he not hurl the woman back with powerful fist and make good his
escape? Has the frightful deed robbed him of his power, or is it rather the inward
struggle of love and hate that deprives him of strength and spirit?311

This is Hoffmann‟s description of Don Giovanni as he appears in the recitative with

Leporello following immediately after the death of the Commendatore:

308 Ibid: 513.

309 Ibid: 514.
310 Ibid: 514.
311 Ibid: 506.

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 Don Giovanni removes his cape and stands there in red, slit velvet with silver
broidery, magnificently costumed. A powerful, lordly figure: the face virilely
handsome; a noble nose, penetrating eyes, softly formed lips, the uncanny play of a
forehead muscle over the eyebrows momentarily brings a Mephistophelean quality to
the face which, without robbing the countenance of its beauty, nevertheless inspires
an involuntary shudder in the spectator. It is as though Don Giovanni knows the
magic of the rattlesnake; it is as though women, once they meet his gaze, cannot free
themselves from him, but, swept on by some sinister force, must themselves
accomplish their own destruction.312

Two details command our attention: in Da Ponte‟s libretto, Don Giovanni is described as a
“young” gentleman,313 whereas Hoffmann‟s seducer, with his “powerful, lordly” figure and
“virilely handsome” face, appears to be a mature man; and instead of the late 18 th-century
setting suggested by Baker we have, judging from the costumes, what appears to be a 16 th-
century setting. In the Age of Romanticism, fantastical stories were usually set in a remote
age, the Renaissance being a favourite period. Leporello is depicted in a similar demonic-
fantastical manner:

Tall and scrawny, in red- and white-striped waistcoat, short red cape, white hat with
red feather, Leporello comes trotting after his master. His mien expresses a strange
combination of lasciviousness, and ironic sauciness; the black eyebrows stand out in
striking contrast with the gray hair and beard. It is clear that the old fellow is worthy
to be Don Giovanni‟s helpful servant.314

Hoffmann‟s description of the first Finale clearly departs from the stage directions in Da
Ponte‟s libretto:

Zerlina is rescued, and in the thunderous finale Don Giovanni confronts his enemies
with drawn sword. He strikes the steel dress-sword out of the hand of the fiancé;
pushing his way through the common rabble, like a second Roland amid the army of
the tyrant Cymort, he throws people into confusion until everything seethes in a
riotous mass and makes his way to freedom.315

Not only does Don Ottavio carry a sword instead of a pistol – clearly an effect of the new
16th-century setting – but Don Giovanni draws his sword and fights him, which shows that
Hoffmann had to disregard Da Ponte‟s stage directions in order to suppress his non-
violent Don Giovanni. Furthermore, the musicians and the chorus should, according to the
libretto, depart when Zerlina cries for help offstage, leaving the seven main characters

312 Ibid: 506.

313 “giovane cavaliere estremamente licenzioso” (Personaggi).
314 Hoffmann 1945: 506.
315 Ibid: 508.

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alone on stage for the closing stretta. As Julian Rushton points out, this shows that the
scene is not “the confrontation of a criminal with the forces of law, or divine justice; it is a
social contretemps”,316 but Hoffmann clearly wanted a grander and more violent effect. For
the same reason, perhaps, he is much more sparing with his scenic details in Act Two, the
larger part of which consists of comical scenes that hardly fit into his romantic vision.
Apart from Donna Anna‟s aria, only the Finale is described in detail:

The Finale began in wanton merriment: Già la mensa è preparata! – Don Giovanni sits
between two wenches, caressing them, and opens one bottle after the other, granting
freedom to the hermetically-sealed, bubbling spirits. The scene is a small chamber
with a large, Gothic window in the background, through which the night can be seen.
Even while Elvira reminds the unfaithful one of all his vows, lightning flashes are
seen through the window, and one can hear the muffled rumbling of the approaching
storm. Finally comes the violent pounding. Elvira and the girls flee and then, to the
horrible accompaniment of the infernal spirit-world, enters the towering marble
statue, next to which Don Giovanni seems like a pygmy. The ground trembles under
the thundering footsteps of the giant. – Through the storm, through the thunder,
through the howling of the demons, Don Giovanni shouts his fearful “No!” – the
hour of his doom is at hand. The statue disappears, the room fills with a thick smoke
from which loom monstrous apparitions. Writhing in the torments of Hell, Don
Giovanni may be seen from time to time under the seething tumult of demons. An
explosion, like the crash of a thousand lightnings – Don Giovanni, the demons, all
have disappeared, no one knows how! Leporello lies unconscious in the corner of the
room. – How welcome now is the entrance of the other characters who vainly seek
Don Giovanni, the culprit who has been removed from earthly vengeance by the
infernal powers. It is as though now, for the first time, we are liberated from the
horrible circle of hellish monsters.317

The “hermetically-sealed, bubbling spirits” and the “large, Gothic window” clearly echo, as
do the general 16th-century setting and the explicit comparison of Don Giovanni to
Mephistopheles, the study scenes in the first part of Goethe‟s Faust, which had been
published in 1808. In „Don Juan‟, Hoffmann launched what became the traditional
juxtaposition of Faust and Don Juan as the mythic representatives of human striving
towards immortality – through the spirit and the flesh, respectively – a link which Goethe
himself implied in his conversation with Eckermann in 1829, and which culminated the
same year with Christian Dietrich Grabbe‟s romantic tragedy Don Juan und Faust. The Faust
reference, the ominous lightning flashes and the spectacular infernal scene are all
reminiscent of the gothic horror story, of the fantastical in romantic literature, which
Goethe also heard in the music, and of which Hoffmann is indeed the most famous

316 Rushton 1994: 63.

317 Hoffmann 1945: 509-10.

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exponent in Germany. The deviations from Da Ponte are many: in the libretto, the scene is
set in a “hall”318 rather than in “a small chamber”; the two wenches are, of course, absent,
as are the lightning flashes; the demons do not appear on stage, but as a subterranean
chorus and only after the Stone Guest has left.319 The last details demonstrate how
Hoffmann considered Don Giovanni‟s punishment divine rather than social.
From the perspective of Don Giovanni‟s reception and performance history, the
dinner conversation overheard by the narrator after the performance is extremely revealing,
since it shows that Hoffmann‟s aim was to promote not only a novel interpretation of Don
Giovanni, clearly formulated in opposition to an existing one, but also a novel conception of
opera in general, as had been the case with Schiller and Goethe:

In general, the Italians and the polish of their performance were praised; but little
remarks that were dropped facetiously here and there showed that none of the guests
had even suspected the deeper meaning of the opera among operas. – Don Ottavio
had pleased highly. Donna Anna had seemed too passionate to one of the assembly.
“On the stage,” he observed, “one must be pleasantly restrained and avoid the over-
exaggerated.” The narration of the assault had downright upset him. Hereupon he
took a pinch of snuff and, with an indescribably stupid-clever look, regarded the man
next to him; the latter asserted that the Italian prima donna was, nevertheless, a very
pretty woman, even though she was not enough concerned with her costume and
make-up; indeed, in the aforementioned scene, a lock of her hair had fallen out of
place and obscured her profile. Now another person began to sing, very softly: Fin
ch’han dal vino – whereupon a lady remarked that she was least satisfied with Don
Giovanni: the Italian had been too sinister, much too serious, and had really not
made the frivolous and fun-loving character light enough. – Surfeited with this
twaddle, I hurried to my room.320

In general, the other audience members are ridiculed for not fathoming “the deeper
meaning” of the work, for focussing on the pleasurable effects of beauty (the
mellifluousness of the tenor, the beauty of the prima donna, the melodiousness of the music,
the grace, balance and restraint of theatrical performance) rather than on the ideal
truthfulness of the sublime (the transcendent quality of the music, the prima donna‟s
complete and passionate identification with her role) and, not least, for not understanding
that Don Giovanni is a tragic and demonic rather than a light, frivolous and fun-loving
character! But the conflict sketched in this short passage is not just between two opposing

318 “Sala.” (1237).

319 “CORO Di sotterra con voci cupe.” (1370).
320 Hoffmann 1945: 510-1.

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interpretations of Don Giovanni; it is also between the Aristotelianism of 18th-century
classicism and the Platonism of 19th-century romanticism.
The Aristotelian approach was dependent on rhetorical rules in order to please, and
hence artworks and artistic performances were judged by the technical and imaginative
virtuosity with which they complied with those rules, by the craftsmanship of their
execution. Consequently, the other audience members judge the Italian singers by their
“polish”, their vocal control and their ability to carry themselves with grace on stage, and
Mozart is praised, indirectly, for having created a pleasing and amusing entertainment. The
fundamentally communicational conception of art and the reliance on commonly accepted
standards of excellence were related to theatre as a social forum where performers appealed
directly to the audience, and where spectators freely exchanged and discussed opinions and
judgments.
To a romantic like Hoffmann‟s narrator, however, art constituted an autonomous
world of its own, and to demand that an artistic performance be pleasing or entertaining
would be to degrade the name of Art itself. Art had to be true to underlying ideals, to “the
deeper meaning”, artistic value consisting in the breaking of rules in the name of
truthfulness rather than in the compliance in the name of effect. Whereas the classicist
actor represented his role, showing its characteristics and emotions in order to affect the
spectators, the romantic actor had to become his role, or at least try; he had to lose himself
in the fiction and forget the world around him, and Hoffmann‟s Donna Anna is the ideal
romantic actress because she dies „in character‟. Likewise, the classicist opera singer
displayed his vocal and musical alongside his dramatic virtuosity, dramatic and musical
skills being a craft towards whose mastery the virtuoso aspired (as did Adelina Patti), while
to the romantic opera singer (as to Lilli Lehmann and Maria Callas), virtuosity was the end
of truthfulness, and hence of art: “and while a brilliantly executed turn, a well-done
appoggiatura earns applause,” says Donna Anna in the story, “icy hands plunge into my
quivering heart!”321 Whereas classicism stressed the theatrical, the communicational, and
hence the declamatory aspect of opera, Romanticism stressed the fantastical, the
introspective, and hence the autonomously musical aspect of opera: therefore Hoffmann‟s
narrator perceives secret meanings in Mozart‟s music, but the classicist audience none.
Whereas the extrovert classicist audience enjoy a good comedy, the introvert romantic
artist can tolerate only tragedy or melodrama: laughter is always social, tears always private.

321 Ibid: 509.

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And whereas the classicist audience enjoy the social gathering of the theatrical event and
interact actively with the performance, the romantic, hiding in his secret box together with
a ghost, is obliged to imagine an ideal performance unpolluted by the disturbing
interference of live performers or other spectators who would certainly destroy everything:

I had been so happy to find myself alone in the loge; entirely undisturbed, I could
embrace the consummately presented masterwork with all my fibres of perception,
envelop it, so to speak, with polyp-tentacles and absorb it into my being! A single
word, let alone a silly one, would have torn me in painful fashion from this heavenly
moment of poetic-musical rapture! I determined to take no notice of my neighbor,
but rather, entirely wrapped up in the performance, to shun every word, every glance.
My chin cupped in my hands, my back to the intruder, I watched the stage.322

Hoffmann‟s „Don Juan‟ is a promotion of the new romantic art which takes Mozart‟s Don
Giovanni as one of its models. As with Schiller and Goethe, this was an art with demonic or
even divine overtones: Schiller had hoped “that tragedy in a nobler form would extricate
itself from opera as from the choruses of the ancient Bacchus festival”, and Hoffmann‟s
narrator is an initiate of this “nobler form”, seized as he is by Bacchic enthousiasmos. The
romanticists wanted their contemporaries to act, sing, write, compose, listen and reflect in a
new mode, but the audience whose voices they did everything to suppress were Mozart‟s
contemporaries and Mozart‟s original audience.
Of course, not everyone in the 19th century accepted Hoffmann‟s interpretation: in
1859, for example, in the fourth volume of his monumental Mozart biography, Otto Jahn
thoroughly rejected his view of Don Giovanni as a demonic antihero. But he did give
Hoffmann credit for “deriving the opera‟s poetic and psychological truth from the
music”,323 and so the psychological reading of the opera, which Jahn introduced, is
descended from Hoffmann. Thereby, Hoffmann indirectly fathered the modernist view of
Don Giovanni as a hollow character and the search for an „introspective‟ aria, introspection
being equally characteristic of the inward-looking listening culture of Romanticism and the
analytical listening culture of modernism.
But Hoffmann‟s influence extended beyond the short story. In a review written two
years later, which is probably the first recorded call for operatic Werktreue on romantic-
idealistic premises, Hoffmann demanded that the opera was performed in accordance with
Mozart‟s unifying vision:

322 Ibid: 507.

323 Jahn 1859 Vol. IV: 326 (note).

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 It is due only to the great difficulty of this opera of operas, whose poetic depth some
spectators may indeed only have vaguely suspected here and there, that the
production did not so far receive the desirable finish. It is an eternal truth that one
should not fiddle with a poetic work emerged directly from the inner heart. Each of
the wonderful sounds in Don Juan mysteriously attaches itself to the whole like rays
reflecting in a focus. From this it follows that Don Juan will always appear disrupted
into parts and pieces when not given faithfully according to the original score, i.e.
with recitatives.324

To Hoffmann as well as to Goethe, Don Giovanni was the epitome of the organic artwork,
liberated from authorial intentions and “pervaded by one breath of life”, and the idea of
organicism is closely related both to the concept of Werktreue and to the score-oriented
and basically un-theatrical approach.

Don Giovanni’s stepfathers III: Søren Kierkegaard

Even if E. T. A. Hoffmann was the first to accept the Stone Guest as a dramatically
justified figure, to emphasize seriousness and psychological profundity in the interpretation
and to introduce the romantic aesthetics of music into Don Giovanni‟s history of reception,
many – though far from all – of his individual analytical observations have been rejected by
modern scholarship. Søren Kierkegaard‟s interpretation, on the other hand, the second
major reading of the opera in the 19th century, has had a much more direct influence on
modern criticism, because, in Gary Tomlinson‟s words, it articulates “the terms of our
involvement with Don Giovanni”.325 Since the translation of Kierkegaard‟s works into
languages of international currency at the beginning of the 20th century, the influence of his
essay seems to have grown, culminating with the renewed focus on vocality and subjective
listening in the last decades. Peter Conrad, Gary Tomlinson, Mladen Dolar and many
others openly acknowledge their indebtedness to Kierkegaard‟s reading, which, not unlike
Goethe and Hoffmann, indirectly cements Don Giovanni as the essence and foundation of
the operatic aesthetics of Romanticism, owing to its organic closure, its sublime depths –
and to the alleged autonomy of its music which tends to defeat the words. The claim
advanced by Tomlinson and others that the romantic subject finds its operatic voice in
Don Giovanni seems to refer back to Kierkegaard: “Never before in the world”, the

324 Review of 20 September 1815 IN Hoffmann 1963: 297-8.

325 Tomlinson 1999: 65.

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philosopher wrote, “has sensuousness been conceived as it is in Don Juan – as a
principle”.326
Figuring as the second section in the first volume of his chief philosophical work,
Enten-Eller, Et Livs-Fragment (Either/Or: A Fragment of Life), which was published in
Copenhagen in 1843, Kierkegaard‟s essay „The Immediate Stages of the Erotic, or The
Musical Erotic‟ was written in 1842, though the philosopher, writing under the pseudonym
Victor Eremita, purported to have found the anonymously authored manuscript in a secret
partition in an old secretary. The essay on Don Giovanni is framed by an „Insignificant
Introduction‟ and a brief „Insignificant Postlude‟, the former containing a lengthy
enthusiastic argument – echoing Goethe and Hoffmann – that “Mozart‟s Don Juan takes
the highest place among all classical works”327 because of the perfect affinity between the
subject of Don Juan and the medium of music, which is due to the fundamental
sensuousness of both. After a comparison with Cherubino and Papageno who represent
less developed stages in the „Musical Erotic‟, the figure of Don Giovanni is discussed in
three concluding chapters: „Sensuous Genius Qualified as Seduction‟, „Other Adaptations
of Don Juan, Considered in Relation to the Musical Interpretation‟, and „The Inner Musical
Structure of the Opera‟.
Unlike Hoffmann, Kierkegaard compares the opera to previous treatments of the
Don Juan figure, to Molière‟s comedy, Johan Ludvig Heiberg‟s Danish adaptation of the
same, and Lord Byron‟s epic poem, but he discusses the transformations of the story
entirely in terms of romantic idealism: a myth, he implies, possesses an unchangeable, ideal
„content‟ or „subject‟ which might wait for its ideal „form‟ or „medium‟ for centuries. Don
Giovanni is the ideal opera, accordingly, because the Don Juan story is the ideal subject for
the operatic medium. Mozart‟s opera is not just a treatment of the Don Juan myth, let
alone a parodic treatment: it is the very myth itself. Apart from the hint found in Goethe‟s
first letter to Schiller, Kierkegaard seems to have been the first critic to discuss Don
Giovanni as the very manifestation of the Don Juan myth. Like Goethe and Hoffmann,
Kierkegaard compares the romantic myths of Don Juan and Faust, wrongly placing the
origins of both in medieval times. Don Juan “is the expression for the daemonic
determined as the sensuous; Faust, its expression determined as the intellectual or spiritual,

326 Kierkegaard 1959 Vol. I: 92.

327 Ibid Vol. I: 56.

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which the Christian spirit excludes.”328 As the incarnation of the “sensuous-erotic
genius”,329 Don Juan is the most abstract artistic subject conceivable – abstract understood
as evading intellectual discourse – and the ideal medium for this subject would therefore be
one equally abstract:

[…] in what medium is this idea expressible? Solely in music. It cannot be expressed
in sculpture, for it is a sort of inner qualification of inwardness; nor in painting, for it
cannot be apprehended in precise outlines; it is an energy, a storm, impatience,
passion, and so on, in all their lyrical quality, yet so that it does not exist in one
moment but in a succession of moments, for if it existed in a single moment, it could
be modelled or painted. The fact that it exists in a succession of moments expresses
its epic character, but still it is not epic in the stricter sense, for it has not yet
advanced to words, but moves always in poetry. The only medium which can express
it is music. Music has, namely, an element of time in itself, but it does not take place
in time except in an unessential sense. The historical process in time it cannot
express.
The perfect unity of this idea and the corresponding form we have in Mozart‟s
Don Juan.330

In a sense, Kierkegaard‟s reasoning is very similar to Hoffmann‟s, though he is more

radical: they both present Don Giovanni as the very foundation of the operatic aesthetics of
Romanticism, owing to the alleged autonomy of its music. According to Kierkegaard,
music is the medium farthest removed from language, and in Don Giovanni it “does not
appear as an accompaniment, but reveals its own innermost essence in revealing the
idea.”331 Like Hoffmann and Wagner, Kierkegaard does not renounce language altogether,
but maintains that music marks the beginning and the end of language, since, at one end,
“the child‟s first babbling syllables are musical”,332 and, at the other, one hears “even in the
oratorical discourse, in the sonorous structures of its periods, a hint of the musical which
manifests itself more and more strongly at different levels in the poetic form, in the
structure of the verse, in the rhyme, until at last the musical has developed so strongly that
language ceases and everything becomes music.”333 Since Don Giovanni incarnates the idea
of sensuousness, he hovers between intellect and senses, between language and music, and
thus he has found his perfect medium in vocal music, in opera. If comparing this to
Hoffmann‟s reading, we might similarly conclude that the psychological depths which he

328 Ibid Vol. I: 89.

329 Ibid Vol. I: 63.
330 Ibid Vol. I: 55.
331 Ibid Vol. I: 63.
332 Ibid Vol. I: 68.
333 Ibid Vol. I: 67.

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attributes to the music of Don Giovanni and Donna Anna are dependent on their words,
which the music both precedes and extends. Thus the two readings share one basic
premise, though they appear to differ in another respect: according to Hoffmann, the
individuality of the characters derives from the music, but according to Kierkegaard, the
music dissolves their individuality:

The more the drama is self-reflective, the more the mood is explained in the action.
The less action, the more the lyrical element dominates. This is quite proper in opera.
Opera does not so much have character delineation and action as its immanent goal;
it is not reflective enough for that. On the other hand, passion, unreflective and
substantial, finds its expression in opera.334

When Don Giovanni is interpreted musically, therefore, he does not appear as a particular
individual, but as “the power of nature, the daemonic, which as little tires of seducing or is
done with seducing as the wind is tired of blowing, the sea of billowing, or a waterfall of
tumbling downward from the heights”;335 and the other characters are passions rather than
actual characters: “Don Juan‟s life is the life-principle within them.”336 This reading seems
to contradict Hoffmann‟s psychological reading. But are the two interpretations really that
different? Perhaps the difference is one of degree rather than kind and depends on how we
define „particular individual‟, or „character delineation‟, for indeed the operatic characters in
Hoffmann‟s story are not drawn realistically either: they, too, are larger-than-life
representatives of struggling metaphysical principles. Perhaps the fundamental difference
between the two readings resides not so much in contrasting views of the dramaturgical
function of music in opera, and of its relationship to words, as in what that music actually
means. To Hoffmann, the music in Don Giovanni is the soul of the drama, to Kierkegaard its
sensuousness; therefore the opera is interpreted by the former as a drama of conflicting
passions, and by the latter as a drama of seduction. The music transcends the words in both
cases.
In Kierkegaard‟s drama of seduction, however, Don Giovanni is not really a seducer:
he is seductive because he desires, “and this desire acts seductively.”337 His seductive force,
since it transcends the tricks and manipulations of the individual seducer, cannot be
expressed by words, which belong to the sphere of reflection and thought, whereas Don

334 Ibid Vol. I: 117.

335 Ibid Vol. I: 91.
336 Ibid Vol. I: 118.
337 Ibid Vol. I: 97.

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Giovanni‟s sphere is pure sensuousness. “As soon as we grant him eloquence he ceases to
be musical, and the aesthetic interest becomes an entirely different matter”,338 argues
Kierkegaard, and therefore his seductive force, “this omnipotence, this animation, only
music can express, and I know no other predicate to describe it than this: it is exuberant joy
of life.”339 The absolutely musical nature of Don Giovanni creates some problems in
relation to the inescapable fact that Mozart‟s opera is a piece for the theatre. Not only the
medium of language is alien to Kierkegaard‟s conception of Don Giovanni, but the
medium of theatre is basically unsuited to represent him as well, the concreteness of
theatrical performance being hardly compatible with the philosopher‟s celebration of
abstraction. This appears clearly from Kierkegaard‟s evasive description of Don Giovanni‟s
looks, which would be of little help to a stage director:

He is handsome, not very young; were I to venture a guess, I should suggest thirty-
three, that being the length of a generation. The hesitation in attempting such an
enquiry is due to the fact that one easily loses sight of the total in dwelling on the
details, as if it were by means of his good looks, or whatever else one might mention,
that Don Juan seduced. One sees him, then, but no longer hears him, and in that way
he is lost.340

The contrast to Hoffmann‟s detailed description of Don Giovanni‟s physical appearance is

striking. Hoffmann imagined an ideal theatrical performance of the opera, one unlikely to
take place on a live stage, but Kierkegaard does not want a theatrical performance at all: as
an inward category, Don Giovanni “cannot become visible nor reveal himself through the
physical form and its movements or in plastic harmony.”341 For the same reason,
Kierkegaard approaches the live theatrical event with even greater uneasiness than
Hoffmann:

We know from experience that it is not pleasant to strain two senses at the same
time, and it is often very confusing if we have to use our eyes hard when our ears are
already occupied. Therefore we have the tendency to close our eyes when hearing
music. This is true of all music more or less, and of Don Juan in sensu eminentiori. As
soon as the eyes are engaged, the impression becomes confused; for the dramatic
unity which presents itself to the eye is always subordinate and imperfect in
comparison with the musical unity which is heard at the same time. This, at least, has
been my own experience. I have sat close up, I have sat farther and farther back, I
have tried a corner in the theater where I could completely lose myself in the music.

338 Ibid Vol. I: 98.

339 Ibid Vol. I: 100.
340 Ibid Vol. I: 101.
341 Ibid Vol. I: 105.

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 The better I understood it, or believed I understood it, the farther I was away from it,
not from coldness, but from love, for it is better understood at a distance. This has
had for my life something strangely mysterious in it. There have been times when I
would have given anything for a ticket. Now I need no longer spend a single penny
for one. I stand outside in the corridor; I lean up against the partition which divides
me from the auditorium, and the impression is most powerful; it is a world by itself,
separated from me; I can see nothing, but I am near enough to hear, and yet so
infinitely far away.342

In Kierkegaard, Hoffmann‟s internalization of the opera is intensified: had he had the

opportunity, the Danish philosopher would surely have preferred putting on a record to
going to the theatre. Here we become aware not only of the fundamentally ambiguous
attitude of North European Romanticism towards the live scenic aspect of opera, but also
of the direct line going from the romantic conception of the art form to the 20 th-century
modernists who were equally anxious to view opera as a primarily musical form. This goes
for Joseph Kerman and his score-oriented followers, but it also goes for Maria Callas
whose performances, as André Tubeuf argues, were made for the gramophone rather than
for the stage.343
That Kierkegaard accepts the causality of the plot as legitimate and views the music
as the prime mover in the opera leads him to consider some of the same numbers as the
ones that interested Hoffmann, but his fundamentally different interpretation of the music
makes him highlight different aspects of those numbers. Both Hoffmann and Kierkegaard
focus on the Introduction, but whereas the former is interested above all in the passionate
conflict between Don Giovanni and Donna Anna, the latter is interested exclusively in the
metaphysical conflict between Don Giovanni and the Commendatore who, as the
incarnation of “reflective consciousness”,344 is the negation of Don Giovanni‟s “sensuous
genius”.

The Commandant appears only twice. The first time is at night; it is backstage in the
theater; one does not see him, but hears him fall before Don Juan‟s sword. Even
there his earnestness, which contrasts only the more strongly with Don Juan‟s
burlesque mockery, is something Mozart has wonderfully expressed in the music;
even there his earnestness is too profound to be that of a human being; he is spirit
before he dies. The second time he appears as spirit, and the thunders of heaven
reverberate in his earnest, solemn voice, but as he himself is transfigured, his voice is
changed into something more than a human voice; he speaks no more, he judges.345

342 Ibid Vol. I: 119.

343 Tubeuf 1987: 110-1.
344 Kierkegaard 1959 Vol. I: 124.
345 Ibid Vol. I: 123-4.

115
Unlike Hoffmann who evokes the opening in graphic detail, Kierkegaard hails invisibility as
the ideal: if theatre at all, Don Giovanni should be a theatre of sound. To Hoffmann, the
Commendatore is simply an old father who pays with his life “for the folly of challenging
his mighty opponent in the dark”,346 but to Kierkegaard, the music “immediately makes the
Commandant something more than a particular individual, his voice is expanded to the
voice of a spirit.”347 The less visible, the more ideal the characters seem to become. The
scene with the Stone Guest, furthermore, seems devoid of the gothic horror which it has in
Hoffmann: in Kierkegaard, Don Giovanni‟s punishment is not caused by the union of
heaven and hell, but by heaven alone. Here, too, the absence of visual detail is striking.
The view of Don Giovanni as seductive force rather than as a tragic hero tormented
by struggling passions gives the vengeful Donna Anna the least prominent role among the
three women. Kierkegaard finds Zerlina and Donna Elvira far more interesting, and so we
do not truly encounter Don Giovanni before he interrupts Donna Elvira‟s first aria, “Ah
chi mi dice mai”:

The unity in the situation is effected by the harmony wherein Elvira and Don Juan
are heard together. It is therefore quite right for Don Juan to remain as far in the
background as possible; for he should be unseen, not only by Elvira, but even by the
audience. […] Her inmost being is stirred by turbulent emotions, she has aired her
grief, she grows faint for a moment, as every passionate outbreak enervates her; there
follows a pause in the music. But the turbulence in her inmost being shows clearly
that her passion has not yet reached its full expression; the diaphragm of wrath must
yet vibrate more intensely. But what is to call forth this agitation, what incitement?
There is but one thing that can do this – Don Juan‟s mockery. Mozart has, therefore
– would that I were a Greek, for then I would say, quite divinely – made use of this
pause in the music to fling in Don Juan‟s jeering laughter. […]
The spectator should not see Don Juan, should not see him with Elvira, for it
is indeed Don Juan who sings, but he sings in such a way that the more the listener‟s
ear is developed, the more it seems to him as if it came from Elvira herself. As love
transforms its object, so also does indignation. She is possessed by Don Juan. That
pause and Don Juan‟s voice make the situation dramatic, but the unity in Elvira‟s
passion wherein Don Juan echoes, while her passion is still engaged with him, makes
the situation musical. The situation conceived as a musical situation is matchless. If,
however, Don Juan is a personality and Elvira equally so, then the situation is a
failure, and it is a mistake to permit Elvira to unburden herself in the foreground
while Don Juan jeers in the background; for this demands that I hear them together
without having been given the means for this, and in spite of the fact that they both
are characters who could not possibly be heard together.348

346 Hoffmann 1945: 506.

347 Kierkegaard 1959 Vol. I: 111.
348 Ibid Vol. I: 120-2.

116
Again, Don Giovanni has to be invisible in order for the small ensemble to achieve the
musical effect desired by Kierkegaard: Don Giovanni‟s life is the “life-principle” within the
other characters, and he resounds through them musically, but this impression can only be
created if the individual characters and the theatrical situation are blurred. Underlying the
philosopher‟s analysis of the aria, which could properly be called a trio, we also sense an
attitude towards the operatic ensemble as fundamentally unconvincing from a theatrical
standpoint, which mirrors the realistic endeavours of romantic theatre. The trio cannot
present a believable theatrical situation, Kierkegaard seems to imply, and therefore it must
be regarded as an orchestration of passions instead. In effect, three soliloquies are
transformed into an orchestration of passions – which is indeed the case on many
(modern) recordings, though at obvious variance with Mozart‟s ideas about operatic
ensembles, as appears from his description of the Idomeneo Quartet.
That we hear the other characters through Don Giovanni is a recurring point in
Kierkegaard‟s analysis, his most elaborate example being Leporello whose “relation to his
master becomes quite explicable through the medium of music, inexplicable without it.”349
He focuses on the servant‟s two first arias, but also mentions the ballroom scene as an
example of how Mozart everywhere has permitted Leporello to imitate Don Giovanni, 350
thereby accomplishing two things: “the musical effect, that one always hears Don Juan
when Leporello is alone; and the burlesque effect, that when Don Juan is present, one
hears Leporello repeat him, and thereby unconsciously parody him.”351 We shall later return
to other possible interpretations of the fact that Leporello and Don Giovanni imitate each
other‟s music throughout the opera.
Kierkegaard singles out two numbers as the most “lyric” in the opera, as the
moments when we hear Don Giovanni‟s sensuousness most directly: “Fin ch‟han dal vino”
and the opening of the second Finale:

[…] the feast‟s intoxicating cordials, the foaming wine, the festal strains of distant
music, everything combines to intensify Don Juan‟s mood, as his own festivity casts
an enhanced illumination over the whole enjoyment, an enjoyment so powerful in its
effect that even Leporello is transfigured in this opulent moment which marks the
last smile of gladness, the last farewell to pleasure. […] The situation lies in the fact
349 Ibid Vol. I: 124.
350 Kierkegaard presumably refers to the opening of the scene, when master and servant bid the peasants
welcome: “DON GIOVANNI: Riposate, vezzose ragazze. / LEPORELLO: Rinfrescatevi, bei giovinotti.”
(691-2).
351 Kierkegaard 1959 Vol. I: 130.

117
 that Don Juan is keyed up to life‟s highest tension. Pursued by the whole world, this
victorious Don Juan has now no place of abode other than a little secluded room. It
is at the highest point of life‟s seesaw that once again, for lack of lusty
companionship, he excites every lust of life in his own breast. If Don Juan were a
drama, then this inner unrest in the situation would need to be made as brief as
possible. On the other hand, it is right in opera that the situation should be
prolonged, glorified by every possible exuberance, which only sounds the wilder,
because for the spectators it reverberates from the abyss over which Don Juan is
hovering.352

Again, the contrast to Hoffmann‟s description of the supper is palpable: gone are the
Faustian undertones and the gothic gloom. But even if Kierkegaard‟s conception is lighter
and more exuberant, it shares with Hoffmann‟s the sense of foreboding which is
inextricably bound up with their common acceptance of Don Giovanni‟s punishment. This
even shines through in the fact that Kierkegaard, too, has the scene set in “a little secluded
room”, in clear contrast to Da Ponte‟s stage direction.

* * *
Mozart‟s Don Giovanni was singled out by some of the most prominent literary figures of
the Romantic Movement in Northern Europe not only as the first romantic opera but as
the model and foundation of a new operatic aesthetic – an aesthetic which still forms the
basis of prevalent conceptions of opera today, among conductors and singers as well as
scholars.
A central principle is the conception of the artwork as an organic, autonomous
whole, which underlies the modernist search for abstract musical forms and tonal plans in
operatic scores, and against which Carolyn Abbate, James Webster and others have reacted.
It is most important to emphasize, however, that the focus on the score as an autonomous
and perfect entity implies that the active contribution of the performance to the meaning
and effect of the score is toned down. This leads to the romantic-modernist conception of
Werktreue, which controls the opera recordings of Lilli Lehmann and Maria Callas, but it
also leads to the musical analysis of scores as possessing an inherent meaning beyond the
interference of performance, against which Abbate and Webster have not reacted.
The score-oriented conception of opera inevitably tends to imply ambivalent attitude
towards the live scenic dimension, since the performance can disrupt existing meanings,

352 Ibid Vol. I: 133.

118
but not add new ones. The ambivalence is apparent with Hoffmann and Kierkegaard, but it
also underlies the fascination with opera recordings rather than with opera productions
throughout the modernist era (especially in the 50s, 60s and 70s) as well as the striking
extent to which the performance aspect has been ignored by students of Mozart‟s operas.
Like Hoffmann, the silent reader of a score tends to imagine an ideal performance.
Goethe‟s, Hoffmann‟s and Kierkegaard‟s establishing of Don Giovanni as the supreme
organic artwork is closely linked to the downgrading, or near-elimination, of the
importance of the words. Reacting implicitly against an earlier, Italianate conception of
opera, in which song is the extension of the words, Hoffmann and Kierkegaard stress
repeatedly that the meanings they perceive in the music transcend the verbal meaning, the
music possessing an ideal meaning, a hidden content or sublime truth, to which one has to
listen with care. Of all romantic remnants in current performance practice and scholarship,
this concept of pre- or non-verbal musical meanings is the most persistent: it underlies
Callas‟ infusion of psychological subtexts into Bellini‟s tunes and Kerman‟s and Dahlhaus‟
idea that the composer is the real dramatist in opera, as well as the ongoing search –
conducted by both directors and scholars – for Don Giovanni‟s true character in Mozart‟s
score. Particularly Hoffmannesque is the musicological concept of „action‟, which has been
used by opera scholars from Kerman to Abbate as a way of evading the words of the
libretto: everything indicates that Hoffmann was the first critic ever to hear an „interior
drama‟ revealed exclusively in music when he perceived a tragically unfulfilled love between
Don Giovanni and Donna Anna not hinted at in the text. A similar belief in the existence
of „ideal‟ musical actions underlies some of the widely disparate readings of “Fin ch‟han dal
vino” that take no heed of the words. In consequence, the postmodernist concept of
„multivalence‟, which cultivates the independent discursiveness of music, is not, as
purported by Webster, a return to a pre-Wagnerian conception of opera, but rather the
romantic autonomy of music carried to its logical conclusion.
As I have argued in this section, all these practical, aesthetical and methodological
preconceptions, which form the basis of still prevalent conceptions of Italian opera, were
formulated in the first half of the 19th century with reference to Mozart‟s Don Giovanni.
Goethe, Hoffmann, Kierkegaard and their followers reckoned without their host, however:
by all accounts, their conception of Mozart‟s music in general and of Don Giovanni in
particular was fundamentally alien to what the historical Mozart apparently intended and
expected from his performers. The romantic interpretations of Don Giovanni, which not

119
only form the basis of current interpretations, but on which vast theoretical superstructures
have been founded, ultimately rely on a dramaturgical misconception. The idea that Don
Giovanni‟s interior is revealed in the music alone, as Hoffmann thought, or that his very
existence is itself musical, as Kierkegaard asserted, results from reading the drama
backwards, from assuming that his punishment is logically motivated by his actions, and
that these motivations – since they hardly appear from a reading of the text – must be
found in the music. That Don Giovanni‟s punishment is unreasonable, as Baker maintains,
would have been more clear to audiences of the original Italian version of the opera, but
the romanticists only knew the opera from German singspiel adaptations, in which the
subtle dramatic irony had been eliminated. Besides, the very conception of the Don Juan
story changed with the advent of Romanticism, wherefore the parodic layers in Da Ponte‟s
libretto would have become increasingly obscure.

120
PART TWO

121
 Approaching the Original Production
Mozart and the original cast
One unavoidable reason why no one has previously attempted to analyze an opera as
fabled as Don Giovanni in the light of its original production is surely that practically nothing
was known about what actually took place in Count Nostic‟ National Theatre in Prague in
October 1787 until a few years ago. Mozart‟s letters and Da Ponte‟s Memorie reveal next to
nothing about the dramatic or theatrical ideas of the authors, and no details whatsoever are
given about the musical or dramatic performances of the singers. The only accounts by
original audience members have already been quoted, and little is added by Mozart‟s early
biographers.
In 1987, however, the Czech theatre scholar Vĕra Ptáčková brought to light a large
number of drawings and engravings that showed scene paintings by the 18 th-century
designer Josef Platzer who had supplied the National Theatre with twelve new stock
decorations when it opened in 1783. These decorations, to which were probably added
older sceneries inherited from the closed Kotce Theatre, were almost certainly the ones
used for the original production of Don Giovanni. One of the engravings represents a street
scene which may very well have been used in Act Two, as it bears an obvious resemblance
to Medard Thoenert‟s copperplate of Luigi Bassi, the original Don Giovanni, singing the
Canzonetta, which is the only surviving pictorial source from the original production (for
both pictures, cf. the cover of this dissertation). Of Don Giovanni‟s costume on the
copperplate Ptáčková has the following to say:

[…] a feathered hat, a coat “à la française”, ancestor of our tails. Low boots instead
of the more usual shoes with buckles – and we have the picture of a perfect late-18th-
century beau.353

In 2001 the German musicologist Till Gerrit Waidelich‟s uncovered a great deal of new
source material concerning Luigi Bassi, including early 19th-century reviews of Bassi‟s
performances in other operas, the singer‟s obituary from 1825, which includes an
autobiographical sketch, a third-hand description from 1855 of Mozart‟s directions

353 Ptáčková 1987: 111.

122
concerning the performance of “Fin ch‟han dal vino” and a detailed second-hand
description of Bassi‟s Don Giovanni from 1888. Waidelich‟s study has been the starting
point of my own investigation of Bassi‟s Don Giovanni, and in the following I am able to
present a large amount of new source material drawn from anecdotes and recollections
written down in the 19th century. In addition to the established knowledge of Mozart, Da
Ponte, the original singers and other practical circumstances, my attempted analysis of the
original production is based primarily on the recollections of three people who, however,
never themselves saw Bassi as Don Giovanni: Count Friedrich Wilhelm Heinse von
Hohenthal-Städteln, author of two volumes of Reise- und Lebens-Skizzen nebst dramaturgischen
Blättern and a personal friend of Bassi whose obituary he wrote; the Dresden singing
pedagogue Marie Börner-Sandrini whose mother had sung Donna Anna to Bassi‟s Don
Giovanni in Prague in 1802; and Johann Peter Lyser, a rather eccentric author of nursery
tales, fairy-plays, opera librettos, historical short stories and musical and literary criticism
who pretended to have known Bassi personally, but in fact, as I will try to show, drew on
anecdotes communicated to him by a number of Bassi‟s colleagues and acquaintances.
As for my attempted analysis of the original production of Don Giovanni in this
section, one reservation needs to be made: the production will be approached with a focus
on the performance of the title role. The reason for this is pragmatic: whereas I have found
a great deal of material about Bassi‟s performance of Don Giovanni, next to nothing is
known about how the remaining singers performed their roles. This may have to do with
the fact that Bassi still lived in the German-speaking countries in the first quarter of the 19th
century, when the Mozart fever was at its highest and where people were curious to know
details about the composer and about Bassi‟s interpretation of his most legendary role, of
which he was the famous creator. The other singers, however, have left practically no traces
behind regarding Don Giovanni or their roles in it and so it seems natural to use Bassi as the
focus of my investigation and analysis.
Before turning to Bassi‟s Don Giovanni, however, it is necessary to situate it within a
somewhat broader context. First of all it is necessary to consider the degree and nature of
Mozart‟s collaboration with the original singers, with special reference to Luigi Bassi. This
leads to the question in what way the singer may have influenced Mozart‟s take on the title
role, and in the next chapter I will try to visualize Bassi as a dramatic performer, drawing
on descriptions of his physical appearance and his general performance style. Only then
will I turn to his specific interpretation and performance of Don Giovanni.

123
 The 1786 production of Mozart‟s Le nozze di Figaro by Pasquale Bondini‟s and
Domenico Guardasoni‟s Italian opera company was such a tremendous success that
Mozart was invited to Prague by a number of local music connoisseurs, and he stayed in
the city from 11 January to about 8 February 1787.354 At the National Theatre he heard, on
more than one occasion, the company for whom he was later going to write Don Giovanni,
but the level of performance does not seem to have impressed him much. In a letter to his
friend Gottfried von Jacquin he describes how he and Constanze on 13 January had
witnessed a performance of Giovanni Paisiello‟s comical opera Le gare generose:

In regard to the performance of this opera I can give no definite opinion because I
talked a lot; but that quite contrary to my usual custom I chattered so much may
have been due to … Well, never mind!355

On 17 January Mozart is known to have witnessed a performance of Le nozze di Figaro, 356

and, as the Prager Oberpostamtszeitung reported, “he himself conducted the opera Figaro, this
work of his genius” on the 22nd .357 This means that Mozart was acquainted with four of the
later cast-members when he, apparently during the summer,358 was commissioned by the
Prague theatre to write an opera for the Italian company for the coming winter season.
On 4 October he returned to Prague for the rehearsals of his new opera,359 and in a
letter to Jacquin, which he began writing on 15 October, Mozart does not betray greater
enthusiasm for the local opera company than he did the first time he visited the city:

354 Deutsch 1990: 284-5.

355 Letter of 15 January 1787.
356 Deutsch 1990: 285.
357 Quoted in Ibid: 285.
358 Traditionally, scholars have accepted Nĕmeček‟s claim that the opera director Pasquale Bondini, during the

composer‟s first visit to Prague, “commissioned Mozart to compose a new opera for the Prague stage for the
following winter, which the latter gladly undertook to do, as he had experienced how much the Bohemians
appreciated his music and how well they executed it.” (Niemetschek 1956: 37). The claim has recently and
convincingly been disputed by Hans Ernst Weidinger who, on the following grounds, argues that Don
Giovanni could hardly have been commissioned before the early summer: 1) there is no mention of a new
opera commission in the correspondence of the Mozart family, and the composer does not seem to have
faltered in his plans about moving to England until several months after his return from Prague (Weidinger
2002 Vol. I: 26-39); 2) Bondini‟s contractual relations were very insecure in February, his continued lease of
the National Theatre hanging by a hair until Easter, which makes it improbable that he should embark on a
venture as ambitious as a new opera commission, especially since he had never done so before (Ibid Vol. I:
47); 3) Lorenzo Da Ponte claims to have written librettos for Vicente Martín y Soler, Mozart and Antonio
Salieri simultaneously, but Salieri did not return from Paris to Vienna before July, which means that Da Ponte
could not have begun work on his libretto for Salieri, Axur, re d’Ormus, before this date (Ibid Vol. I: 39).
Weidinger concludes that Mozart and Da Ponte did not set to work before sometime between May and the
middle of July 1787 (Ibid: 42-7), which also explains why Mozart had not completed the opera when he
arrived in Prague for rehearsals.
359 Deutsch 1990: 299.

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 You probably think that my opera is over by now. If so, you are a little mistaken. In
the first place, the stage personnel [theatralische Personale] here are not as smart as those
in Vienna, when it comes to mastering an opera of this kind in a very short time.
Secondly, I found on my arrival that so few preparations and arrangements had been
made that it would have been absolutely impossible to produce it on the 14 th, that is,
yesterday. […] „Don Giovanni‟ has now been fixed for the 24th.
October 21st. It was fixed for the 24th, but a further postponement has been
caused by one of the singers. As the company is small, the impresario is in a
perpetual state of anxiety and has to spare his people as much as possible, lest some
unexpected indisposition should plunge him into the most awkward of all situations,
that of not being able to produce any show whatsoever!
So everything dawdles along here because the singers, who are lazy, refuse to
rehearse on opera days and the manager, who is anxious and timid, will not force
them.360

Mozart evidently found the singers slow, lazy and, as for their professionalism, below the
standard of Vienna‟s Burgtheater for which Figaro had been composed the year before.
Part of the explanation may be that over half of the singers were young people at the
beginning of their careers: Luigi Bassi (Don Giovanni) was twenty-one361 and Teresa
Saporiti (Donna Anna) twenty-four;362 while Caterina Micelli (Donna Elvira) and Antonio
Baglioni (Don Ottavio), who are first mentioned in Italian cast lists in 1784 and 1786,
respectively, would have been in their early twenties too.363 The acclaimed stars of the
troupe, Felice Ponziani (Leporello) and Caterina Bondini (Zerlina), the manager‟s wife,
were about thirty years of age,364 while Giuseppe Lolli (Masetto/the Commendatore), the
Nestor of the company, was probably in his late thirties.365
That Mozart was not deeply impressed with the company does not mean, however,
that he did not compose the arias of Don Giovanni with the Prague singers in mind, though
we only know with certainty that he had heard the four who sang in Figaro in January when
composing their arias: Bassi, Saporiti, Ponziani and Caterina Bondini. Lolli, however, he

360 Letter of 15/25 October 1787.

361 Luigi Bassi was baptized in Pesaro on 5 September 1766 (Waidelich 2001: 201 (note)).
362 Weidinger 2002 Vol. I: 106-7.
363 In the carnival of 1784 Caterina Micelli sang Zuccherina (terza buffa) in Francesco Zannetti‟s Le Cognate in

Contesa and Lauretta in Domenico Cimarosa‟s Giannina e Bernardone in Reggia (Ibid Vol. I: 122). Antonio
Baglioni is mentioned for the first in the spring of 1786 when he sang in Ferdinando Moretti‟s and Giuseppe
Tarchi‟s Ariarate at the Teatro Zagnoni in Bologna (Ibid Vol. I: 114).
364 On the age of Caterina Bondini, cf. Pilková 1997: 1096. Ponziani is first mentioned in the 1778 cast list for

Giovanni Paisiello‟s La Frascatana in Foligno (Weidinger 2002 Vol. I: 102-3).

365 Lolli is first mentioned in a cast list in the carnival 1770, when he sang Lelio in Tommaso Mariani‟s and

Rinaldo da Capua‟s Li Finti Pazzi per amore and Florio in Domenico Corri‟s La Raminga fedele at the Teatro
della Pace in Rome (Ibid Vol. I: 117).

125
could have heard in Vienna in the previous season, and Micelli and Baglioni probably
stopped by in Vienna on their way from Italy to Prague in order to sing to him.366
When the composer arrived in Prague in October, the Overture, Masetto‟s aria, “Eh
via buffone”, the Canzonetta, “Metà di voi qua vadano”, “O statua gentilissima” and the
Act Two Finale still had to be committed to paper.367 As for the Overture and the last three
scenes, this probably means nothing more than that Mozart, due to pressure of work, had
not finished the opera when arriving for rehearsals, and the same may be the case with the
cemetery scene and the Act Two street scene, of which he had written only “Vedrai carino”
and the Trio with its surrounding recitatives.368
The extant version of Masetto‟s aria, however, may very well be a revision or a
rewriting of a previous version, which Mozart made in order to suit Giuseppe Lolli: since
Mozart could have heard Lolli sing in Vienna throughout the previous winter season, the
reason is hardly that he was unacquainted with the singer‟s voice or abilities, but Lolli may
have felt that the earlier aria gave him too little scope. As for the supper scene, it will be
argued below that Mozart deliberately had waited with the composition of this section,
since he wanted it to have an improvised atmosphere which could best be developed in
close collaboration with the two comical actors Bassi and Ponziani. But was something
similar the case with the music for the Act Two street scene and the cemetery scene? Of
course, the anecdote related by Dr. Francis about Da Ponte promoting “the vis comica” in
the libretto may suggest that the whole „disguise sequence‟ (II.i-x), which is basically
dispensable to the plot and has no equivalent in Giovanni Bertati‟s libretto on which Da
Ponte modelled his, was a late addition to the libretto, for which reason Mozart may have
been behind schedule. But the late composition of two of Don Giovanni‟s three solos and
of all his duets with Leporello may also have had more pragmatic, theatrical reasons, and it

366 In the Figaro performances in January Ponziani sang Figaro, Bondini Susanna (Deutsch 1990: 281), and
Saporiti probably the Countess (Weidinger 2002 Vol. I: 93). Weidinger argues that the Prague
Commendatore/Masetto was in fact identical with the tenor Giuseppe Lolli who sang Sumer in Domenico
Cimarosa‟s Italiana in Londra in the 1786-7 season in Vienna where Mozart could have heard him (Ibid Vol. I:
119). Baglioni and Micelli were both engaged at Italian theatres in the 1786-7 season: Baglioni sang Valerio in
Il capriccio drammatico and presumably Don Ottavio (rather than Don Giovanni) in Giuseppe Gazzaniga‟s Don
Giovanni in Venice in the 1787 Carnival (Ibid Vol. I: 91); Micelli sang Ernestina in Salieri‟s La scuola de’ gelosi in
Zara in Dalmatia in the 1787 Carnival, and therefore could not have sung Cherubino in Prague, as sometimes
suggested (Ibid Vol. II: 121-2). There is no proof that Mozart heard them before October 1787, but on their
way to Prague they may, as Weidinger suggests (though he himself discards the idea), have stopped by in
Vienna where Mozart could have auditioned them. Considering the highly idiosyncratic style of their arias –
as well as Mozart‟s and the general operatic practices of the time – I take it that all other possibilities are ruled
out.
367 Tyson 1990: 11.
368 Ibid: 19.

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is indeed striking that, with the exception of Masetto‟s aria and the final scene, all the
missing vocal music features Luigi Bassi. Perhaps Mozart was unsure about the abilities of
the twenty-year-one-old singer, perhaps the extant numbers are in fact revisions of earlier
numbers, or perhaps Mozart wanted to try out Bassi‟s gift for parody and vocal
impersonation (which all the said numbers arguably require) before setting the comical
numbers to music.
That Mozart, during rehearsals, did adapt the opera to suit the vocal, musical and
dramatic abilities of his performers appears indirectly from divergences between the
preliminary libretto which Da Ponte had had printed in Vienna before Mozart left for
Prague – perhaps on demand from the censors369 – and the libretto as it was printed for the
premiere. An obvious instance is Mozart‟s and Da Ponte‟s expansion of the recitative
immediately after the Trio from ten to twenty-one lines. Micelli and Ponziani must have
been so much fun when parodying the sentimental pathos of Donna Elvira and Leporello
disguised as Don Giovanni, respectively, that the authors decided to give them a further
opportunity to shine as comedians.

A singer, a composer and a role

But in what way did the personality of Luigi Bassi (1766-1825) as a performer influence the
part of Don Giovanni? Carl Ferdinand Philippi, editor of the Dresden periodical Merkur,
claimed in1825 that Bassi had been Mozart‟s ideal Don Giovanni:

According to a beautiful story, which we can no longer conceal, Mozart originally

had Bassi‟s personality in mind when he conceived the role of Don Juan. If this is
really so, then it must count as a stroke of good luck such as destiny‟s highest favour
rewards only to extraordinary merit, as it is unfolded in all its glory before the eyes of
an amazed world. Thus Achilles found his Homer, and in more recent times though
with considerable differences, Winkelmann his Goethe.370

Like Kierkegaard, the romantic Philippi thought of the relationship between Bassi and
Mozart as an ideal relationship between subject and artist: Mozart was the artist; Bassi was
the subject. But the romanticists did not take into account what Libby describes as the

369 Referring to the correspondence between Emperor Joseph II and his brother Archduke Leopold of
Tuscany, for the wedding festivities of whose daughter, Archduchess Maria Theresia, to Prince Anton
Clemens of Saxony, the premiere had originally been planned, Weidinger convincingly argues that the
preliminary Viennese libretto was probably printed in the second half of September or at the beginning of
October (Weidinger 2002 Vol. IV: 815).
370 Merkur. Mittheilungen aus Vorräthen der Heimath und der Fremde, für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Leben, 12 February

1825, No. 19: 74ff., quoted in Waidelich 2001: 189.

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“symbiotic relationship” between composer and performer within the Italianate tradition:
here the ideal piece of music was the music that suited its performer to perfection. In the
following we will try to consider in what way Mozart could have adapted the role to suit
Luigi Bassi.
First of all, it seems necessary to consider the singer‟s youth at the time of the
premiere, which Mozart must have had in mind. In his obituary of the singer, published in
the Dresden Nekrolog in 1825 and reproduced in Waidelich‟s article, Friedrich Heinse
reproduces a small autobiographical sketch by Bassi, from which we learn that the singer,
having received singing lessons since the age of ten and having stood on a stage since the
age of thirteen, decided to become a professional opera singer at the age of seventeen:

By means of recommendation, I came to Florence, to a certain Filippo Laschi, an

excellent singer and actor as mezzo carattere, who supported me with friendly advice
and instruction; he let me play a small part at the Teatro della Pergola and encouraged
me to continue with diligence in my art, as he told me that nature had furnished me
with all the means of a good theatrical artist.
A correspondent of the theatre in Prague then assured me that young artists of
my profession were better educated outside Italy than in their native country,
especially in Prague where a certain Domenico Guardasoni was employed as director
of the theatre and where he laboured to cultivate young people with a natural
capacity and talent for the stage. –
On my teacher Laschi‟s advice, I accepted the contract and left for Prague in
the year 1784.
At the age of 18, I began my actual theatrical career and sang 2 nd parts for a
year, as my voice (baritone) was not quite trained and firm yet. When I turned 20,
Guardasoni began entrusting me with first roles […]371

Bassi turned twenty in early September 1786, around the time of the Prague première of Le
nozze di Figaro which took place before 11 December,372 and so Count Almaviva must have
been among the first leading roles he sang.373 As he acquitted himself well in the part –
eight years later, at least, Almaviva was counted among his best roles 374 – Guardasoni must
have decided to give Felice Ponziani, the company‟s experienced star comedian, and Luigi
Bassi, a young and talented comedian excelling in dignified parts, the leading male roles in
the new Mozart opera.

371 Heinse 2001: 202.

372 Deutsch 1990: 280-1.
373 In the sketch, Bassi mentions Almaviva among the leading roles he sang from the age of twenty and the

next six or seven years (Heinse 2001: 202-3).

374 [František Xaver Nĕmeček]: Allgemeinen Europäischen Journal Vol. 2, October-December 1794: 564, quoted

IN Raeburn 1959: 159.

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 In other words, Bassi was a young talent who had just ended his theatrical
apprenticeship rather than the leading star of the company. Indeed, he was still listed as
“Zweyter Bassist” in 1792,375 whereas Felice Ponziani, described by a contemporary
reporter as “a man who here, and wherever he has appeared, has been the favourite of
connoisseurs and of all who have heard him”,376 had been the company‟s male star at least
since 1782.377 As appears from the following review, it was also Ponziani‟s Figaro, rather
than Bassi‟s Almaviva, who was the centre of attention in the company‟s highly successful
1786 production of Le nozze di Figaro – the success which prompted the commission of a
new opera from Mozart for much the same cast:

No piece (so every one here asserts) has ever caused such a sensation as the Italian
opera Die Hochzeit des Figaro, which has already been given several times here with
unlimited applause by Bondini‟s resident company of opera virtuosi, among whom
Mme. Bondini [as Susanna] and Herr Ponziani in the comic roles especially
distinguished themselves.378

This all serves as an indication that the actual star role in Don Giovanni was not the title role,
but Leporello, just as the leading male performer in the traditional commedia dell’arte and
opera buffa versions of Il convitato di pietra did not play Don Giovanni, but his servant. When
the famous comedian Domenico Biancolelli‟s troupe gave Il convitato di pietra in Paris in the
1650s and 60s, the servant Arlecchino was played by Biancolelli himself;379 Molière played
Sganarelle in his own Dom Juan ou Le festin de Pierre in 1665, and in Bertati‟s Capriccio
drammatico the role of Don Giovanni‟s servant, Pasquariello, is taken by the impresario
Policastro who, in turn, was sung by the Venetian company‟s leading male singer, Giovanni
Morelli.380 That the servant was sung by the leading male comedian testifies to the
fundamentally comical conception of the story, and neither the original production nor the
Viennese premiere of Mozart‟s Don Giovanni was an exception in this regard.381
According to what Bassi later told Friedrich Heinse, however, Mozart found him too
young even for the role of Don Giovanni:

375 Heinrich August Ottokar Reichard: Taschenbuch für die Schaubühne auf das Jahr 1793, Gotha 1792: 146f,
quoted in Waidelich 2001: 182.
376 Prager Oberpostamtszeitung 9 January 1787, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 284.
377 Weidinger 2002 Vol. I: 92-3.
378 Prager Oberpostamtszeitung 12 December 1786, quoted in Deutsch 1990: 280.
379 Spada 1969: 102.
380 Russell 1993: 384.
381 In the 1788 Viennese production Leporello was sung by Francesco Benucci, the first Figaro and

Guglielmo.

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 When Mozart came to Prague (1787) on Guardasoni‟s invitation in order to compose
[sic] da Ponte‟s adaptation of the story of the Convidado de piedra, which had first been
brought on the Spanish stage by Tirso de Molina […], then on the French stage by
Molière and Thomas Corneille, and then on the Italian stage by Goldoni, Bassi was
little more than 20 years old [sic]. Mozart found the performer too young for his
conception of the character, saying that Bassi would learn for himself that he would
be ripe for a satisfactory representation of the role only later. This seems to mean
that the young actor‟s limited experience of the world would not suffice, since the
musical characterization of Don Juan rises above the superficial delineation of a
pleasure-loving rake, […] representing, on the one hand, all the skills of the attractive
and experienced seducer, and on the other, the aggressive force of the defiant
blasphemer in the full vigour of his manhood. – And Bassi admitted himself that
Mozart had been right.382

In his interpretation of the anecdote, Heinse was clearly influenced by the romantic
reception of the opera and especially by Hoffmann‟s „Don Juan‟, in which the seducer is
indeed described as a mature man, but in the opera‟s list of characters, however, the rake is
described as a “young gentleman”,383 and so he was, it seems, conceived with the youthful
Bassi in mind. The sheer notion of Mozart having a “conception of the character”
unrelated to the actual performer is bound to a romantic-idealist work-concept.
Mozart‟s reservations as to Bassi‟s age are likely to have concerned his technical
abilities, dramatic and/or musical, and it would be only natural to find these limitations
reflected in the score. They may indeed be the central reason why Mozart refused to write
him a grand, difficult aria, which story Heinse confirms in his obituary of the singer:

The admirers of this immortal musical work will probably not mind having the
anecdote thrown in which Bassi told me himself: when Mozart presented him with
the later so popular Champagne Song, the latter was so dissatisfied that he asked the
composer to write him a longer aria in the style of those times instead. Mozart told
him quite calmly to wait for its success on the evening of the first performance, and
its success was – that the piece instantly was demanded da capo by the enthusiastic
audience of Prague with a storm of applause.384

And yet Bassi‟s request was not unusual in the light of Mozart‟s distribution of arias, the
unfailing indicator of theatrical hierarchies in 18th-century opera. Whereas the three female
singers were given two solos each (Donna Elvira‟s first aria is actually a trio, yet she was

382 Heinse 1837 (Appendix VI).

383 “Don Giovanni, giovane cavaliere estremamente licenzioso” (Personaggi).
384 Heinse 2001: 208.

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only the terza buffa) and the two remaining male singers were given only one solo each,385
Ponziani and Bassi were given three each, which clearly marks Leporello out as a leading
role. Indeed, Leporello‟s arias are generally longer than Don Giovanni‟s and offer more
opportunities for a buffo singer to show off his comical skills (especially the Catalogue Aria),
whereas the Don‟s first two solos, “Fin ch‟han dal vino” and the Canzonetta, are
remarkably short and offer limited opportunity for virtuoso display.
Even if Mozart refused to write Bassi a big showpiece because he found the singer
too young and inexperienced, this does not mean that the limitation could not be turned
into an advantage. Just as Bassi‟s youthfulness was made an integral part of Don
Giovanni‟s character, so what was probably his vocal lack of finish may have led to the
mercurial quality of the Don‟s character which results from his having no great aria.
Another version of the anecdote about the „grand aria‟ was told by Johann Peter Lyser in
his historical short story „Don Giovanni‟ from 1856, in which he drew on anecdotes told
him by Bassi‟s colleagues and acquaintances. Here the composer responds to Bassi‟s
request for a grand aria with the following words:

“No, my dear Signor Bassi, you will not find a so-called grand aria in my opera,
because such a laudable grand aria would contradict the hero‟s character entirely! But
you have solos which – I give you my word – will give you enough to do, as they will
have to be acted and not just sung, and each of them differently from the other.”386

The French music historian Castil-Blaze quotes another anecdote about Mozart and Bassi
in his Molière musicien from 1852. This anecdote appears to have been lifted word-by-word
from a German source, which I have not been able to trace, however: formed as a dialogue
between the composer and the singer, it appears to be the oldest known version of the
story about Mozart having rewritten “Là ci darem la mano” five times in order to satisfy
Bassi:

Bassi drove Mozart to despair in regard to the gentle and graceful duet “Là ci darem
la mano.” The composer had already written four versions of the duet without being
able to satisfy his favourite actor. “It‟s very good,” Bassi told him, “I admit that it‟s
beautiful and good music, but it‟s far too modulated. Remember that I have to
seduce a young, innocent and naïve girl; I will not succeed if obliged to search for, to
make out and to control my pitches. Think of the effect I always produce with that

385 Donna Elvira‟s ”Mi tradí quell‟alma ingrata” and Don Ottavio‟s “Dalla sua pace” were both inserted for
the Viennese production: the former in order to expand Donna Elvira‟s role, the latter as a replacement for
the tenor‟s “Il mio tesoro intanto”.
386 Lyser 1856: 24 (Appendix XII A).

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 simple, I would even say foolish, duet in Cosa rara, “Pace, mio caro sposo”. I am
deeply sorry at having to reject your four versions of the same duet, but it‟s
absolutely necessary: none of them suits me.”387

Castil-Blaze continues to tell how the annoyed Mozart resumes work, producing a fifth
version of the duet, which is then praised as a masterpiece by Bassi. Christoph Bitter
disproved the story in 1961 by pointing out that Mozart never rewrote ensembles to suit
individual singers, and that the autograph score clearly shows the duettino to have been
written in Vienna, but he suggested that the story may originally have referred to the
Canzonetta, which was indeed written in Prague; the anecdote may later have replaced it
with “Là ci darem la mano”, which was the opera‟s most popular number in the time.388
Even if Mozart did not compose five versions of the Canzonetta – with which he is also
meant to “seduce a young, innocent and naïve girl” – it is not unlikely that he adapted it in
order to suit Bassi‟s needs. What makes the story as recorded by Castil-Blaze intriguing is
the reference to Lubino‟s and Lilla‟s duet “Pace, caro mio sposo” from Vicente Martín y
Soler‟s and Da Ponte‟s opera Una cosa rara. It is very likely that this reference came from
Bassi himself, since the 19th-century mythmakers hardly could be expected to know that
Bassi indeed sang Lubino‟s part in the Prague premiere of Una cosa rara, which seems to
have taken place shortly before that of Don Giovanni.389
If the anecdote indeed referred to the Canzonetta originally, Bassi‟s complaint about
the difficult modulations may have owed less to dramatic reasons than to the fact that he
was meant to accompany himself on the mandolin, as Johann Peter Lyser related in an
anecdote in 1847: “Bassi himself accompanied his Serenade on the mandolin (in Vienna,
Mozart took over the accompaniment, alternating with the poet, as the singer of Don
Giovanni there did not play the instrument.).”390 Though Mozart or Da Ponte almost
certainly did not accompany the Canzonetta in Vienna – at all events, one Joseph
Zahradniczek was paid 121 gulden for playing the mandolin in the Burgtheater in the 1788-
9 season391 – it may well be true that Mozart taught Bassi to play the mandolin and
accompanied him at the first performances, as Lyser maintains in another version of the
anecdote, which he published in 1856:

387 Castil-Blaze 1852 (Appendix XI).

388 Bitter 1961: 27, 48 (note).
389 Waidelich 2001: 203 (note). If the story originally referred to the Canzonetta, however, the operatic

number referred to by Bassi is more likely to have been Lubino‟s entrance cavatina “Lilla mia, dove sei gita”.
390 Lyser 1847 (Appendix IX).
391 Edge 1992: 87 (note).

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 […] Mozart accompanied the Canzonetta on the mandolin himself at the first
performances of Don Giovanni, because Bassi, the native Italian, did not know how to
handle the instrument back then; later he learnt it from Mozart and accompanied
himself from then on. – – Mozart had learnt to play the mandolin in Naples and is
supposed to have been a master of the instrument, as he was of the guitar.392

If Bassi was to play the mandolin after a few weeks of practice, it goes without saying that
the music of the Canzonetta should not be too complicated. In fact, this appears a much
more probable reason why Mozart should agree to revise the song than the one given by
Castil-Blaze who, after all, appears to be repeating one of the German Mozart anecdotes
which were so often aimed at the „disrespect‟ and „capriciousness‟ of Italian singers.
According to Lyser, Bassi in fact claimed that he had always tried to “satisfy” the
composer. In Lyser‟s 1837 short story „Don Juan‟, Bassi ends his discussion with Mozart
about “Fin ch‟han dal vino” with the following words: “I will do the best I can for you to
be satisfied with me”,393 and in his 1847 essay, Lyser quotes Bassi for saying “that he had
always exerted himself to sing and act the role exactly as Mozart wanted, and the “gran
maestro” had apparently been very satisfied with him.”394 In Lyser‟s 1856 novella „Don
Giovanni‟, finally, Bassi says the following words when Mozart refuses to write him a grand
aria: “If you will rehearse the role with me yourself, […] then I think you will be satisfied
with me.”395 That the twenty-one-year-old Bassi should have wished to satisfy the great
composer is in accordance with the symbiotic relationship between composers and
performers described by Libby, and hence more probable than Heinse‟s and Castil-Blaze‟s
romantic descriptions of the young baritone as a „typical‟ arrogant and whimsical Italian
ham actor.

Luigi Bassi as a performer

A great deal, in fact, is known about Bassi who, as the creator of Don Giovanni, lived to
attain almost legendary status in the 19th century. As for his physical appearance, the most
thorough descriptions date from his last years, when he was opera director in Dresden, but
they do, nevertheless, convey an impression of the performer whom Mozart saw when he

392 Lyser 1856 (Appendix XII B).

393 Lyser 1837b (Appendix V).
394 Lyser 1847 (Appendix IX).
395 Lyser 1856 (Appendix XII A).

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visited Prague in January and October 1787. The first description is taken from Friedrich
Heinse‟s obituary from 1825, following Bassi‟s death at the age of fifty-nine:

That Bassi possessed excellent means for practising the art of the stage nobody can
deny who has seen him. A thoughtful brow, beautiful, expressive, ardent eyes whose
inward and soulful glow not even the frost of the increasing years was able to
extinguish, a noble profile and a most delicately shaped mouth distinguished the head
which, even at his advanced age, remained beautiful and eloquent; his form was not
powerful, but the more noble and graceful, especially his beautiful hands and feet;
besides, he always had a most distinguished bearing.396

Bassi‟s appearance was also evoked in 1862 by Eduard Genast who had been his protégé in
Dresden as a young man:

Bassi […] was one of the most beautiful old men I ever saw. His large, black, ardent
eyes with their long lashes and delicately drawn eyebrows, his white, curly hair, his
nobly shaped face and harmonious form still evoked admiration, and I could not
have blamed any young girl for falling in love with that white-curled head.397

Marie Börner-Sandrini, who had performed in Dresden as a child and was seventeen when
Bassi died, recalled him in an article from 1888:

I clearly remember the image of Bassi from my youth: his form was medium-sized
and slim, his thick but completely grey hair was always finely locked and combed,
and his suit and shirts were elegant and irreproachable, too. His features were noble,
yet always serious, even sombre, his eyes eloquent and penetrating, always concealed
behind golden spectacles.398

The most detailed, but probably least reliable, description of Bassi‟s appearance is that by
Johann Peter Lyser who only drew on second-hand knowledge:

The admirers of Mozart should find it interesting to know, furthermore, what Luigi
Bassi looked like; all who knew him in his youth described him as an extremely
graceful, finely built man with ardent eyes, small hands and feet, quite distinguished in
his bearing and behaviour. He still looked the same in his fifties and later as an old
man [sic], only his face was not actually beautiful: it was hatchet, and his nose, which
in itself was large, protruded the more noticeably because of the great leanness with
which he was afflicted already in his youth; on his cheeks and forehead, furthermore,
he had a couple of conspicuous warts. Yet I must, as an old practitioner, say to
myself that Bassi in his youth may have been one of those figures who, when well
costumed and made up, seem most beautiful, while many men who in normal life

396 Heinse 2001: 208.

397 Genast 1862 Vol. II: 31.
398 Börner-Sandrini 1888: 18 (the article is extensively quoted in Waidelich 2001: 193-6).

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 really are beautiful fail throughout to distinguish themselves onstage; I cannot inform
you about the reason, but daily experience tells me that the case is such.399

Charm, nobility, grace and distinguished bearing also seem to have characterized Bassi‟s
scenic impersonations. According to an 1815 review of Joseph Weigl‟s Amor marinaro, he
was “an excellent comedian, an actor of noble gestures, a complete expert of facial
expression, and – he never exaggerates”,400 and in an 1817 review of Ferdinando Paer‟s
Donne cambiate, he was described as “a true comedian, with natural, mutually concordant
and thus the more ingeniously amusing gestures, and with as thoroughly interesting facial
expressions as this character allows.”401
The earliest description of Bassi as a performer is found in Heinrich August Ottokar
Reichard‟s 1792 critique of the Prague opera company:

This deserving singer was always the ornament of the company, and still is. There are
few actors or singers, too, for whom nature has provided so generously as for this
her favourite son. His voice is as melodious as his acting is masterly. Thus, he is
applauded equally in comical and in tragic roles and pleased generally wherever he
performed. In Italy, his native country, as well as in Warsaw, Leipzig and Prague he
was the favourite of the audience. As soon as he appears, joy and merriment spread
to the whole house, and he never leaves the stage without unreserved, loud
applause.402

Two years later, when he and Antonio Baglioni were the only members of the original Don
Giovanni cast left in Prague, Bassi was mentioned in a critique of which Nĕmeček was
almost certainly the author:

He has the best taste among all his colleagues and recognizes the advantages of the
German artist: during all the years of his employment in Prague he has remained in
favour with our audience and deserves it. […] Within the numerous army of Italian
opera singers he is a rarity – since he is a good actor who is able to act his role and
not merely to sing it.403

Considering Nĕmeček‟s nationalist stance, the comparison of Bassi to “the German artist”
surely implies nothing more than that he refrained from extensive vocal virtuosity and
unrestrained gags in his performances. The author returned to this point in his long critique
of Bohemian musical life from 1800:

399 Lyser 1847 (Appendix IX).

400 Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung No. 47, 22 November 1815: 789f, quoted in Waidelich 2001: 205 (note).
401 Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung No. 49, 3 December 1817: 834, quoted in Ibid: 206 (note).
402 Reichard 1792, quoted in Ibid: 182.
403 [Nĕmeček] 1794, quoted IN Raeburn 1959: 159-60.

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 Besides, Herr Bassi is a very clever actor in tragic roles without becoming farcical and
in comical roles without becoming vulgar and tasteless. With his truly fine and droll
humour he parodies, for example, the faults of the other singers so finely that it is
noticed by the spectators only, not by the others. […] He spoils no role whatsoever
and is, as mentioned earlier, the only actor in the present Italian company.404

That “joy and merriment spread to the whole house” when Bassi appeared on stage and
that he with “his truly fine and droll humour […] parodies […] the faults of the other
singers so finely that it is noticed by the spectators only” indicates that he was a buffo singer
in the classical Italian tradition who would communicate directly with the audience, as
would Adelina Patti a century later. That he was admired for his command of both tragic
and comical roles, for the taste and moderation of his effects, and for the nobility,
naturalness and sophistication of his gestures and facial expressions, shows him to be,
however, as Nino Pirrotta has pointed out, a typical buffo di mezzo carattere.405 Since the mid-
eighteenth century, the roles in opera buffa were divided into parti serie (serious roles), mezzi
caratteri (comical roles adopting serious traits) and buffi caricati (entirely comical roles). In
Don Giovanni, Donna Anna and Don Ottavio are the parti serie, Don Giovanni and Donna
Elvira the mezzi caratteri, and Leporello, Zerlina and Masetto the buffi caricati. As Bassi
himself mentioned, his teacher, Filippo Laschi, was a famous mezzo carattere who had been
involved in first performances of many of Goldoni‟s comical operas,406 and so Bassi may be
said to have grown out of the Goldonian tradition with its mixture of commedia dell’arte
humour and modern French ideals of naturalness. It must have been this style – and not
that of the German actor, as Nĕmeček would have it – which characterized his Don
Giovanni, just as it characterized his performance of the armourer Pasquale in an 1812
production of Weigl‟s Rivale di se stesso:

This performance was not, as many believe, in the manner of the Italian buffos who
merely indicate the outlines of a character and try to replace nuanced acting with lazzi
and grimaces; Herr Bassi‟s acting was descriptive and correctly adapted to the
character. […] Here, Herr Bassi‟s facial expression was a manifestation of the
thinking artist and asserted itself excellently in a hundred tiny shades.407

404 Niemetschek 1995: 51.

405 Pirrotta 1991: 152-3.
406 Cf. the article on Laschi by Richard G. King, Franco Piperno and Saskia Willaert IN The New Grove 1992.
407 Wiener Theater-Zeitung Vol. 5, No. 90, 7 November 1812 (Appendix II).

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That Bassi, with his noble and restrained acting style, seems to have adhered to the
Goldonian principle of toning down caricature in favour of enhanced sympathy with the
characters appears from an 1817 review of Pietro Generali‟s Adelina:

Herr Bassi, as Warner, a rich landowner, distinguished himself well. This role is
among the most suitable for him; thus he in particular expressed his grief with
naturalness and truth when he read the letter before the trio in Act One and
discovered that his daughter had already married Erneville.408

A related point is made in an 1816 review of Francesco Morlacchi‟s Barbiere di Siviglia:

Herr Bassi, as Bartolo, distinguished himself as a skilful actor; especially praiseworthy

seems the natural and true way he knew how to bring off, beside the general
emotions of jealousy, irascibility, etc., the Spanish bearing and solemnity – a truly
artistic problem, cleverly solved.409

And again in Stendhal‟s description of Bassi‟s Bartolo in what was presumably Giovanni
Paisiello‟s Barbiere di Siviglia:

The conclusion of this scene, where Figaro wards off Bartolo‟s indignation by
slashing at him with a towel, used to be played by Bassi, the renowned buffo, in so
singular a manner that, in the end, the audience almost began to feel sorry for
Rosina‟s ill-fated guardian, so cruelly deceived he was, and so utterly miserable.410

A similar balance between parody and sympathy is alluded to in one of the more elaborate
descriptions of his acting, an 1819 review of Theodor Hell‟s comedy Ein Besuch im
Narrenhause, in which the ageing singer performed in a speaking role, the Italian
Kapellmeister Crescendo:

In order to speak of the amusing Kapellmeister straight away, so Herr Bassi (at his
first entrance somewhat embarrassed at the unaccustomed situation) proved himself
to be a master of his art by never, even in the sweetest ecstasies of his musical
enthusiasm and delightful complacency, tending to caricature, which in this context
would have been merely a jarring dissonance. Thus his attire was elegant, his facial
expressions graceful, his movements and gestures southern-swift, yet always
agreeable. The pleasantness, which extended to his whole being, his obtrusiveness,

408 Leipziger allgemeine Zeitung No. 23, 4 June 1817: 398, quoted in Waidelich 2001: 186 (note).
409 Leipziger allgemeine Zeitung No. 23, 5 June 1816: 386, quoted in Ibid: 206 (note).
410 Stendhal 1970: 198. It is not quite clear when and where Stendhal met and heard Bassi. “In 1813, when I

was in Dresden,” he writes, “I once met Luigi Bassi, that wonderful old buffo, for whom, twenty-six years
earlier, Mozart had written the rôles of Don Giovanni, and of Almaviva in le Nozze di Figaro [sic].” (Ibid: 476).
Elsewhere in his biography of Rossini, Stendhal mentions having heard Bassi (“one of the finest buffi in all
Italy”) as Cola in Paer‟s Camilla ossia Il sotterraneo (Ibid: 28). In 1813, however, Bassi was in Vienna, where
Stendhal could have heard him sing Bartolo in Paisiello’s Barbiere and Duke Uberto in Camilla (Schepelern 1989
Vol. I: 114-5), but I have found no indication that Stendhal was in Vienna at that time.

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 which did not characterize the hungry soldier of fortune, but the in-himself-blissful
virtuoso, was a well-earned success. How sweetly he pronounced his che gusto, how he
indicated the instrumentation and the safely struck octaves! How genuinely comical
the confession of his doubts and his fear when the feigned madman grabs him! In
such a role it is allowed to add a great deal and to improvise in a dell’arte manner. We
ask Herr Bassi to be more generous with suchlike and to emphasize the exotic
pronunciation even more.411

Here we have the unlikely case of a German critic asking an Italian performer to improvise
even more, the reason behind which may be that the classicist ideals of restraint and
naturalness were no longer at the same premium in the Age of Romanticism.
Bassi‟s mixture of elegance and subtle humour also seems to have characterized his
Mozart roles: according to Nĕmeček, “Herr Bassi as Papageno plays with humour without
taking to vulgar jests”,412 and Börner-Sandrini referred to recollections by her mother, the
singer Luigia Caravoglia-Sandrini, who had shared the stage with Bassi in the early 19th
century:

Bassi is supposed to have performed other roles [than Don Giovanni] quite
excellently, too, for instance Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro; this appears to
have been a model of finesse; likewise, his Guglielmo in the opera Così fan tutte, where
he is supposed to have had quite delightful moments in the varied scenes of this
difficult double-role.413

Interesting in this passage is both the remark on Almaviva, since this is the role in which
Mozart first heard and saw him and which he may therefore have had in mind when
conceiving the role of Don Giovanni for Bassi, and the stress on Guglielmo as a double-
role, since this points to Bassi as a mask virtuoso who could change his appearance within
a single performance. That his Guglielmo was conceived along the same elegant line as
Don Giovanni and Almaviva is hinted at in the 1811 review of the Paris Così fan tutte
quoted above, which was “in part, even more fine and piquant than we used to see it under
Guardasoni in Leipzig, except for the at that time singular Bassi”.
It seems that Luigi Bassi, perhaps partly due to his naturally graceful and
distinguished appearance, excelled in „dignified parts‟. In 18th-century theatre, with its short
rehearsal periods and vast, ever-changing repertoire, it was still customary for actors and
opera singers to be allotted róles belonging to a „special line‟, or Fach, which convention
had been inherited from baroque theatre with its typified characters. To each „type‟

411 Abend-Zeitung, Dresden, Vol. 3, No. 291, 6 December 1819, quoted in Waidelich 2001: 207 (note).
412 [Nĕmeček] 1794, quoted in Raeburn 1959: 161.
413 Börner-Sandrini 1888: 18.

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belonged a specific body language, and dignified and tragic parts in particular demanded a
grace of movement which the actors were taught by the dancing master, and which
primarily consisted in adopting the proud carriage, protruded chest and strutting gait
characteristic of the minuet.414 When Bassi made “the Spanish bearing and solemnity” the
dominating characteristic of his Bartolo, what he showed was the typical attitude of the
dignified part, which would have remained constant throughout the performance, whereas
“the general emotions of jealousy, irascibility, etc” were passions depending on the
individual words and situations. It is the same distinction as the one made by Aristotle
between ethos (character, or constant, calm emotions) and pathos (temporary, more violent
emotions), which was reflected in the basic approach of classical acting. Most importantly,
there was, within classical acting, and hence classical drama, no such thing as „character
development‟. The „pathetic‟ emotions could, of course, change as a consequence of the
development of the plot and the requirements of the text, but the „ethical‟ emotions, i.e. the
character itself, remained constant. The very idea of character development presupposes
the complete dissolution of the boundary between ethical and pathetic emotions, a
development essentially associated with the advent of naturalism in the late 19th century.415
Though the „naturalness‟ of classicist acting did not include character development, it
did emphasize, in contrast to the more strictly rhetorical baroque acting style, that the
performer represented the character as a complete individual who was, to a larger extent
than earlier, unique to the drama in question. This is implied in Da Ponte‟s demand that a
character should be “interesting”, but also in the comment that Bassi‟s acting “was
descriptive and correctly adapted to the character”. The general agreement that Bassi
avoided the exaggerated, the vulgar, the tasteless and the caricatured in his comical roles
(exactly what Da Ponte and Mozart seem to have striven for in Don Giovanni) reflects this
ideal: whereas the traditional Italian buffo, as one reviewer says, merely indicated “the
outlines of a character”, replacing “nuanced acting with lazzi and grimaces”, which was in
accordance with the baroque representation of the character as a type, the classicist
comedian had to be faithful to the character and therefore avoid extremes. The description
of Bassi‟s Kapellmeister Crescendo with his “pleasantness, which extended to his whole
being” is an obvious example of a character unique to a specific drama, in which the
boundaries of the comical figure were observed. In order to create unique figures, however,

414 Christiansen 1975: 51-2.

415 In my discussion of the history of acting, I am largely dependent on Christiansen 1975.

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the boundaries not only between the conventional comical types, but also between comical
and tragic characters had to be softened, or in some cases even dissolved. This is reflected
in Reichard‟s observation that Bassi was “applauded equally in comical and in tragic roles”,
but more interestingly in what appears to have been his continued tendency to make
comical roles sympathetic (and hence „natural‟): “joy and merriment spread to the whole
house” when he entered the stage, his Almaviva was “a model of finesse”, the audience
“almost began to feel sorry” for his Bartolo, as Warner “he in particular expressed his grief
with naturalness and truth”, and Crescendo‟s intrusiveness “did not characterize the hungry
soldier of fortune, but the in-himself-blissful virtuoso”. As for a historically contextualized
interpretation of Don Giovanni, the significance of Bassi‟s consistent combination of
sympathetic and comical characterization can hardly be exaggerated.
The scenic means by which a classical actor made a character „natural‟ or „interesting‟,
was the scenic „nuances‟, which the contemporary French theatre theorist Pierre Rémond
de Sainte-Albine dubbed „finesses‟.416 Whereas the gestures of the serious baroque actor
had served exclusively to accompany the words with suitable rhetorical emphasis, the
nuances of the classicist actor were realistic, or „characteristic‟, details in the shape of
physical gestures not directly prompted by the words. Whereas the serious baroque actor
had tended to rest in an immovable position when not speaking, the nuances of the
classicist actor were closely linked to the focus on dumb play, tableaux and ensemble acting
characteristic of the period: actors would also act when not speaking. All the accounts
point to Bassi mastery of the characteristic nuance: obvious examples are Bartolo‟s reaction
when beaten by Figaro; Warner‟s reading of the letter; Crescendo‟s fear when grabbed by
the feigned madman. In particular, Bassi‟s command of facial expression is singled out in
several reviews (just as his expressive, penetrating eyes were mentioned in all four
descriptions of his physical appearance), and facial expression was indeed the classicist
actor‟s primary tool in the placement of finesses.417
All these features of Bassi‟s art, situated in a historical context, are important to have
in mind when we study the sources of his Don Giovanni, for nothing indicates that his
performance of this role differed from his general approach. Indeed, it is more than
conceivable that Mozart, having seen the young mezzo carattere perform Almaviva as “a
model of finesse”, decided to create a Don Giovanni along similar lines. Especially since

416 Ibid: 103.

417 Ibid: 126.

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Bassi‟s style of acting – however undeveloped he may have been as a performer at the age
of twenty-one – appears to have met the demands of Mozart and Da Ponte with their
repeated stress on grace, taste, naturalness, interest and feeling.
The stress on naturalness, furthermore, would have required the audience to behave
differently from what they would have done if witnessing a conventional farce. In late
classicist drama the characters did not address the audience as openly as characters did in
traditional baroque drama: whereas performers and spectators had previously interacted
more freely as fellow inhabitants of a common social space, Diderot‟s fourth wall was in
the process of descending between the stage and the auditorium, actors appealing less
directly to the spectators who were thereby requested to watch the stage more attentively
and continuously as outsiders looking into a verisimilar illusion of reality.
In the Prague version of Don Giovanni it is striking that, among all the solos in the
opera, only Leporello‟s opening aria – sung by the star comedian, notably – is addressed
directly to the spectators by a performer alone on stage, which may be understood as a
theatrical way of creating attention by including the audience, indirectly telling them to be
indulgent for not being addressed again before in the second Finale. One further exception
to the rule is Donna Elvira‟s first aria, which is indeed addressed very directly to the
audience (“Ah who can tell me where he is, that barbarian”),418 yet her aria is actually an
ensemble, implying a different behaviour from the performers, and, besides, Donna Elvira
is a parody of convention in general, theatrically as well as musically and morally.
In this light, it is interesting that both the arias which Mozart inserted for the
Viennese production, Don Ottavio‟s “Dalla sua pace” and Donna Elvira‟s “Mi tradí
quell‟alma ingrata”, are soliloquies addressed to the audience. This seems to imply either
that the established star performers of the Burgtheater would not hear talk of any fourth
walls, or that the Viennese, with their notorious taste for light entertainment and its
concomitant baroque conventions, were less inclined simply to sit quietly and listen, but
may have expected to be addressed directly from the stage in a more persuasive manner. At
all events, neither Le nozze di Figaro nor Così fan tutte, Mozart‟s two opere buffe for Vienna,
adhere as strictly to the fourth-wall principle as Don Giovanni. Probably because he was
working with young singers in Prague and was backed up by the musical connoisseurs of
the city, Mozart allowed himself to experiment more freely with theatrical naturalness, and
Luigi Bassi‟s acting style seems to have suited these intentions to perfection.

418 “Ah chi mi dice mai / quel barbaro dov‟è” (135-6).

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 One thing is conspicuously absent from the contemporary reviews of Bassi: there are
almost no references to his singing. Very likely, this is due to the fact that his vocal
performances were subjected to his dramatic performances to such a degree that
commentators did not feel inclined to speak of his singing alone. As a child pupil of an
Italian maestro di cappella and later of the famous Filippo Laschi, however, Bassi was
evidently trained in the classical Italian style of the 18th century, and this to such a degree
that Eduard Genast even got the impression that he had learnt his singing method directly
from Nicola Porpora, the famous teacher of such legendary castratos as Farinelli and
Caffarelli.419
Bassi seems to have lost his voice at an early age, however. In 1792, Reichard still
describes the voice of the twenty-six-year-old singer as “melodious”, but two years later
Nĕmeček writes as follows:

Herr Bassi is a very skilful actor, but no singer, for he lacks the first requisite for that
purpose – a voice! I wish this could be added to his other merits: then we could wish
for no better Don Giovanni, Almaviva and Axur, which roles he acts
incomparably.420

And in 1800:

Herr Bassi was an excellent singer before the loss of his voice, and even the remains
he still knows very well how to wield and use. It holds the middle between tenor and
bass, and although sounding somewhat hollow, it is still very flexible, ample and
pleasant.421

Here the writer acknowledges the excellence of Bassi‟s Italian schooling in regard to his
voice production and coloratura technique, which qualities he distinguishes from the sheer
beauty of sound. Fifteen years later, however, at a time when romantic ideals had begun to
assert their influence on German singers and audiences, the attitude towards Bassi‟s
technique seems to have changed. So it appears, at least, from an 1815 review of Axur re
d’Ormus, in which the title role was sung by the forty-nine-year-old Bassi whose voice was
then described as “weak and hoarse, probably as a result of his now advanced age”:

It seems that he should content himself with comical roles and not choose any as
serious as the one in question, which does not suit his organ and his singing method. The

419 Genast 1862 Vol. II: 31.

420 [Nĕmeček] 1794, quoted in Raeburn 1959: 159.
421 Niemetschek 1995: 51.

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 role of Axur requires a strong, impressive voice in order to express the fierceness and the
cruelty, and in order to be heard through the loud instrumental music [my italics].422

Two decades previously, however, while noticing that Bassi had lost his voice, Nĕmeček
had found, nevertheless, that he was “in his proper sphere as an actor in the role of Axur”,
adding that the role “appears to be made for him!”423 He admitted that Bassi no longer was
able to assert himself fully in the role, but this fact was attributed solely to his physical
limitations, not to his singing method or, significantly, to the musical demands of the role.
In 1815 the general conception of Axur seems to have changed: it now required “a strong,
impressive voice”, which seems never to have been among Bassi‟s assets. In fact, this new
conception was rather due to changes in dramatic ideals and the size of operatic orchestras,
which is most important, since the vocal conception of Don Giovanni – especially after
Hoffmann‟s story – underwent quite a similar change in the same period. It may be useful
to take a closer look at the orchestral forces of the original production of Mozart‟s opera,
to which Bassi‟s singing method was probably more naturally suited.
According to Nĕmeček, the opera orchestra of the National Theatre in Prague was,
in fact, “relatively weak in numbers (it comprises only 3 first and 3 second violins, 2 violas,
the basses and the necessary wind instruments), but according to the testimony of Mozart
and other famous composers who knew it, it may be counted among the most excellent in
Germany.”424 Neal Zaslaw, who agrees with Nĕmeček in his reconstruction of the
orchestral forces of the theatre, adds that there were 2 cellos and 2 contrabasses, while
there was, by all accounts, only one instrument for each of the wind parts.425 Nĕmeček and
Zaslaw do not seem to have included Joseph Strobach, however, who was described in
Dlabacž‟ lexicon of Bohemian artists from 1815 as the “deserving director of Prague‟s
orchestra and an excellent violinist”,426 and who would surely have conducted the
performances as primo violino. Probably, the modest size of the string group was due partly
to the relatively small size of the National Theatre, partly to the limited financial means of
the company, and perhaps also to the Bohemian predilection for wind instruments.

422 Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung No. 47, 22 November 1815: 789f, quoted in Waidelich 2001: 205-6 (note).
423 [Nĕmeček]: 1794, quoted in Raeburn 1959: 160.
424 Niemetschek 1995: 50.
425 Zaslaw 1992: 198. According to Franz Arnold Vogl, professor at Prague‟s conservatoire in the 19 th

century, however, the orchestra included 4 second violins and only 1 cello in Mozart‟s time (Freisauff 1887:
26). In comparison, the orchestra of Vienna‟s Burgtheater, where Don Giovanni was mounted under Mozart‟s
direction the following year, comprised twenty-one string players: 6 first violins, 6 second violins, 3 violas, 3
cellos and 3 double-basses (Edge 1992: 74).
426 Dlabacž 1973: „Joseph Strobach‟.

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Although the orchestra was considered small even for its time, however, its intimate size
may also have had its advantages: it must have added greater clarity and dynamic flexibility
to the orchestral playing and allowed the singers to be heard clearly without forcing. These
must have been ideal conditions for the kind of elegant vocal nuance in which Bassi must
have excelled, as we may take for granted that the „finesses‟, which characterized his visual
acting, also very much characterized his vocal acting, as implied by the reviewer who
remarked how “sweetly he pronounced his che gusto” as Crescendo.
The following section includes a discussion of all known sources to Bassi‟s Don
Giovanni. Since the source material is drawn exclusively from oral tradition and contains
not a single first-hand account, it must be treated with great caution, and in order to
approach a visualization and interpretation of the original production of Don Giovanni, it is
therefore necessary to compare the different versions and discuss them in the light of other
historical material. First I shall present and contextualize the testimonies of Heinse and
Börner-Sandrini as well as Lyser‟s earliest essay on Don Giovanni, and then I will proceed
with a critical discussion of Lyser‟s numerous later writings on the opera in chronological
order, attempting to assemble as much as possible of the jigsaw. In the process of this
discussion I shall focus on the performance and interpretation of specific scenes and
numbers in the opera – not necessarily in the order they occur in the opera – comparing
Lyser‟s writings to the previously presented sources.

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 Don Giovanni in the Light of
Its Original Production
Friedrich Heinse 1837
Friedrich Heinse‟s obituary on Luigi Bassi from 1825 was not his last word on the subject
of the singer‟s Don Giovanni. More details followed twelve years later in the context of his
review of a guest performance of Don Giovanni in Leipzig by Dresden‟s Royal Opera. The
review, which has escaped the notice of scholars, appeared in the first volume of his Reise-
und Lebens-Skizzen nebst dramaturgischen Blättern from 1837 and contains important
information about the original production of the opera. In the obituary, Heinse had shown
himself to be influenced by the romantic reception of the opera, as appeared from his
suggestion that E. T. A. Hoffmann would hardly have “fantasized so brilliantly” on the
subject of Don Giovanni, “if he had not seen Bassi himself”,427 though, as Waidelich points
out, it is improbable that Hoffmann had seen Bassi in the role when he wrote his famous
interpretation of the opera in 1812.428 Heinse also opens his review with a typically
romantic eulogy to Don Giovanni, but after a brief discussion of Hoffmann‟s „Don Juan‟, he
reveals a slightly more critical attitude towards this influential reading:

In that brilliant essay, the eminent natural gifts of the scoundrel, his divided
character, are emphasized and rightly located in the composer‟s intention rather than
in the trivial words of the Italian textbook; but it seems to me that there is too little
focus on the other point that obviously lies at the root of Don Juan‟s musical
characterization, viz. on the attractive, subtle, charming seducer as he appears, above
all, in the well-known duet and in the Serenade. When Hoffmann in the presto of “Fin
ch‟han dal vino” recognizes the blasphemer‟s disdain for what he considers people‟s
contemptuous humdrum deeds, then he seems to see more than intended by Mozart
who was here merely thinking of a frivolous-cheerful outburst.429

427 Heinse 2001: 208.

428 Waidelich 2001: 208 (note).
429 Heinse 1837 (Appendix VI).

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It is this disagreement with Hoffmann that prompts Heinse to add “a few brief remarks
regarding this glorious opera”, which he owes to his acquaintance with Bassi, and which he
thinks may serve “partly as supplementa anecdota” to Nissen‟s Mozart biography:430

According to Mozart‟s original idea, the country people gathering at Don Juan‟s party
flee as soon as they notice a serious quarrel arising between the two gentlemen, and
the stirring stretta of the first Finale is executed by the main characters alone. Only
later, in Vienna, did the peasant choruses, too, accompany this stretta. […]
How little the artists of Guardasoni‟s company were able to rise above the
customary is best revealed by the fact that Bassi himself, when Mozart presented him
with the later so famous “Fin ch‟han dal vino”, wanted this bagatelle, as he called it,
replaced with a traditional aria composed according to all the rules. Mozart explained
the dramatic context to him, however, and asked him to wait, quite confidently, for
the success of this bagatelle on the evening of the first performance. The success was
the abovementioned “ancora” of the enthusiastic audience. At this point I must add
that Bassi always laughed when he heard and saw a Don Juan perform this jolly song
(and unfortunately they all do that) with all possible kinds of pretensions, complete
with mimic imitation of the dances mentioned en passant. It is, after all, according to
its original text as well as to the composer‟s setting, a light-minded instruction to the
Mephistophelian servant Leporello, whom he addresses throughout the aria.
Therefore Bassi always sang it calmly standing while he leaned lightly on Leporello‟s
shoulder. The singer who leaps and gambols usually loses his breath, too, of which
he is in great need. – In general, Bassi gave the judgment against all Don Juans whom
I saw together with him that they, with their pretentious acting, seemed butchers‟
assistants from Madrid rather than Spanish gentlemen. – He was especially displeased
with the way singers and actors of this part behave in the second Finale when the
ghost enters. They usually bolt dismayed and shaken from the opened door at once,
thus depriving themselves of the means of an appropriate intensification. Don Juan
(as Bassi saw it, with Mozart‟s own approval) takes this odd sight for a mortal
avenger in disguise, and therefore he holds his sword against him when he enters and
later hovers about him with great caution, becoming a little more anxious only
gradually. The real truth of the matter, however, does not set in before – and now
with full effect – he grabs the cold hand of the Stone Guest.431

Considering Heinse‟s knowledge of Bassi‟s Don Giovanni, his comments on the 1837
guest performance of the Dresden opera company are not uninteresting either. This is what
he has to say of the baritone Alfonso Zezi who sang Don Giovanni:

His singing excellent, especially the grace with which he made his beautiful voice
move freely and delightfully in the duet with Zerlina and in the Serenade; firm, secure
and exact in the ensemble pieces. His acting too solid, not risqué, not affable and
roguish enough. On the other hand, this want is to the young man‟s credit, as the
pretension of the usual, arrogant performers of Don Juan is more repulsive.432

430 Ibid.
431 Ibid.
432 Ibid.

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Despite his admiration for Hoffmann, Heinse would probably have agreed with the lady in
the Fantasy Piece who found that the Don Giovanni “had been too sinister, much too
serious, and had really not made the frivolous and fun-loving character light enough”,
which confirms once more that Hoffmann was reacting against an existing interpretation of
the opera. The most striking deviations are, of course, Bassi‟s views of how “Fin ch‟han dal
vino” and the encounter with the Stone Guest should be performed, to which I shall return
below, but which clearly fit our knowledge about Bassi‟s elegant and sympathetic
characterizations. Nevertheless, Heinse‟s view of Don Giovanni is still influenced by
Hoffmann‟s story, as appears from his reference to the “divided character” of “the
scoundrel”, which is “located in the composer‟s intention rather than in the trivial words of
the Italian textbook”, and from his characterization of Leporello as “Mephistophelian”,
which clearly echoes Hoffmann and the romantic tradition.

Marie Börner-Sandrini 1876

The second major source to Bassi‟s Don Giovanni is the Dresden opera singer and singing
teacher Marie Börner-Sandrini (1808-90) who wrote down her reminiscences very late in
life. Nevertheless, her anecdotes have the advantage over Heinse‟s that their focus is
different: Börner-Sandrini wanted to commemorate Bassi as a scenic artist, and this makes
her much more interested in describing his interpretation with precision. The daughter of
the soprano Luigia Sandrini-Caravoglia (1782-1869) who in 1802 had sung Donna Anna to
Bassi‟s Don Giovanni in Prague and later became his colleague in Dresden, Bôrner-
Sandrini remembered Bassi from her childhood. Her oldest memory of him as a performer
was when he sang the title role in Antonio Salieri‟s Axur, re d’Ormus in 1815 – the year he
was employed in Dresden – in which she herself appeared in a children‟s role. She also
recalled him in a number of minor roles in his later years – he was active as a performer
until 1821 – and believed she had seen him once as Don Giovanni as a child. 433 The
recorded memories of his interpretation of this part, however, were not her own, but those
of her mother who used to describe his characterization to her.
Börner-Sandrini first described Bassi‟s Don Giovanni seven years after her mother‟s
death, in the first volume of her Erinnerungen einer alten Dresdnerin from 1876, which have
not caught the attention of later Mozart scholars since Otto Schmid reproduced excerpts in

433 Börner-Sandrini 1888: 18.

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an article about Bassi in a Dresden local-historical periodical in 1926. This excerpt is taken
from Schmid‟s article:

With his impeccable, chivalrous elegance and seductive amiability towards the
women, my mother always called him the unparalleled interpreter of this part, and
she frequently underlined some peculiar shades, which she never witnessed in later
performers of the role.
For instance the scene in Act One when Don Juan in his encounter with
Ottavio and Anna offers his services to the latter, he built up a courteous attitude at
his leave-taking, which through an ardent kiss on Donna Anna‟s hand was intensified
into a passion that made the rake defeat the wise man of the world and lent his
words “bellissima Donn‟Anna” an almost painfully reproachful expression of
rejected love.
This brilliant twist offered the dramatic intelligence of Caravoglia as Donna
Anna an even greater opportunity, when recognising the culprit, to lend the words
“Don Ottavio, son morta!” an expression of disgust that reached its climax in the
subsequent narration of the assault, which was intensified all the way to its
conclusion, “compie il misfatto suo col dargli morte!” (completes his misdeeds by
taking his life), thus provoking an endless storm of applause.
Bassi placed another shade in the first Finale before the beginning of the
minuet when he, in accordance with his duty as host and with respectful gallantry,
first asked Donna Anna and Donna Elvira for a dance. Only then, when his
invitation had been declined by both, did he turn – with an indescribable gesture of
indifference – to Zerlina, dancing the minuet with her according to all the rules and
with the greatest nobility, not leading her away before the figure where the couples
join hands.
[…] As is well known, Don Juan withdraws [in the supper scene] in order to
open the door, furnished with the candelabrum and a napkin. With the latter, the
Don Juans of more recent times usually wipe off their makeup behind the stage,
whereupon they run, half backwards, in front of the ghost, while displaying signs of
the utmost horror. They stagger towards the supper table, pour out champagne
repeatedly in order to prime themselves with Dutch courage, dry the cold sweat from
their foreheads and stagger from time to time towards the ghost, only to stand
shivering back. In short: they document a fear completely alien to Don Juan the non-
believer, the atheist. How different Bassi was!
In addition to the candelabrum, he had, when withdrawing towards the door,
his bared sword in hand. He kept holding on to the dagger, the light in his other
hand, as he cautiously and calmly went to the supper table, never letting the
Governor out of his sight. He put down candelabrum and dagger on the table and
remained standing there with folded arms as he gave Leporello his order about new
servicing. In short, he behaved as a completely calm, fearless, indifferent gentleman
who, suspecting an attempt on his person or at least a bad joke, is most unpleasantly
affected by the scene.
Bassi knew how to characterize this atmosphere excellently through a constant,
threatening frown and a troubled darkening of his noble features. Thus he remained
indifferent until the moment when he in defiant foolhardiness gave the ghost his
hand in pledge. Here – and this was the triumph of Bassi‟s dramatic talent – the
magnificent intensification of the situation set in (which becomes impossible in the

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 customary interpretation). The bold criminal was now seized with despair, his hair
standing on end: his features and gestures expressed horror, he turned to and fro,
writhing at the ghost‟s handshake, and having disengaged himself after unspeakable
efforts he finally fell to the ground in fear of death, tormented by the Furies of his
conscience. Back then, an infernal revenge and demons rushing around with spirit
torches were out of the question, as was the inevitable powder stench. Guardasoni
always refused to suffer such nuisances.434

Evidently, Börner-Sandrini‟s descriptions tally with Heinse‟s, which were published forty
years earlier, and again recall the contemporary reviews of Bassi‟s performance style. Her
emphasis on the elegance and amiability of Bassi‟s Don Giovanni recalls Heinse‟s
characterization of “the attractive, subtle, charming” Spanish gentleman, and their
descriptions of Don Giovanni‟s encounter with the Stone Guest tally remarkably. That he
took the Stone Guest for a mortal in disguise has wide-ranging dramaturgical – and musical
– implications, which, as I shall argue at the end of the analysis, may hold the key to
Mozart‟s and Da Ponte‟s overall take on the traditional story.

Marie Börner-Sandrini 1888

In an 1888 article in the Dresdner Anzeiger entitled „Eine Erinnerung an Luigi Bassi, Mozarts
ersten Don Juan‟, from which Waidelich quotes extensively, Bôrner-Sandrini adds more
details. Again, the frivolity, charm and graceful nobility of Bassi‟s Don Giovanni are
emphasized, and the author offers a new description of the supper scene, which deserves
to be quoted in its entirety due to its small variations and additions:

My mother always spoke with the greatest satisfaction of the artist‟s rendering of this
the most amiable of rakes, drawing special attention to the contrast in Don Juan‟s
behaviour towards the three female roles. Thus, Bassi‟s Don Giovanni always
displayed a certain kind of suppressed tenderness coupled with veneration towards
Donna Anna; towards Donna Elvira, on the other hand, he behaved as the perfect
gentleman who still treats his former mistress with chivalrous amiability, but who at
appropriate moments shows clear signs of some impatience, which is always
suppressed as quickly and wisely as possible, however. Towards the coquettish, rather
narrow-minded Zerline he behaved with that superior gallantry which shows itself in
all kinds of exaggerated flatteries whose feeble worth a wiser girl soon recognises, but
which this one accepts at their face value. – Furthermore, my mother always
emphasized Bassi‟s peculiar, almost cheerful stateliness in certain, even tragic
moments of the role, as after the killing of the old Commendatore already in the first
scene, to which he in a way had resorted partly under compulsion. Here Bassi as Don
Juan showed a kind of human compassion and regret at the sad outcome of this
adventure, yet with a quick transition to the frivolous, cheerful character of the role

434 Börner-Sandrini 1876 (Appendix XIII).

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 at the speedy escape together with his waiting servant, Leporello (excellently
performed by Ponziani).435 The performance of the final scene with the ghost of the
Commendatore was always magnificent. Quite in contrast to many other performers
of the role of Don Juan, Bassi never showed fear and horror from the beginning, nor
did he prime himself with Dutch courage in champagne together with Leporello, nor
even try to threaten the ghost with his dagger or suchlike. As Don Juan he always
and entirely remained the perfect gentleman who is quite far from fearing the spectre
in the beginning, but who rather suspects a design against himself and therefore,
being visibly most unpleasantly affected by the whole scene, never leaves the ghost
out of sight. Bassi perfectly understood how to cloud his features accordingly and to
suggest his growing discomfort quite excellently. Magnificent was the intensification
when Don Juan has to give his hand to the ghost, and when despair at the icy
coldness of the „Stone Guest‟s‟ hand suddenly overwhelms the improvident rake, his
hair positively standing on end as he writhed, horror-stricken, at the powerful
handshake of the ghost. Back then, the tragic scene ended with Don Juan falling
lifeless to the ground (as if he had had a stroke) and disappearing into the floor like
the ghost.436

Johann Peter Lyser 1833

No one has published as extensively on the subject of Bassi‟s Don Giovanni as Johann
Peter Lyser (1803-70), the third major source,437 but what seems to have been an almost
obsessive inclination to mix up fact with fiction, to dramatize and elaborate and, not least,
to pass off second-hand accounts as first-hand accounts, impedes a critical discussion of
the anecdotes. It would be easy simply to reject Lyser‟s writings as romantic ravings in
order to abstain from tortuous entanglements, but it is indisputable that several of his
anecdotes tally remarkably with those recorded by Heinse, Börner-Sandrini and others,
while little he says contradicts them. Furthermore, it is striking that Lyser, whose worship
of E. T. A. Hoffmann was only rivalled by his worship of Mozart, evokes a production of
Don Giovanni at obvious variance with Hoffmann‟s „Don Juan‟. Though Lyser was himself
an ardent romantic – he was a personal friend of Heine, Mendelssohn and Schumann – his
Don Giovanni anecdotes are largely untouched by the romantic interpretations, which in
itself speaks in favour of their authentic origin.
Friedrich Hirth‟s biography of Lyser from 1911 has been of invaluable assistance in
the elucidation of his writings, though Hirth only discusses Lyser‟s pretended acquaintance
with Bassi in passing, concentrating upon his pretended acquaintances with Hoffmann and
Goethe. Lyser claimed to have met the famous poets shortly before their deaths in 1822

435 After some years in Italy, Felice Ponziani had been re-employed by Guardasoni in 1800 (Schepelern 1989
Vol. I: 34).
436 Börner-Sandrini 1888: 18.
437 For an exhaustive catalogue of Lyser‟s works, Cf. Hirth 1911: 545-88.

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and 1832, respectively, his writings being scattered with anecdotes related to invented
encounters. Though he never actually met Hoffmann, however, Hirth points out that not
all he tells is fantasy: in fact, he heard most of the anecdotes from the famous actor Ludwig
Devrient who had known the poet personally, and it was only after Devrient‟s death in
1832 that Lyser – in addition to publishing sequels to Hoffmann‟s stories – began to pass
off the actor‟s reminiscences as his own. As a scholar of the Freudian Age, Hirth suggests
that Devrient‟s stories “may have seemed so vivid that Lyser himself began identifying with
the role of Hoffmann‟s friend, a phenomenon in no way unheard of in literature and
438
psychiatry”. Lyser‟s fake reminiscences may also be regarded as an autobiographical
extension of the typically romantic play with pseudonyms and literary identities, however,
as a way of dissolving the boundary between himself and his most idolized authors,
Goethe, Hoffmann and Mozart, ideal truth obviously outshining factual truth! I shall argue
that Lyser‟s use of the Bassi anecdotes follows a similar pattern.
In order to evaluate the anecdotes, it is necessary to view them in the context of
Lyser‟s biography.439 Born in Flensburg into a family of actors, he lived mostly in North
German cities until 1831 and originally followed the vocation of a musician, until he turned
almost deaf sometime between 1818 and 1821 and consequently began to focus on
painting, literature and criticism, though his deafness did not prevent him from working as
an occasional opera critic. It was probably when he moved to Leipzig in 1831 that Lyser,
who had been an ardent fan of Don Giovanni since his childhood, first heard about Luigi
Bassi, the famous creator of the title role who had died in Dresden a few years previously.
In Leipzig Lyser became close friends with the director of the Dresden Court Theatre,
Ludwig Pauli, who seems to have brought him together with the Court Kapellmeister
Joseph Rastrelli, three of whose operas had been staged at the Italian Opera when Bassi
was still director.440 After fifteen years of competition with the German Opera, the Italian
Opera was finally closed in 1832, and it was agreed that Lyser should write the libretto and
Rastrelli the music for the first German-language opera to be premiered in the city after
this event. Towards the end of 1831 Lyser visited Dresden for the first time in his life in
order to work on their opera Salvator Rosa, oder Zwey Nächte in Rom, which was premiered on
22 July 1832.441 It was probably during these months that Lyser began collecting

438 Ibid: 44.

439 All biographical details are taken from Hirth 1911.
440 Cf. Andrea Lanzi: „Joseph Rastrelli‟ IN The New Grove.
441 Hirth 1911: 367.

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information about Bassi, for which there would have been rich opportunity: not only must
Rastrelli, as a composer and former violinist of the Italian company since 1820, have
known Bassi both personally and professionally, but Lyser may also have made the
acquaintance of the other Italian Kapellmeister in the city, Francesco Morlacchi, who in
1815 had brought Bassi to Dresden and in whose Barbiere di Siviglia the singer had created
the role of Bartolo in 1816.442 Lyser almost certainly heard about Bassi from the old
baritone and singing teacher Johann Aloys Mieksch who had been the choirmaster of the
German company since 1820 and whose obituary Lyser later wrote.443 When moving to
Dresden himself in 1835, furthermore, Lyser had made friends with the poet Friedrich
Kind, a central figure in the city‟s literary life who is known today mainly as the librettist of
Weber‟s Freischütz. Lyser later referred to Kind‟s opinion on Bassi‟s interpretation, which
suggests that the poet was also one of those from whom Lyser drew his anecdotes.444
While in Dresden, Lyser witnessed the last performance of Don Giovanni by the
Italian company, which took place on 31 March 1832 under Morlacchi‟s direction, and with
which the troupe took final leave of its audience. As a critic, Lyser later stressed the
importance of a werktreue performance of the opera, a Don Giovanni “as Mozart imagined
it”,445 and this ideal vision, which runs as a red thread through all his writings on the opera
– and in support of which he later invoked the authority of his „acquaintance‟ Bassi – was
clearly inspired by the performances of the opera which he heard it in the 1830s under the
leadership of Morlacchi and Rastrelli, the last two Italian Kapellmeisters in the city. Until
Morlacchi‟s death in 1841 Don Giovanni continued to be given in Italian by the German
company, and in a biographical article on the Italian Kapellmeister from 1837 Lyser
claimed that he had dared “what no German Kapellmeister in this century thought
possible: to present his countrymen with Mozart‟s Don Juan as the immortal master wrote
it”.446 In a historical short story from 1846 entitled „Don Giovanni. Wahrheit und Dichtung
aus dem Jahre 1834‟ he even describes a fictive encounter in a Dresden café between
Mieksch, Morlacchi, Pauli and other of his local friends and acquaintances with a
mysterious deaf musician and writer who is clearly Lyser himself. The unnamed Mozart
enthusiast suggests that Morlacchi and Rastrelli produce an Italian-language Don Giovanni at
the German Opera in accordance with Mozart‟s original intentions, which Morlacchi then
442 Waidelich 2001: 206 (note).
443 Cf. Lyser 1845d.
444 Lyser 1847 (Appendix IX).
445 Lyser 1846: 559.
446 Lyser 1837a: 50.

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decides to do! The story is a typical example of the almost obsessive degree to which Lyser
identifies with the noble cause and of the way he tends to place himself at the centre of
events. Unlike Hoffmann‟s ideal Don Giovanni, however, Lyser‟s vision was inspired by
stories of the original performer of the title role and by performances by the Italian opera
company he had directed, which makes his conception of a „faithful‟ production more
interesting in this context.447
Significantly, Lyser‟s first discussion of Bassi was written immediately after his first
stay in Dresden. In 1831 he had planned the publication of a musical almanac for the
following year, which should include contributions by the most prominent contemporary
musicians and music critics. The publication was postponed one year, however, probably
because only one contributor came forward, and therefore Lyser himself had to write
almost everything, which may have made it tempting to elaborate on some of the anecdotes
which he had heard in Dresden. Cäcilia. Ein Taschenbuch für Freunde der Tonkunst, which
appeared in 1833, includes three short essays on operatic subjects with the collective title
„Leuchtkugeln‟ and allegedly written by “einem alten Musikdirector”. Miming the style of
an elderly, Dresden-based Music Director of pre-romantic tastes who looks back on the
operatic highlights of his life and offers his opinions on singing and acting to the younger
generation, the first essay, „Don Juan‟, is a fake first-hand description of Bassi‟s Don
Giovanni, which has escaped the notice of scholars and is reproduced here in its entirety:

How much has not been written about Don Juan already! How much has he not
been commented on, anatomized, reviewed and I don‟t know what!
Ever since E. T. A. Hoffmann‟s famous Fantasy Piece he has been the parade
horse on which our young romantic writers at least attempt a ride. There is barely, in
any important or unimportant city, a young dandy who has not tormented himself
for at least a fortnight in order to get, in addition to the laxity, but a little of Don
Juan‟s depth of character and much-lauded inner disintegration.
Have I not seen printed in black and white how an otherwise brilliant German
poet described himself as a “platonic Don Juan”, which amounts to as much as saying
wet fire, or calm tempest, or dark lightning.
And yet our actors in most cases go quite the wrong way about this role,
despite its apparent intelligibility!
I have now seen the most famous performers of the role in different periods,
and what was the result?

447According to the music critic and opera translator Carl Friedrich Niese, Luigi Bassi revised the Dresden
production of Don Giovanni and had a new textbook printed when he became director. This edition served as
basis of the company‟s Don Giovanni performances as long as Morlacchi conducted („Ein Künstlergrab‟ IN
Dresdner Anzeiger 1882, No. 143: 4, quoted in Waidelich 2001: 191).

153
 Most of them represented a German lad, as for instance Forti and Fischer (the
last of whom is so very much a fat and droll little man); others a German fop, as for
instance the otherwise worthy Genast. Still others made a mad rowdy and abductor
out of him. Blume in Berlin had perceived many of Hoffmann‟s suggestions, but it
was not a whole;448 in short, among more than a hundred performances of this opera,
which I have heard and seen on the most prominent, as well as on the most
insignificant, stages in Germany, less than ten performers of the leading role seemed
passable to me.
Only one satisfied entirely, and his masterly creation still appears before me in
the freshest, most vivid colours, although many years have passed since I saw it. But
everyone who saw him will agree that such a performance is not easily forgotten. The
performer, to whom I am referring, is none but Luigi Bassi the Italian, the very same
for whom Mozart in 1786 [sic] wrote the part in Prague [sic].
I once read – I no longer remember where – that “Hoffmann drew his Fantasy
Piece after one of Bassi‟s performances.” I find that most improbable, unless
Hoffmann‟s mischievous devil played him yet another wicked trick, for there is all
the difference in the world between Hoffmann‟s and Bassi‟s views of the character.
Hoffmann‟s Don Juan is more like the northern Faust; his is a sinister night-
piece, in which life‟s invisible demonic powers appear to our vision, sometimes
distorted into a horrible mockery (just see how he depicts Leporello, that roguish,
good-natured, pleasure-loving and pleasurable fool.)
Bassi, however, although his basic idea was deeply tragic too, was full of
southern glow, southern humour, southern dignity. – A grace and lightness, which
cannot be described in words, characterized every glance, every movement and every
note. Without leaping back and forth like a wagtail in the famous Champagne Aria,
everything was scent and champagne. [Lyser‟s footnote: “Bassi only changed his
position a little during the aria; in accordance with the original text, most of his
words were addressed to Leporello, and only at “Ah la mia lista” etc. did he exult to
himself alone. Yet anyone who has had the opportunity to observe the lively gestures
and eloquent eyes of Italians in real life, especially in Naples, will have an idea of the
infinitely rich and delightful expression which Bassi commanded. – But one had to
see and hear it in order to fully believe it.”] And yet again, what force! Never did I
hear such penetration as Bassi‟s in the first Finale on the words “ma non manca in
me coraggio”, and the last, drawn-out “Nñ” in the ghost scene, heard above blasting
trombones and thundering timpani, filled all listeners with horror.
And yet how delightfully he carried and breathed the melody in the glorious A
major trio in Act 2. His acting was unsurpassable here, too: leaning gracefully and
casually on Leporello and clasping him with one arm, with the other hand he made
him make a movement only when it matched his (Don Juan‟s) words perfectly, thus
enhancing the highly comical force of the situation without destroying the least of the
effect of this glorious piece of music, as is only too often the case with the customary
coarse performance of the number.
In the aria “Metà di voi quà vadano” etc., however, he gave his humour the
freest reins! In the most amusing way he knew how to parody the acting and singing
of the Leporello: the illusion was really at its highest.
The crowning glory of his performance, however, was undeniably the last so
difficult scene with Elvira. German singers are not above treating the poor Donna as

448Anton Forti (1790-1859), Eduard Franz Genast (1797-1866), Anton Joseph Fischer (1780-1862), Heinrich
Blume (1788-1856).

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 a dog, so that many a well-bred man feels like mounting the stage at once and serve
the brutal boor with a good thrashing right on the spot.
Bassi did not for a single moment forget the “galantuomo”, however, as the
vexed Leporello characterizes him already in the first scene. He never turned his back
on Elvira, never showed his teeth in scornful laughter, never kneeled down or
suchlike. Subtly and adroitly he knew how to extract himself from the matter, as if he
took Donna Elvira for far too beautiful and wise to seriously think of converting a
Don Juan. Viewed in this way, even the impudent “Vivan le femmine, viva il buon
vino, sostegno e gloria d‟umanità!” can count as flattery. At this point, the sentimental-
malicious frivolity appeared most unambiguously as the essential feature of the character
[Lyser‟s footnote: “In his adaptation of the text, the excellent Friedrich Rochlitz449 has
nicely emphasized this essential feature of the character, too, but strangely enough in
quite another place, in Don Juan‟s soliloquy in the cemetery. – In the original there is
no such thing; Don Giovanni tells his servant how he almost seduced a girl who took
him for Leporello. “But,” Leporello asks, “if she had been my wife?” – “That would
have been divine!” Don Juan cries, laughing out loudly, whereupon the stone man
sings his first warning.”] – “Devil! Viper!” one might have exclaimed – but it was
impossible to be angry with the beautiful devil, with the dazzling viper. – Yes, Bassi
understood his Mozart, and thus the great master imagined his Don Juan.
Mozart! – Bassi! Peace be with your ashes,
Your names will live on!450

The characterization of Bassi‟s Don Giovanni as light, graceful, humorous and dignified
clearly tallies both with Heinse‟s and Bôrner-Sandrini‟s descriptions and with the reviews of
Bassi in other roles, but Lyser goes somewhat further than Heinse in his rejection of
Hoffmann‟s interpretation. It is striking how closely his description of Bassi‟s performance
of “Fin ch‟han dal vino” agrees with Heinse‟s, however, which was published four years
later: No less striking is the fact that Lyser‟s account of Don Giovanni‟s last scene with
Donna Elvira suggests the same ambiguous response which Bassi‟s Don Giovanni caused
in Sandrini-Caravoglia: he was, apparently, “the most amiable of rakes”.
The fact that that these excerpts from Lyser‟s fake first-hand description match
Heinse‟s and Bôrner-Sandrini‟s testimonies, as well as the fact that the essay was written
shortly after or even during his first visit to Dresden, indicates that Lyser‟s fake
recollections reflect anecdotes he heard from, or even the actual first-hand impressions of
one or more of his Dresden connections.
Having presented these first sources, which generally support Felicity Baker‟s reading
of Don Giovanni as charming and harmless, we have assembled enough material to enter
the first analytical chapter.

449 Friedrich Rochlitz‟ translation from 1801 remained the standard German translation of Don Giovanni
through much of the 19th century.
450 Lyser 1833b (Appendix III).

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The vocal makeup of Don Giovanni and Leporello
When Bassi “gave his humour the freest reins” in the aria “Metà di voi qua vadano”, he
knew in “the most amusing way”, Lyser‟s Old Music Director tells us, how to “parody the
acting and singing of the Leporello: the illusion was really at its highest.” That Bassi really
had a gift for mimicry was already pointed out by Nĕmeček, according to whom the singer,
with “his truly fine and droll humour”, would parody “the faults of the other singers so
finely that it is noticed by the spectators only, not by the others”, and it is more than likely
that Mozart became aware of this gift when he first heard Bassi in January 1787 and that
“Metà di voi qua vadano” was written for the young baritone as a vehicle for comical
display.
Parody and impersonation were indeed elements very central to the art of opera buffa
– just as they were central to classical comedy in general with its clear-cut characterizations,
confused identities, role doublings and disguises. Furthermore, the fact that 18th-century
singers, in addition to their personal voice, had a personal singing style, as Dennis Libby
and Patricia Lewy Gidwitz argue,451 made it comparatively easy for others to parody them.
Thus the Viennese Realzeitung in 1786 described how Nancy Storace, Mozart‟s first
Susanna, in Salieri‟s Prima la musica e poi le parole had “excited universal enthusiasm” by
imitating the famous castrato Luigi Marchesi “in singing arias from Giulio Sabino so well
that one imagined one was hearing Marchesi himself, and she even mimicked his acting
with real skill.”452 Since composers collaborated so closely with the singers as Libby and
Gidwitz describe, it would be only natural if composers „helped‟ their singers when
imitating other singers.
It was not only the singers who had a vocal style of their own, however. Each role
also had a vocal style of its own, the clear-cut characterizations of the comedians being
extended to the manner of singing, or to what may be called the „vocal makeup‟ of the
character. Alessandra Campana has pointed out that “a capacity of vocal mimicry” was
central to the art of opera buffa453 and even suggests that “differences in vocal range were of
little importance” to buffo singers and that the word „tenor‟ may have “referred more to a
colour or style of singing than to an actual vocal range”,454 adducing as evidence that

451 Gidwitz attempts to reconstruct the vocal styles of two of Mozart‟s sopranos, Aloysia Weber and Catarina
Cavalieri, through their music (Cf. Gidwitz 1991).
452 Quoted in Gidwitz 1991: 579 (note).
453 Campana 1991: 580.
454 Ibid: 581-2.

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Giuseppe Lolli who sang the bass roles of the Commendatore and Masetto in Don Giovanni
in 1787 had sung the tenor role of Sumers in Domenico Cimarosa‟s L’italiana in Londra in
Vienna in the previous season.455 As an example of how a vocal quick-change artist would
create a „voice‟ for a role, we may point to the buffo tenor Michael Kelly who created Don
Curzio and Don Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro. He relates in his Reminiscences how he was to
stutter throughout the role of Don Curzio and how the audience “were convulsed with
laughter, in which Mozart himself joined” at his stuttering in the Act Two sextet.456 What
Kelly does not mention is that this would also have been a way of making a clear
distinction between his two roles. That Bassi as Guglielmo, according to Börner-Sandrini,
“is supposed to have had quite delightful moments in the varied scenes of this difficult
double-role”, also suggests that he was able to make two such contrasting characterizations.
That the buffo tradition for such distinct vocal characterizations was still alive in Italy
in the early 20th century appears from recordings with Antonio Pini-Corsi (1858-1919),
probably the oldest and certainly the most celebrated buffo baritone preserved on record: a
favourite with Ponchielli, Verdi and Puccini, he created Ford in Falstaff, Schaunard in La
bohème and other buffo roles at the turn of the 20th century. His recordings of comical opera
arias and scenes clearly show that he had a most distinct vocal style for each of his roles,
but also that this style, when first established, could easily be abandoned in favour of the
parody of other voices or styles.
The imitation of other voices was characteristic of the classical actor in both tragedy
and comedy, as described in Svend Christiansen‟s study of 18th- and 19th-century acting
conventions. In accordance with the actor‟s sharp distinction between character (cf.
„ethical‟ emotions) and emotions dependent on the individual words or situations (cf.
„pathetic‟ emotions), the character of the role only determined the emotions of the
declamation to a certain degree. Thus the 18th century used the term „jouer le mot‟ (playing
the word) to designate the actor‟s vocal and pantomimic depiction of the words, e.g. in
narrations where past events should be evoked as vividly as possible in the imagination of
the audience.457 This shows how closely dependent classical acting was on classical
rhetoricians like Quintilian who in his Institutes of Oratory pointed out that the feelings of the
audience “are very strongly moved by the personification of characters, for the judge seems
not to be listening to an orator lamenting the sufferings of others, but to hear with his own

455 Ibid: 582.

456 Kelly 1968 Vol. I: 257.
457 Christiansen 1975: 24.

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ears the expressions and tones of the unfortunate suppliants themselves, whose presence,
even without speech, would be sufficient to call forth tears.” 458 In other words, rhetorical
„impersonation‟ (termed prosopopoeia by Quintilian) would lead the orator, or the actor, to
„bracket‟ his own character in order to evoke an absent character or a past event as
effectively as possible. An obvious example in Don Giovanni would be Donna Anna‟s half-
dramatized narration of the assault, in which she, in order to convince Don Ottavio of her
heroic defiance, re-enacts the past events in the present tense, complete with high-note
repeats of her own terrified screams (“I try to tear myself away, but he holds me faster; I
scream”).459
Impersonation was always more central to comedy than to tragedy, however: it
permitted a gifted comical actor to create a virtuoso one-man-show in which he would play
several roles at the same time, the practice of verbal impersonation being closely related to
the comical practice of disguise, which offered similar opportunities. As Christiansen
suggests, the quoting or description of another character would invariably prompt the
comical actor to imitate him in voice and gesture, which exploitation of situations for
comical purposes presupposed the “reduced dependence on the psychological unity of the
role, the relative emancipation from the character represented”, which was central to
classical acting.460 This relative independence of the character (of the „type‟, or of the
„ethical‟ emotions, as it were) potentially threatened to dissolve its distinctness, and
Christiansen suggests that this was one of two reasons why a character had to be as clear-
cut as possible, the other being the classicist emphasis on explicit and immediate
expression. Consequently, the first entrance of a character was of paramount importance:
here its „typical‟ emotions should be imprinted on the minds of the audience, which would
allow the performer to bracket them later in the performance when indulging in disguises,
impersonations and vivid narrations in the manner of comedy acts.461
Before suggesting in what ways Luigi Bassi and Felice Ponziani may have indulged
such vocal disguises, it may be useful to listen to how this art still existed at the turn of the
20th century. A comparison of Pini-Corsi‟s performances of Falstaff‟s “Quand‟ero paggio”

458 Quintilian 2006 VI.1.26. Cf. Christiansen 1975: 29.

459 “[…] sciogliermi cerco, / ei piú mi stringe; grido” (469-70).
460 Christiansen 1975: 164.
461 Ibid: 84.

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and of Brother Melitone in the window scene from La forza del destino clearly shows how
different were the vocal impersonations of which he was capable:462

Quand‟ero paggio When I was the page

del Duca di Norfolk ero sottile,
ero un miraggio
vago, leggiero, gentile, gentile.
Quello era il tempo del mio verde Aprile,
quello era il tempo del mio lieto Maggio.
Tanto era smilzo, flessibile e snello
che avrei guizzato attraverso un anello.
(II.ii)463
of the Duke of Norfolk, I was slender:
I was a mirage
so delicate, so light, so gentle, so gentle.
That was the time of my green April,
that was the time of my happy May.
I was so slight, so supple and slim
that I could have slipped through a ring.

In this comical little arietta Pini-Corsi evokes the conceited old charlatan through a
combination of characteristic phrasing and vocal colour. His slightly domed, baritonal
colour, which alternates with an almost speech-like quality, suggests Falstaff‟s pompous
chivalry, while bouncing accents on the first beats are suggestive of his swaggering,
complacent air. The characterization is supported by the contrasting of the ample, open
and elastic quality of the rhymes paggio-miraggio-Maggio and the more aristocratic, almost
effeminate quality of the rhymes sottile-gentile-April. Having established Falstaff‟s type so
clearly, Pini-Corsi then „brackets‟ him in order to create a quite different character in the
last two lines (underlined by the change of rhymes): the tiny pageboy is evoked through a
slip into a delicate falsetto, supported by an emphasis on the voiced s in “smilzo” and
“snello” and the prevalent i and e sounds. Since the solo lasts less than a minute, Pini-Corsi
then gives the piece da capo, as he would have done in the theatre, and the repeat confirms
that an aria had to be sung differently when encored, and that the effect had to be
enhanced. Pini-Corsi now adds a small ornament to the second “gentile”, thus turning up
Falstaff‟s affected elegance one notch more, while the last line is delivered with an
indescribable chirruping voice, which is entirely out of character but must have stopped the
show.
The approach is quite the same, but the character quite different in the scene from
La forza del destino:

Si apre la finestrella della porta, e n’esce la luce The small window in the gate opens, and light

462 Antonio Pini-Corsi recorded the excerpts from La forza del destino in 1907 and the Falstaff solo in 1912.
Along with two others, these tracks have been released on The Verdi’s Singers: The First Singers in Original Roles
in Verdi’s Late Operas (Vocal Archives, VA 1150)
463 Verdi 2004.

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d’una lanterna, che riverbera sul volto di from a lantern falls on Donna Leonora’s face,
Donna Leonora, la quale si arretra spaventata. causing her to withdraw in alarm.
Fra Melitone parla sempre dall’interno. Brother Melitone always speaks from the inside.

MELITONE MELITONE
Chi siete? Who are you?

LEONORA LEONORA
Chiedo il Superiore. May I speak to the prior.

MELITONE MELITONE
S‟apre The church opens
alle cinque la chiesa, at five,
se al giubileo venite. if you come for the jubilee.

LEONORA LEONORA
Il Superiore, The prior,
per carità. for the sake of charity.

MELITONE MELITONE
Che carità a quest‟ora! What charity at this hour!

LEONORA LEONORA
Mi manda il padre Cleto. Father Cleto sends me.

MELITONE MELITONE
Quel sant‟uomo?... Il motivo? That holy man?... The motive?

LEONORA LEONORA
Urgente. Urgent.

MELITONE MELITONE
Perché mai?... But why?...

LEONORA LEONORA
Un infelice… An unhappy one…

MELITONE MELITONE
Brutta solfa, però v‟apro ond‟entriate. A dull repeat, but I shall let you enter.

LEONORA LEONORA
Nol posso. I cannot.

MELITONE
No?... Scommunicato siete?...
Ché strano fia aspettar a ciel sereno.
V‟annuncio… e se non torno
buona notte…
MELITONE
No?... Are you excommunicated?
Yet you should not wait for the daylight.
I shall announce you… And if I don‟t
return: goodnight…

160
 (Chiude la finestrella.) (II.vi)464 (He closes the window.)

Pini-Corsi uses this recitative, which looks almost nothing on the page, to establish a clear-
cut portrayal of the nosy, bigoted friar. Most of his lines are delivered in a highly comical
twang with a nasal sharpening of all i and e sounds, especially those falling on weak
endings, which are stressed beyond all measure (siete – venite – entriate – notte). To this is
added an irritated stutter on “Che carità” and a horrified stutter on “Scommunicato”. The
character is so clearly established that the singer can bracket him already in the sixth line of
the recitative: on “Quel sant‟uomo” the twang is abandoned in favour of a pompous,
somewhat hollow and woolly bass voice which is evidently meant to evoke the „holy‟
Father Cleto, the change in vowel colour supporting the impersonation. With an
insinuating rising glissando on an (un-notated) “eh…”, Melitone returns to his venomous
twang when questioning Leonora about her motives, but abandons the colour already for
his next question, “Perché mai”, which is blustered out in a sudden forte that betrays the
other side of the insinuating busybody: the self-righteous, indignant Bible-thumper. For his
next line he returns to the twang with another glissando on “eh…”, this time leading to a
smirk before “Brutta solfa”. The drawn-out final syllable on his last word, “notte”, is clearly
a call for applause. It is striking, furthermore, that the twang is almost completely absent
from Pini-Corsi‟s recording of Melitone‟s hell-fire sermon in Act Three: at this point the
„busybody voice‟ would have been so clearly established that the singer could abandon it
completely in favour of the blustering „Bible-thumper‟s voice‟.
Among all opera singers preserved on record, it is probably Antonio Pini-Corsi who
gives us the clearest impression of what a buffo singer would have sounded like in the 18th
century and still, to some degree, sounded like at the turn of the 20th: perhaps the last of the
great operatic quick-change artists, he belonged to a tradition that had more to do with
Peter Sellers, Robin Williams and traditional music-hall acts than with what we tend to
think of as classical music today. A number of important lessons can be drawn from the
old recordings: as with Patti, singing was evidently an extension of speech, both words and
music serving the purpose of characterization; a character was defined by a number of
dominating characteristics, each given its own distinct style of delivery (e.g. Melitone‟s
„busybody voice‟ and „Bible-thumper voice‟), and the combination of those styles
constituted the character‟s vocal makeup. Furthermore, the character could abandon its

464 Verdi 2004.

161
own vocal style entirely when impersonating someone else (e.g. Falstaff‟s „pageboy voice‟
and Melitone‟s „Father Cleto voice‟).
Returning to Don Giovanni, it would, undeniably, be much easier for the seducer – but
also much funnier – if Leporello had a distinct vocal makeup that he could imitate in “Metà
di voi qua vadano”, and when Lyser tells us that Bassi “knew how to parody the acting and
singing of the Leporello” in the “most amusing way”, there can be little doubt that this was
indeed the case with Felice Ponziani, the original Leporello. But that the same was the case
with Luigi Bassi‟s Don Giovanni appears from Leporello‟s first two arias, in which the
servant would have parodied his master‟s vocal makeup. These are Da Ponte‟s words for
Leporello‟s opening aria:

Notte e giorno faticar Toiling night and day

per chi nulla sa gradir,
piova e vento sopportar,
mangiar male e mal dormir…
Voglio far il gentiluomo,
e non voglio piú servir.
for someone who appreciates nothing,
enduring rain and wind,
eating badly and sleeping badly…
I want to be a gentleman
and I don‟t want to serve anymore.

Oh che caro galantuomo! Oh you precious man of honour!

Voi star dentro colla bella, You are staying inside with your beauty,
ed io far la sentinella!... while I‟m playing the sentinel!...
Ma mi par che venga gente, But it seems that people are approaching;
non mi voglio far sentir. (1-11) I won‟t make myself heard.

Wye Jamison Allanbrook describes how Mozart has applied different musical topoi to the
successive images of this aria:465 while the first four lines, in which Leporello reflects on his
own position, are set as a foot march, the next two lines, in which he fantasizes about life
as a gentleman, are set as a cavalry march, whereby Leporello refers to the social difference
between himself, the footman, and Don Giovanni, the cavaliere. The first two lines of the
second stanza, furthermore, are set as a gavotte, a traditional courtship dance which “by
way of the almost artificial control of its special rhythmic ticking,” in Allanbrook‟s
characterization, has “an air of teasing primness, which suggests the pastoral pastels of
French bergeries.”466
Evidently, this music refers to Don Giovanni the seducer, but in the Mozart
literature opinions differ as to why it appears in Leporello‟s aria. Allanbrook views the
gavotte as part of a comical interplay of text, music and action: Leporello parodies his

465 Allanbrook 1983: 201-6.

466 Ibid: 50.

162
master, the gavotte-phrase miming his “frisson of delight mixed with envy”. The sarcastic
endearment “caro”, furthermore, is “a natural concomitant of the gavotte: with a heavy
exaggeration of salon preciosity Leporello imitates the gentleman lover at work.”467 Géza
Fodor, on the other hand, views the phrase as the expression of Leporello‟s “ambiguous
identification” with Don Giovanni, as a sign that “he is his master‟s captive, not his
servant.”468 In typically modernist fashion, it is claimed that the music introduces a
psychological layer not hinted at in the text, music being able to transcend, outdo and even
contradict the words and to tell us what Leporello „really‟ feels. As the parodic meaning is
replaced by a psychological subtext, the whole aria is drawn away from comedy, Fodor
maintaining that the buffo framework itself is brought into question by the subconscious
linking of master and servant.
Fodor‟s reading is strongly indebted to that of Søren Kierkegaard, which, however,
indirectly tells us a great deal about how the aria was performed when he heard it at
Copenhagen‟s Royal Theatre in the 1830s, at a time when the classicist comedy tradition of
the 18th century was still very strong in Denmark:

Leporello feels himself drawn to him [Don Juan], overwhelmed by him, absorbed in
him, and he becomes only an instrument for carrying out his master‟s will. This
obscure, undefined sympathy is exactly what makes Leporello into a musical
personality, and we find it quite in order that he should not be able to disengage
himself from Don Juan. […]
That which makes the situation musical is Don Juan, who is indoors. The gist
of the situation does not lie in Leporello who approaches, but in Don Juan, whom
we do not see – but do hear. Now someone may object that we do not hear Don
Juan. To this I would reply: “One does indeed hear him, for he is heard through
Leporello.” To this end, I shall call attention to the transition (“vuol [sic] star dentro
colla bella”), where Leporello evidently reproduces Don Juan. But even if this were
not the case, still the situation is so arranged that involuntarily we get Don Juan
anyway, forgetting Leporello, who stands outside, because of the force of Don Juan
who is within. With true genius Mozart has everywhere permitted Leporello to
reproduce Don Juan, and has thereby accomplished two things: the musical effect,
that one always hears Don Juan when Leporello is alone; and the burlesque effect,
that when Don Juan is present, one hears Leporello repeat him, and thereby
unconsciously parody him.469

Kierkegaard, who did not read music, based his influential interpretation of Don Giovanni
on live performances, and it is therefore far from uninteresting that the famous singing

467 Ibid: 206.

468 Fodor 1986: 153.
469 Kierkegaard 1959 Vol. I: 112, 130.

163
actor Ludvig Phister, who was the Leporello of the theatre from 1827 to 1839,470 was
particularly admired as a vocal quick-change artist, especially known for his performances
of servant roles in the 18th-century comedies of Ludvig Holberg. In a long essay on
Phister‟s art, the theatre critic Edvard Brandes called the actor‟s voice “a string which could
sound in any tone or key he pleased”,471 a faculty exploited with particular virtuosity when
he played Henrik – Holberg‟s Danish equivalent of Harlequin – to which Fach Leporello
may be said to belong. As Henrik, he used a voice “which had a somewhat dark timbre,
resembling the so-called covered singing voice which makes the sung a sound like an o,
Phister‟s a not being quite clear either.”472 According to Brandes, the position of the mouth
used for the production of this voice gave him an enormous volubility, which enabled him
to apply multiple voices in quick succession, and Phister “lost no opportunity whatsoever
to change his voice; it never occurred that he quoted a person without copying him”:473

The most famous places in his Henrik roles were nearly always his transformations.
Just think of the scene in Maskerade in which Henrik plays all the officials at the court
for matrimonial cases: after a bleating, snuffling, incomprehensible usher had read
out the writ, came the lawyers: the first, who hopped forward like a magpie, had a
thin, squeaky voice whose falsetto shrilled from conceit and self-importance, while
the second mumbled in deep belly tones, just as pompous as the former was peevish.
At last, Henrik sat down as judge and served the verdict in a voice so sleepy and
torpid and dull that the spectators were almost lulled to a doze from which Phister
did not wake them until he started up from the seat like a rocket and was the old,
lively Henrik again.474

Brandes observed that Phister‟s theatrical principle was to “draw as much wit and comedy
from the line as at all possible without conflicting with the scenic individual and without
putting a jot into the words which, if one looked closely, was not there already”, his maxim
being “constant change and transformation.”475 The critic stressed that the audience had no
right to demand a penetrating character study from such a comedian: “The comical
exterior, which provoked laughter, was entirely sufficient.”476
Clearly, Phister‟s approach to a role was close to that of Antonio Pini-Corsi,
Giuseppe Verdi‟s favourite buffo, and although I have found no detailed description of his

470 Aumont & Collin 1896-1900.

471 Brandes 1880: 292.
472 Ibid: 291.
473 Ibid: 294.
474 Ibid: 293.
475 Ibid: 294-5.
476 Ibid: 290.

164
Leporello, one can easily imagine in what direction this vocal quick-change virtuoso would
have pulled the character, especially as we learn from Kierkegaard that “Leporello evidently
reproduces Don Juan”. Though the romantic philosopher heard in this vocal reproduction
of the seducer‟s voice a proof that “Leporello feels himself drawn to him, overwhelmed by
him, absorbed in him, and [that] he becomes only an instrument for carrying out his
master‟s will”, it is most likely that Phister thought of the impersonation merely as a
comical act in the classical tradition, and even more likely that this is exactly what Mozart
would have expected from Felice Ponziani. In the buffo logic of vocal quick-change artists
like Phister and Pini-Corsi, the aristocratic gavotte phrase in “Notte e giorno faticar” would
invariably call for a vocal colouring in imitation of Don Giovanni‟s voice.
The same appears to be the case with the second part of Leporello‟s Catalogue Aria,
in which several critics have noted that Leporello refers musically to his master: by singing
in a higher tessitura,477 by applying the key of D major (the key of the Canzonetta and the
supper scene)478 and by introducing an aristocratic minuet into a buffo context. Arguably, the
same kind of imitation would be called for in Figaro‟s aria “Se vuol ballare”, in which a
servant also parodies his philandering master to the sound of a dance tune, and Mozart
may have been so impressed with Felice Ponziani‟s imitation of Luigi Bassi‟s Almaviva that
he decided to have the trick repeated in Don Giovanni. That Ludvig Phister indeed imitated
Don Giovanni in the Catalogue Aria appears from Kierkegaard‟s indirect description:

Here we do not hear Don Juan as a particular individual, nor his speech, but we hear
a voice, the voice of sensuousness, and we hear it through the longing of
womanhood. […] He [Leporello] is altogether fascinated by the life he describes, he
forgets himself in telling about Don Juan. Thus I have another example of what I
mean when I say that Don Juan echoes through everything.479

It was Kierkegaard who established the commonplace that Leporello echoes his master
musically because he admires or even identifies with him, though this interpretation finds
little support in Da Ponte‟s text. Phister‟s performance of the Catalogue Aria, which
apparently led Kierkegaard to this conclusion, must have been conceived as a purely
comical vocal quick-change turn, however.
According to John Platoff, the Catalogue Aria follows a structure unusual for the
buffo arias of the time: whereas these were normally divided into a slow first part, which sets

477 Rushton 1997: 421.

478 Krones 1987: 28-9.
479 Kierkegaard 1959 Vol. I: 95, 132.

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the stage for the “comic outburst” of the fast second part, which makes use of patter song
in order to create “a sense of acceleration and gathering energy, often of being nearly out
of control”,480 in Leporello‟s aria the order seems to be reversed. In the first part, which is
marked allegro, the servant lists his master‟s conquests in whirling patter song, while the
second part, which is marked andante con moto, “presents the more subtly comic scene of
Leporello describing Don Giovanni‟s seduction techniques while aping them to the strains
of an elegant minuet.”481
Platoff seems to find the slower part less overtly comical than the beginning, but he
bases that assumption merely on a reading of the score, without considering what an 18 th-
century buffo singer might have done with this section. Although slower, the minuet should,
arguably, still function as the comical climax, which it indeed rarely does in modern
performances. Part of this is due to a misunderstanding of the tempo among conductors
who tend to play the andante con moto too slowly, as pointed out by René Leibowitz,
whereby Leporello, “instead of joking, rather gives the impression of delivering a
sermon”,482 but I believe another reason to be that the comic intention of the minuet
section has been widely misunderstood. Platoff rightly observes that Leporello apes his
master‟s seduction technique in the minuet, but according to many other scholars – who
are surely influenced by performance tradition – Leporello does not ape Don Giovanni,
but his tastes in women.483 In order to clear up this misconception, it is important to
understand that Leporello in the second part of the aria constantly should change between
his own voice and the imitation of Don Giovanni‟s „seducer‟s voice‟: he uses the latter
when paraphrasing the stereotypical flattery of his master or when mocking him and his
own voice for cynical interpolations. Leporello‟s aping of his master‟s voice is called for in
the lines set by Mozart as variations on the aristocratic minuet whose slightly melismatic
vocal line – like the gavotte phrase in the opening aria – is contrasted to the syllabic, more
speech-like setting of lines which are meant to be sung with his own voice. The melismatic
line may be a further confirmation that Bassi‟s „seducer‟s voice‟ made more extensive use of
portamento and voce mista or falsetto. In the following, italics indicate where I conjecture that
Mozart expected Ponziani to imitate Don Giovanni‟s „seducer‟s voice‟:

480 Platoff 1990: 105.

481 Ibid: 117.
482 Leibowitz 1991: 234-5.
483 Cf. Abert 1956: 406; Allanbrook 1983: 244; Kunze 1984: 411; Henze-Döhring 1986: 158; Mila 1988: 96;

Gallarati 1989: 236; Pirrotta 1991: 162.

166
 Nella bionda egli ha l’usanza
di lodar la gentilezza,
nella bruna la costanza,
nella bianca la dolcezza.
Vuol d‟inverno la grassotta,
vuol d‟estate la magrotta;
è la grande maestosa,
la piccina è ognor vezzosa.
Delle vecchie fa conquista
pel piacer di porle in lista,
ma passion predominante
è la giovin principiante.
Non si picca se sia ricca,
se sia brutta, se sia bella:
purché porti la gonnella
voi sapete quel che fa. (209-24)
In the blonde it is his custom
to praise her gentleness,
in the brunette her constancy,
in the white-haired girl her sweetness.
In the winter he wants a fatso,
in the summer he wants a scrag;
the big one is majestic,
the small one is always dainty.
He makes conquests among old women
for the pleasure of adding them to his list,
but his predominant passion
is the young beginner.
He doesn‟t care if she is rich,
if she is ugly, if she is pretty:
as long as she wears a skirt,
you know what he‟ll do.

Each minuet variation presents a new kind of flattery: when praising the blonde for her
gentleness, Leporello/Don Giovanni is accompanied by „gentle‟ flutes, when praising the
brunette for her constancy, a sudden forte is heard in the orchestra, when praising the white-
haired girl for her sweetness, his vocal line is coloured with „sweet‟ chromatics, when
praising the fat girl for being majestic, a „majestic‟ orchestral crescendo accompanies his
rising vocal line – culminating in a fermata on which an imaginative Leporello may even be
able to parody Don Giovanni‟s seductive cadenza in the previous aria (cf. the chapter on
Don Giovanni and the three women)484 – when praising the thin girl for being dainty, the
tune is dissolved into „dainty‟ patter accompanied by staccato violins, and when he
addresses the old women, it is solemnly clad in heavier ornamentation and orchestration.
When Leporello sings with his own voice, on the other hand, both text and music are
devoid of seductive embellishment: it is to the strains of a laconic, parlando-like theme that
he calls the fat girl “la grassotta” and the thin girl “la magrotta” before turning to the
minuet and the seducer‟s euphemistic “la grande” and “la piccina”. This procedure is
repeated at the end of the aria, when Leporello, to the sound of the same parlando-like tune,
wryly remarks that Don Giovanni cares not whether the women are rich, ugly or pretty,
only to close the piece to the strains of the minuet with a final, mocking imitation of his
omnivorous master. The most widely misunderstood contrasting of the two voices occurs
in line 10, when Leporello suddenly drops the minuet tune and makes a deceptive cadence
on the word “lista”. Abert hears in the servant‟s turn to D minor “the whole demonic

For this fermata, Neumann suggests that “perhaps Leporello‟s histrionics could use a touch of swagger”
484

(Neumann 1986: 226).

167
power of his master”,485 and Allanbrook believes that the purpose of suddenly introducing
“the opera‟s key of the supernatural and of high tragedy” is to set “the seduction of
innocents apart from the fall of contessas and brunettes, to connect it with the high
seriousness of the tragic mode.”486 Such tragic interpretations of the false cadence,
however, result from the fact that the comical intent is lost when the Leporello fails to
make a sudden shift on the word lista from Don Giovanni‟s voice to his own voice, which
should be retained for the parlando-like setting of the following lines.
The sequence of scenes in Act Two which centre on Don Giovanni‟s and Leporello‟s
change of costumes (II.i-x) constitutes, after the sequence centring on the ball (I.xv-xx), Da
Ponte‟s second major addition to the plot outline in Bertati‟s libretto and perhaps the
second instance of his “introduction of the vis comica” into Mozart‟s “serious” conception.
The sequence has found little favour with critics through the times, probably since the
comical play with disguises and identities has lent itself less easily to heroic or demonic
interpretations than the more realistic encounters in Act One. Thus, Hoffmann‟s
„enthusiast‟, after having related the action of Act One in great detail, remains silent about
the action of Act Two up to Donna Anna‟s aria. The commedia action being of little interest
to a serious German romanticist, the spectator witnesses Act Two with closed eyes, and as
a consequence, Mozart‟s music begins to live its own, autonomous life:

The first act enchanted me, but after this marvellous event, the music had an entirely
new, strange effect. It was as though a long-promised fulfilment of a most beautiful
vision from another world were come to life; as though the most intimate
presentiments of an enraptured soul were caught fast in melody and had to take
shape in the most wonderful form.487

What Hoffmann barely implied is stated quite bluntly by Edward J. Dent: Da Ponte, who
“is thrown mainly on his own invention” in Act Two, had “plenty of ideas for farcical
situations, but there is no dramatic construction, and the confusion of plot is redeemed
only by the fascination of Mozart‟s music.”488 This view is shared by Alfred Einstein,
according to whom the first half of Da Ponte‟s Act Two constitutes “a series of trivialities
and dramatic postponements”, whereas Mozart created “an overflowing of pure, non-
functional beauty”.489 Hermann Abert, too, complains that Da Ponte, for want of

485 Abert 1956: 407.

486 Allanbrook 1983: 244-5.
487 Hoffmann 1945: 509.
488 Dent 1947: 164.
489 Einstein 1945: 440.

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imagination, “resorted to the familiar means of the opera buffa, such as thrashing and the
exchange of clothes, in order to fill out the second act”,490 it being due to the composer
alone that “the participation of the auditor is kept awake throughout these loose inserts,
since he knows far better than the poet how to join them to the main action.”491 Abert, in
other words, attributes to Mozart‟s music the ability to create dramatic unity independently
of the text, which „absolute‟ view is shared by Andrew Steptoe, according to whom “Act II
possesses a looseness of form that can lead to disturbing longueurs in an uninspired
performance”, yet “these imperfections are more than compensated for by a musical and
emotional thrust of overwhelming energy”, the “dynamic cohesion of the score” raising
“the composer‟s art to more electrifying peaks (if not to a higher plane) than Le nozze di
Figaro.”492
The primary raison d’être of Da Ponte‟s dramatic conception, however, is the theatrical
requirements of opera buffa: like the ball sequence in Act One, the disguise sequence is in no
way indispensable to the plot, as most critics of the scenes have pointed out, but it has a
double theatrical purpose nonetheless: on the one hand it serves to add further shades to
the moral problems of the drama, exposing the hypocrisy of Donna Elvira and the violence
of Masetto, and on the other it offers the singers of Don Giovanni and Leporello
opportunities to shine as quick-change comedians. That Mozart may have modelled his
setting of the scene on the talents of Bassi and Ponziani is suggested by the fact that the
“Eh via buffone”, the Canzonetta and “Metà di voi qua vadano” were all composed in
Prague, perhaps in close interaction with the performers, just as most of the text for the
comical dialogue between Leporello and Donna Elvira saw the light of day during
rehearsals.
In the short buffo duet “Eh via buffone” Leporello hands in his notice, complaining
that his master threatened to kill him in the previous scene, while Don Giovanni insists
that he was only joking. Da Ponte has made Leporello imitate Don Giovanni sarcastically
by means of the rhymes, and Mozart has emphasized this feature by making the servant
repeat his master‟s musical lines unchanged:

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Ma che ti ho fatto, But what have I done to you,
che vuoi lasciarmi? since you want to leave me?

490 Abert 1956: 378.

491 Ibid: 428.
492 Steptoe 1988: 120.

169
 LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
Oh niente affatto! Oh nothing at all!
quasi ammazzarmi! (774-7) You almost killed me!

Adherents of the demonic interpretation of the opera have, in their efforts to present Don
Giovanni as the more powerful figure of the two, come up with different – and often
conflicting – explanations of why Leporello imitates his master in this duet. According to
Abert, the duet does not even feature Leporello imitating Don Giovanni but, on the
contrary, Don Giovanni applying the same means as he does with the women: “he
consciously condescends to his [Leporello‟s] emotional sphere and thereby curbs him”, the
only difference being that in this duet “he indicates the buffo tone from the beginning,
bossing the boy [sic] around phrase by phrase.”493 Fodor, too, believes that it is Don
Giovanni who imitates Leporello, which he sees as “the most licentious mockery, an
insolent fraud” betraying, however, that “Don Giovanni‟s persona unequivocally needs this
person who is irresistibly drawn to him and bound to him by unbreakable ties.” 494
Wolfgang Willaschek concedes that it is Leporello who imitates Don Giovanni, but from
the fact that the servant is not given “his own musical expression”, he concludes that
“Mozart leaves no doubt about whom of the two is the dominating one in this forced
alliance.”495
When performed in the theatre, however, it is indisputably Leporello who is given
the opportunity to parody his master, simply because he is the one who repeats the musical
phrases, and thinking of Leporello‟s earlier parodies of Don Giovanni, it is more than likely
that this was precisely what Mozart wanted Ponziani to do. This also appears to be what
Phister did, Kierkegaard speaking of “the burlesque effect, that when Don Juan is present,
one hears Leporello repeat him, and thereby unconsciously parody him”. The comical
effect may have resulted from Leporello mocking his young master by distorting the casual,
debonair tone of voice with which Bassi may have sung Don Giovanni‟s phrases, but
Mozart has left the choice to the singer. Later in the act Leporello is invited to imitate Don
Giovanni‟s voice once more, when the latter outright asks him to “feign my voice”,496 as
Ponziani must have done with great success in the subsequent scene with Donna Elvira,
since it was expanded during rehearsals.

493 Abert 1956: 428-9.

494 Fodor 1986: 199.
495 Willaschek 1995: 224.
496 “[…] fingi la voce mia” (863).

170
 When Masetto later enters with a band of armed peasants, Don Giovanni delivers a
few asides in his own voice (“Someone is talking” – “If I‟m not wrong, it‟s Masetto” – “He
is not alone: I must use my head” – “I won‟t be discovered”)497 before he “seeks to imitate
Leporello‟s voice”.498 As Leporello he agrees to help the peasants track down and kill his
master, organizing the search in his third and last aria:

Accennando a destra. Pointing to the right.

Metà di voi qua vadano, Half of you go this way,
Accennando a sinistra. Pointing to the left.
e gli altri vadan là, and the others go that way,
e pian pianin lo cerchino: searching for him very quietly:
lontan non fia di qua. he can‟t be far from here.

Se un uom e una ragazza If a man and a girl

passeggian per la piazza, stroll about the square,
se sotto a una finestra if you hear someone
fare all‟amor sentite, making love under a window,
ferite pur, ferite: strike, just strike:
il mio padron sarà. it‟ll be my master.

In testa egli ha un cappello On his head

con candidi pennacchi, is a white-plumed hat,
addosso un gran mantello, he wears a large cloak,
e spada al fianco egli ha. and he has a sword at his side.

Andate, fate presto… Go, hurry…

I contadini partono. The peasants leave.
A Masetto. To Masetto.
Tu sol verrai con me. You alone shall come with me.
Noi far dobbiam il resto, We will do the rest,
e già vedrai cos‟è. (922-39) and soon you shall see what that is.

As several scholars have noted, the aria is composed in Leporello‟s musical style. Hartmut
Krones points out how the use of the fourth, which is characteristic of Don Giovanni‟s
melodic style, is replaced by “triadic melodics” and “hurdy-gurdy motifs” similar to the
ones heard in “Notte e giorno faticar”,499 and the syllabic declamation which, as Mila has
pointed out, evokes a martial drum rhythm,500 recalls the „foot-march‟ of that same aria.
The piece, furthermore, is a typical „action aria‟ in which the melodic material is located in
the orchestra, allowing the vocal line to be less declamatory and more conversational and
497 “(Qualcuno parla). […] (Se non fallo, è Masetto). […] (Non è solo, / ci vuol giudizio). […] (Non mi voglio
scoprir).” (901, 904, 907-9).
498 “Cerca imitar la voce di Leporello.” (908).
499 Krones 1987: 30, 35.
500 Mila 1988: 191.

171
centred around specific vocal gestures. This type of aria seems to have been more
characteristic of the more purely comical characters, since these were wont to move around
more on stage (cf. the opening aria), and “Metà di voi qua vadano” indeed features several
vocal gestures reminiscent of Leporello: the emphatic “no” in line 4 and the explosive
“ferite” recall Leporello‟s temperamental “no, no, no” in the Introduction and in “Eh via
buffone”; the patter song when Don Giovanni sends the peasants off (“Andate, fate
presto”) recalls his servant‟s hurried “Ma mi par che venga gente” in the Introduction; and
the insinuating repetitions of the last line clearly recalls, as Mila has pointed out, Leporello‟s
no less insinuating repetitions of the last line of the Catalogue aria: “voi sapete quel che
fa”.501 The conversational style is also implied by the tempo marking andante con moto, which
the aria shares with the second part of the Catalogue Aria, though René Leibowitz remarks
that both pieces are usually performed too slowly.502 Furthermore, the aria is set in F major,
the key of Leporello‟s first aria, its tessitura, as Julian Rushton has pointed out, being
generally lower than the rest of Don Giovanni‟s role, because he is imitating his servant at
this point.503 As with the two serenades, however, tonality and tessitura are not in
themselves “signs of characterisation”, as Rusthon suggests: the characterization resides in
the specific voice qualities which they call for, in this case Leporello‟s vocal makeup. What
Ponziani‟s „Leporello voice‟ sounded like is difficult to know, of course, but it is likely to
have had a somewhat „bassy‟ and speech-like quality, in contrast to Bassi‟s more sweetly
lyrical Don Giovanni, since the aria seems to support such features, and since this would
have made a perfect contrast to the preceding Canzonetta.
In the third stanza Don Giovanni describes his own attire, now worn by Leporello,
causing what Wye Jamison Allanbrook aptly describes as “Giovanni playing Leporello
playing Giovanni, a moment with parodistic echoes of Leporello‟s parody of a gentleman‟s
habit in “Notte e giorno””.504 The tessitura is higher than in the rest of the aria, as Rushton
has noted,505 the word “cappello” is graced with small melismas recalling Leporello‟s
parody of the “caro galantuomo”, and when the cloak and the sword are mentioned, Don
Giovanni “slips into a courtly march with fanfares”506 echoing Leporello‟s cavalry march on
“voglio fare il gentiluomo”, complete with a mock-aristocratic trill on “e spada”. Bassi was

501 Ibid: 193.

502 Leibowitz 1991: 244.
503 Rushton 1997: 421.
504 Allanbrook 1983: 219.
505 Rushton 1997: 421.
506 Allanbrook 1983: 219.

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apparently able to parody Leporello‟s growling envy of Don Giovanni as expressed in the
servant‟s first aria.
Here, too, the comical play with identities has been drawn in quite different
directions by critics searching for psychological portrayal in Mozart‟s music. According to
Dent, Don Giovanni returns to his own musical style because he “forgets his part and
unwittingly expands into the expression of his own character”;507 Abert adds that the march
“with the diabolic trill goes far beyond Leporello‟s tone”,508 and Rushton believes that Don
Giovanni forgets his „Leporello mask‟ “in the enjoyment of the action, allowing an
aristocratic command to show through”.509 Such interpretations, however, miss the
dramatic point of the aria, which, as Lyser‟s Old Music Director implies, is entirely comical
and calls for a virtuoso performance by a vocal quick-change artist. The aria is in danger of
becoming pointless, as is the entire disguise sequence, if subjected to psychological
explanations. This partly explains why critics have traditionally thought so ill of these
scenes, and why “Metà di voi qua vadano” was routinely cut in 19th-century productions.510

Don Giovanni and the women

Börner-Sandrini‟s (or rather her mother‟s) emphasis on “the contrast in Don Juan‟s
behaviour towards the three female roles” seems to refer to a specific sequence of scenes in
the opera, more precisely to the Act One street scene, in which Don Giovanni encounters
each of the three women in turn. Part of the sequence is even constructed around
overlapping encounters which twice force the seducer to engage in double-dealing. First he
meets and almost seduces Zerlina, only to be interrupted by Donna Elvira who „saves‟ the
peasant bride from his clutch; then he meets Donna Anna whom he offers to help find her
father‟s murderer, but again he is interrupted by Donna Elvira who succeeds in making
Donna Anna doubt his honesty. The Don Giovanni-Zerlina-Donna Elvira scene and the
Don Giovanni-Donna Anna-Donna Elvira scene are both modelled on a comical stock
situation employed by Molière and Bertati, in which the seducer speaks under his breath to
two women simultaneously (Charlotte and Mathurine in Molière; Donna Elvira and
Maturina in Bertati) and succeeds in convincing them that the other woman is madly in
love with him. One reason that Da Ponte and Mozart placed these scenes in swift

507 Dent 1947: 166.

508 Abert 1956: 433.
509 Rushton 1994: 108.
510 Cf. Cowgill 2006: 167.

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succession may have been to give Bassi an opportunity to show off his three contrasting
„behaviours‟ in a virtuoso manner, and when studying the sequence it may therefore be
useful to look for textual and musical clues to these contrasts, which may have been
communicated by means of vocal makeup as well as by gesture and facial expression.
The first time we encounter Don Giovanni as a seducer is at the beginning of the
street scene, during Donna Elvira‟s entrance aria “Ah chi mi dice mai”. Rather
unconventionally, Mozart has chosen to incorporate the five subsequent lines of recitative,
in which master and servant comment upon the unknown beauty, into the aria, thus
transforming it into a trio:

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Udisti: qualche bella Listen: is this some beauty
dal vago abbandonata? Poverina! abandoned by her beau? Poor girl!
Cerchiam di consolare il suo tormento. Let‟s try to console her in her distress.

LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
Cosí ne consolò mille e ottocento. Thus he consoled 1,800.

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Signorina! (143-7) Miss!

The basically recitative-like setting of Don Giovanni‟s lines has been furnished with small
melismas here and there, and the closing cadenza, which would normally be left to the
musical imagination of the soprano, has, quite exceptionally, been entrusted to Don
Giovanni who is requested to ornament the word “Signorina”, with which he first
addresses the unknown lady. Singers brought up on romantic and modernist respect for the
letter of Mozart‟s score rarely make much of this fermata, but in his book on
ornamentation and improvisation in Mozart, Frederick Neumann shows how the modest
ornament suggested in the Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke could easily be extended.511
Recalling Patti‟s rhetorical use of ornamentation, this cadenza offers a skilled dramatic
performer the opportunity to portray the seducer by the simplest means, which, of course,
immediately raises the question what Don Giovanni‟s music expresses, or rather should
express.
In this scene, too, the young gentleman has generally received harsh judgment from
commentators: Kierkegaard hears only “mockery” and “jeering laughter” in his inserts;

511 Neumann 1986: 225.

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Géza Fodor finds his song “sometimes mocking, sometimes seductive”,512 and according to
Sabine Henze-Dôhring Don Giovanni “feigns compassion with the abandoned woman and
offers consolation with an undertone of mockery”.513 Nothing in Don Giovanni‟s words
suggests, however, that he mocks the unknown woman, nor is there any reason why he
should do so: the lines simply show Don Giovanni having caught the scent of a new
woman, preparing an amorous offensive. If we, in the light of the Börner-Sandrini
quotation, view the dramatic presentation of his character as constructed around the
alternation of different „behaviours‟ – which would surely include vocal behaviours in the
manner of Pini-Corsi‟s different voices for Melitone – Mozart‟s purpose of integrating
these lines into Donna Elvira‟s aria may have been to establish what might be termed his
„seducer‟s voice‟ in contrast to the colloquial voice with which he subjesequently addresses
Donna Elvira. It is crucial, furthermore, that this voice should be introduced now, since it
is imitated by Leporello in the subsequent Catalogue Aria, and in order for this comical act
to succeed the audience must know what the servant parodies – which they will do with
Don Giovanni‟s seductive cadenza fresh in memory. This may indeed have been the reason
why Mozart incorporated Don Giovanni‟s recitative lines into Donna Elvira‟s aria.
But what would this voice have sounded like? One suggestion may be offered by Will
Crutchfield who emphasizes (as do the Patti recordings) that Italian singers in the 18 th and
19th centuries used portamento extensively, and that German composers sometimes wrote
out the portamento as slurred notes.514 Maybe the slurred notes in Don Giovanni‟s insertions
– most notably those on “Poverina, poverina” – suggests that his „seducer‟s voice‟
consisted of a more pronounced, wheedling portamento, possibly supported by a sugary voce
mista or falsetto quality, the effect culminating in a characteristically ingratiating closing
cadenza.
The portamento and the voce mista would then vanish abruptly in the subsequent
recitative when Don Giovanni recognizes Donna Elvira and when his (vocal) behaviour,
consequently, was transformed into that of “the perfect gentleman who still treats his
former mistress with chivalrous amiability, but who at appropriate moments shows clear
signs of some impatience, which is always suppressed as quickly and wisely as possible,
however”.

512 Fodor 1986: 164.

513 Henze-Döhring 1986: 155.
514 Crutchfield 1989: 119.

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 That Bassi‟s Don Giovanni behaved as a perfect gentleman in this scene,
furthermore, must count to his credit, since Donna Elvira, after having expressed the
desire to murder him with her bare hands, calls him “monster, felon, nest of deceits”515 and
refuses to listen to his explanations. Faced with such unrelenting hostility from a woman
for the second time in the opera, Bassi‟s Don Giovanni would have found one of his
“appropriate moments” for betraying “some impatience” in the aside “She puts me to the
test”516 before fleeing for his life, or at least because he realizes that communication is
futile.
Significantly, Don Giovanni‟s behaviour in the libretto differs markedly from that of
his namesake in Bertati‟s libretto: here Donna Elvira is no bloodthirsty Fury, but reflects in
a typically sentimental manner on the miserable conditions of women, which makes the
rudeness of her runaway fiancé the more repulsive: unpleasantly affected at meeting her in
the street, he frigidly remarks that she is “mad to travel with such a magnificent
equipage”517 and then leaves due to “an urgent matter”.518
The next time we see Da Ponte‟s Don Giovanni on stage are in the scenes with
Zerlina, which are also closely modelled on equivalent scenes in Bertati who was, in turn,
strongly indebted to Molière. Da Ponte‟s deviations from the models are most telling,
however: in Bertati, Don Giovanni starts caressing the peasant bride Maturina the moment
he enters the stage, and the girl, who is overawed by the advances of a cavaliere, does not
even object when he starts to shove her bridegroom, Biagio, and to box his ears
accompanied by Pasquariello‟s derisive laughter. The scene is a typical example of the
physical commedia dell’arte humour which characterized the traditional Convitato di pietra and
which prevented the audience from sympathizing with either Don Giovanni or his victims:
exactly the kind of „vulgar jests‟ which Da Ponte detested and which Bassi was continually
praised by Nĕmeček for avoiding in his comical roles.
Da Ponte‟s Don Giovanni politely asks the bridal couple their names and throws a
ball in their honour. When Masetto objects to Don Giovanni‟s attentions towards his bride,
the seducer “shows him his sword”, but the difference from the violent behaviour of
Bertati‟s Don Giovanni is significant, as implied in Baker‟s reading. Only when Masetto
and the others have disappeared, does Don Giovanni begin his actual advances, seducing

515 “[…] mostro, felon, nido d‟inganni” (149).

516 “(Mi pone / a cimento costei).” (174-5).
517 “[…] voi foste una pazza a far il viaggio / con un così magnifico equipaggio.” (vi).
518 “[…]un premuso affar” (vi).

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Zerlina not with physical caresses, as in Bertati, but with flattery, as when praising “those
roguish eyes, those pretty little lips, those white and fragrant little fingers”.519 Despite this
more civilized behaviour, Zerlina is less easily seduced than Maturina; the restraint on both
parts is exactly what makes the characters more „verisimilar‟, sympathetic and „natural‟. The
cheapness of Don Giovanni‟s tricks and the comical naivety of Zerlina‟s compliance should
prevent us from taking the characters too seriously, but it is worth remembering that Bassi,
as a good buffo di mezzo carattere, was admired exactly for striking a fine balance between
parody and sympathy in his comical roles.
Probably, Bassi‟s „Zerlina voice‟, apparently characterized by “that superior gallantry
which shows itself in all kinds of exaggerated flatteries whose feeble worth a wiser girl soon
recognises, but which this one accepts at their face value”, was identical with his „seducer‟s
voice‟ as introduced in “Ah chi mi dice mai”. The following lines, furthermore, already
seem to call for a distinction between Don Giovanni‟s tones of voice when talking to
Masetto and when talking to Zerlina, the address to the former probably calling for a
gentlemanly voice and that to the latter being set slightly higher and thus perhaps calling
for a voce mista:

O caro il mio Masetto! O my dear Masetto!

Cara la mia Zerlina! (270-1) My dear Zerlina!

The downward fifth leap on the word “Zerlina” may even call for an insinuating portamento,
as would also be appropriate in their duet in the next scene, “Là ci darem la mano”, on the
words “partiam, ben mio, da qui” (let‟s leave, my darling, 340), “diletto” ([my fair] joy, 345)
and “andiam” (let‟s go, 349).
The subsequent scene would have offered Bassi as Don Giovanni an opportunity for
contrasting his behaviour towards Zerlina and Donna Elvira. After a short aside (“Love,
advise me!”),520 he says the following words piano to Donna Elvira:

Idol mio, non vedete My idol, do you not see

ch‟io voglio divertirmi… (357-8) that I want to amuse myself…

And shortly afterwards he addresses the following words to Zerlina, also piano:

La povera infelice The poor, unhappy girl

è di me innamorata, e per pieta is in love with me, and out of pity

519 “[…] quegli occhi bricconcelli, / quei labbretti sí belli, / quelle dituccia candide e odorose” (323-5).
520 “Amor, consiglio.” (356).

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 deggio fingere amore, I must feign love, for unfortunately
ch‟io son per mia disgrazia uom di buon I am a good-hearted man.
core. (365-6)

As with the lines addressed to Masetto and Zerlina in I.viii, it is not without significance
that the two speeches have a different tessitura. The lines addressed to Zerlina are set
somewhat higher than those addressed to Donna Elvira, again probably calling for a
wheedling voce mista in contrast to the more familiar, and hence probably more speech-like,
tone with which Bassi‟s Don Giovanni addressed his former mistress. The familiarity
seems to reflect the fact that Don Giovanni does not lie to her, but indeed expects her to
understand and accept his motives – the “reasons” he vainly tried to make her listen to in
I.v521 – which tells us a great deal about the self-centred but disarming confidence he has in
other people. Only towards Zerlina does he assume an artificial manner, as he does towards
both women in the equivalent scenes in Molière and Bertati.
A few moments after Donna Elvira has dragged off with Zerlina, Donna Anna and
Don Ottavio show up, which would have prompted yet another contrasting behaviour
from Bassi‟s Don Giovanni. His first lines in the scene are asides (“This obstacle was all
that was missing.” – “I must stay and see if the devil has told her anything.” – “I breathe
again.”),522 which would only serve as vocal contrasts to his solemn vow, delivered con molto
foco:

Comandate: Let me hear your command:

i congiunti, i parenti, my connections, my relatives, this hand,
questa man, questo ferro, i beni, il sangue this sword, my property and my blood
spenderò per servirvi. I will happily spend in your service.
Ma voi, bella Donn‟Anna, But my beautiful Donna Anna,
perché cosí piangete? why do you weep thus?
Il crudele chi fu, che osò la calma Who was the cruel man who dared
turbar del viver vostro… (387-93) disturb your calm existence…

Probably, only the first four lines, which are addressed to Don Ottavio, should be
declaimed with the molto foco characteristic of a Spanish gentleman referring to his honour,
while Caravoglia-Sandrini‟s observation that Bassi‟s Don Giovanni “always displayed a
certain kind of suppressed tenderness coupled with veneration towards Donna Anna” has
bearing on the remaining lines. Repeating the structure of Don Giovanni‟s address to

521 “Oh in quanto a questo / ebbi le mie ragioni” (167-8).

522 “Mancava questo intoppo. […] (Sta‟ a vedere / che il diavolo gli ha detto qualche cosa). […] (Mi torna il
fiato in corpo).” (380, 382-3, 386).

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Masetto and Zerlina (270-1), it seems that Da Ponte indeed expected a palpable
declamatory contrast – a contrast apparently highlighted by Bassi – between Don
Giovanni‟s address to the men and his address to their fiancées: first the man is addressed
in a grand „gentleman‟s voice‟, then the woman in a more intimate voice.
Like the scene with Zerlina and Donna Elvira, one of the theatrical purposes of the
Quartet “Non ti fidar, o misera” was probably to offer the Don Giovanni an opportunity
to contrast his behaviours towards different characters. As with Zerlina, he tries to
convince Donna Anna and Don Ottavio that Donna Elvira is mad, but his tone seems to
have been different from that applied towards Zerlina:

La povera ragazza The poor girl

è pazza, amici miei: is mad, my friends.
lasciatemi con lei, Leave me with her:
forse si calmerà. (402-6) perhaps she will calm down.

The first two lines are set as a dotted, chromatically descending tune calling for the noble
composure of Don Giovanni‟s „gentleman voice‟. He stresses his point by repeating the
second line to a crescendo, and the fourth line is heard twice, too: the first time it is set as
an elegantly arched melody, and the second time as a melismatic descent, which is no less
elegant. The studied and aristocratic nonchalance suggested by this setting stands in
contrast to the lines addressed to Donna Elvira later in the number:

Zitto zitto che la gente Hush, hush! People

si raduna a noi d‟intorno, are gathering around us.
siate un poco piú prudente, Be a little more prudent, or
vi farete criticar. (431-4) you will lay yourself open for criticism.

These lines are set as patter song, sung piano and repeated several times in intertwinement
with Donna Elvira‟s protests, thereby creating the impression of a subdued marital quarrel.
As in the scene with Zerlina, Don Giovanni treats Donna Elvira as his accomplice, his
„Donna Elvira voice‟ calling for a speech-like and familiar quality rather than for the soft
and seductive quality of his „Zerlina voice‟, or the formal and elegant quality of his address
to the noble couple.
In order for this contrast to be clear, however, the music must be sung and played
correctly. René Leibowitz regards “a really stirring tempo” in two beats as “conditio sine qua
non for the realization of the dramaturgical intentions” of the Quartet, since a slow
interpretation in four beats “not only robs the characters of their individuality,” but “waters

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down the psychology of their behaviour.”523 It must be a performance of the latter kind
that underlies Géza Fodor‟s reading of the Quartet, according to which “the drama is
enveloped in a mysterious lyrical atmosphere” of “undefinable certainty, suspicion and
irresolution”:524 As argued in connection with the Idomeneo quartet, Mozart‟s ensembles
were as much about text delivery as his arias were and should be viewed as a musical
choreographing of ensemble acting in accordance with the late 18th-century ideals of scenic
naturalness, emotional interaction and characteristic nuance.
As I visualize the staging of the Quartet, the performers would change their positions
in the tableau on specific textual and musical cues: at Donna Elvira‟s entrance, Don
Giovanni would stand between Donna Anna and Don Ottavio facing the audience, Donna
Anna to the stage right in accordance with 18th-century convention.525 Donna Elvira would
place herself between Don Giovanni and Donna Anna for her entrance line (“Ah thus I
shall find you again, faithless monster”)526 and then draw the latter towards stage right
when beginning the Quartet (“Do not put trust in that scoundrel‟s heart, poor woman”),527
situating herself to the extreme right. This would allow Don Giovanni to address his first
quatrain to both the noble lovers, Donna Elvira listening on the periphery. The four actors
would now form two parallel groups: the women to the right, the men to the left, and the
noble lovers alternately listening to the speaking party and communicating their secret
thoughts to the audience. The reshuffle of positions would occur in the bar before Don
Giovanni‟s “Unhappy woman”,528 when he would leave Don Ottavio and cross the stage to
Donna Elvira, ostentatiously playing the role of the concerned friend and thereby
prompting Donna Elvira‟s furious outburst: “Liar! Liar! Liar!”529 This would make Donna
Anna move towards Don Ottavio at stage left, and so two new parallel groups would be
formed: the betrothed couple to the left, the old lovers to the right.
After the Quartet, Donna Elvira exits in frustration, and Don Giovanni takes his
leave from Donna Anna and Don Ottavio with the following words:

Povera sventurata! i passi suoi Poor, unhappy girl! I will follow

voglio seguir: non voglio in her footsteps, as I do not want

523 Leibowitz 1991: 236-7.

524 Fodor 1986: 175.
525 Christiansen 1975: 257.
526 “Ah ti ritrovo ancor, perfido mostro.” (394).
527 “Non ti fidar, o misera, / di quel ribaldo cor.” (395-6).
528 “Infelice!” (429).
529 “Mentitore!” (429).

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 che faccia un precipizio. Perdonate, her to do away with herself. Pardon me,
bellissima Donn‟Anna; most beautiful Donna Anna;
se servir vi poss‟io, if I can serve you in any way, you will
in mia casa v‟aspetto. Amici, addio. find me at home. Farewell, friends.
(443-8)

In the following scene, Donna Anna explains to Don Ottavio that “the last words uttered
by the wicked man, the sound of his voice”530 called to mind the man who forced his way
into her bedroom, removing all doubt from her heart that Don Giovanni is her father‟s
killer. According to a score-oriented musicologist like Hartmut Krones, Donna Anna does
not recognize her seducer by his voice at all, but by the diabolical tritone on the word
“amici”,531 but Börner-Sandrini removes all doubt by telling us that when Bassi‟s Don
Giovanni offered his services to Donna Anna, “he built up a courteous attitude at his
leave-taking, which through an ardent kiss on Donna Anna‟s hand was intensified into a
passion that made the rake defeat the wise man of the world and lent his words “bellissima
Donn‟Anna” an almost painfully reproachful expression of rejected love.” This anecdote
testifies to the crucial aspect of the performance dimension, since only the Don Giovanni
can determine what exactly Donna Anna recognizes: all the score reveals is an increase in
chromatics in the lines Don Giovanni addresses to her.
The anecdote also testifies to the distinctness and decisive dramatic significance of
Bassi‟s use of different vocal styles and colours. In fact, Da Ponte supplies the singer with
an important cue, since he makes Don Giovanni address Donna Anna as “bella
Donn‟Anna” before the Quartet, but as “bellissima Donn‟Anna” when taking leave of her:
the intensification of the adjective obviously prompted Bassi to intensify his passion
accordingly, and hence the “suppressed tenderness coupled with veneration” gave way to
“an almost painfully reproachful expression of rejected love.” Assuming that Luigi Bassi
had a limited repertoire of vocal gestures at his disposal, we may conjecture that he drew
on the softer colours of his „seducer‟s voice‟ at this point.
Finally, the anecdote gives us a hint of what actually happened in Donna Anna‟s
bedroom (a discussion to which I shall return later): if what she recognizes in Don
Giovanni‟ voice is “an almost painfully reproachful expression of rejected love”, then rape
was hardly the topic of the conversation!

530 “[…] gli ultimi accenti / che l‟empio proferí, tutta la voce / richiamâr nel cor mio di quell‟indegno / che
nel mio appartamento…” (453-6).
531 Krones 1987: 34.

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 The „seducer‟s voice‟ would be called for again in the first Finale, but again in
contrast to other vocal gestures. When Don Giovanni invites the drowsy peasants to his
ball (“Wake up, good folks”),532 he wakes them up with a fanfare-like tune which clearly
calls for his „gentleman‟s voice‟, which would be contrasted to the way he addresses Zerlina
in the following scene, in which the small melismatic turns and the imitations of the
peasant girl‟s vocal line surely prompted Bassi to readopt the „seducer‟s voice‟ with which
his Don Giovanni had managed to beguile her earlier in the act. The moment when Don
Giovanni finds Masetto hidden in the alcove, however, calls for another abrupt change in
vocal gesture: the pompous cadence, complete with an aristocratic trill, which concludes his
address to Masetto:

La bella tua Zerlina Your beautiful Zerlina

non può, la poverina, cannot, the poor girl,
piú star senza di te. (650-2) stay here any longer without you

implies a return from the „seducer‟s voice‟ to the stately „gentleman‟s voice‟. Mocking
figures in the violins and solo flute point to the sudden change as unconvincing, however,
and Masetto is surely meant to parody the vocal shift when repeating Don Giovanni‟s
cadence in a “somewhat ironical” tone to the words:

Capisco sí signore. (653) Yes, I understand, my lord.

Important in this scene is also that Don Giovanni has difficulties finding the right face to
put on – or, in musical terms: the right voice to „put on‟ – as was the case when he fled
from Donna Elvira, when he tried to convince Don Ottavio that the latter was mad, and
when he betrayed himself to Donna Anna. Don Giovanni is indeed a vocal mask virtuoso,
but he is losing his grip on his surroundings, which only renders him more sympathetic,
however.
The vocal quick-change artist would have reappeared in the Trio in Act Two, Donna
Elvira opening the ensemble from her window with a mock-tragic soliloquy dealing with
her conflict between indignation at and love for her seducer, which is set to a sentimental
tune accompanied by staccato string figures apparently suggesting the beating of her
“irrational heart”.533 To a circling, slightly melismatic tune of semiquavers which seems to
call for a mezza voce whisper, Don Giovanni tells Leporello that he wants to fool his old

532 “Su svegliatevi da bravi” (624).

533 “Ah taci ingiusto core” (821).

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love and then adopts her tune when addressing her. This gives way to the serenade proper,
set to a no less sentimental tune, and for reasons to be stated below, I conjecture that
Mozart did not intend Bassi to sing this with his usual „seducer‟s voice‟, but with his more
familiar, full-registered „Donna Elvira voice‟ of “chivalrous amiability”:

Discendi, o gioia bella, Come down, O my fair joy,

vedrai che tu sei quella you shall see that you are the one
che adora l‟alma mia, whom my soul adores;
pentito io sono già. (837-40) I am penitent at last.

As Donna Elvira is not entirely convinced by Don Giovanni‟s change of mind, he

threatens to commit suicide (“Ah credimi, o m‟uccido”, 842) to an expansive vocal line
sung “with feigned agony” according to the libretto, and “in transports and almost
weeping” according to the score,534 while Leporello is bursting with laughter. This seems to
be less the seducer‟s self-parody than a parody directed at Donna Elvira as a prototypical
sentimental heroine who, as Leporello implied at her first entrance, has read too many
novels.535 Such a parody seems to call for a full, „romantic‟ colour rather than for the
sugariness of Don Giovanni‟s „seducer‟s voice‟.
That the Trio was conceived of and was performed as a comical number clearly
appears from the description of Lyser‟s Old Music Director: “leaning gracefully and
casually on Leporello and clasping him with one arm, with the other hand he [Bassi] made
him make a movement only when it matched his (Don Juan‟s) words perfectly, thus
enhancing the highly comical force of the situation without destroying the least of the effect
of this glorious piece of music”. Mozart may have had quite a specific blocking in mind for
the scene, which we cannot know, but I suspect that his expansion of Da Ponte‟s line “Ah
believe me, or I will kill myself” into a repeated threat set to the same seventh leap (“Ah
believe me, or I will kill myself! I will kill myself! Ah I will kill myself”) 536 was accompanied
by the repetition of a corresponding illustrative gesture performed by Leporello and with
Don Giovanni as puppeteer. Presumably, this gesture, rather than the words, was the
reason why Leporello is bursting with laughter (“If you continue, I shall laugh”).537

534 “Con affettato dolore.” – “con trasporto e quasi piangendo”

535 “What high-flown titles! […] (She seems like a printed book).” (“Che titoli cruscanti! […] (Pare un libro
stampato).” (150, 167)). On Donna Elvira as a parody of 18th-century sentimentalism, Cf. Lipking 1990; on
the general anti-sentimentalism of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas, Cf. Goehring 1997: 138-45.
536 “Ah credimi, o m‟uccido! Io m‟uccido! Ah m‟uccido!” (b. 48-52).
537 “Se seguitate, io rido.” (843).

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 Many critics have been repelled by the mock-seduction of Donna Elvira. Dent finds
it “endurable only if one takes a completely frivolous view of the whole play, and even then
one feels that it would be more appropriate to a puppet-play than to one in which real
human beings appear”;538 and according to Stefan Kunze, “the laughter remains stuck in
the spectator‟s throat at this excess of night-black comedy”539 featuring “the cruellest
seduction scene imaginable”, only comparable to the seduction of Lady Anne in
Shakespeare‟s Richard the Third,540 while René Leibowitz considers the Trio “one of the
most tragic pieces in the work” in which “the poor Donna Elvira is the victim of a
demonic masquerade.”541 These critics overlook the fact, however, that Donna Elvira is
merely rewarded for her own hypocrisy. Indeed, one should not forget the bloodlust of her
entrance aria (“Ah if find the wicked man and he does not return to me, I shall wreak
horrendous carnage, I shall cut out his heart”),542 which tells us in no ambiguous manner
that Donna Elvira only loves Don Giovanni as long as he consents to being hers alone –
otherwise, she wants him dead, just as everyone else in the opera does. It is this grotesque
possessiveness that makes her sisterly concern for the virtues of Zerlina and Donna Anna
in Act One and her „forgiving‟ attitude in Act Two thoroughly comical, and which justifies
Don Giovanni‟s witty act of retaliation.
The romanticists, however, who had read as many novels as Donna Elvira, could not
sympathize with such an anti-idealized representation of female lovesickness, and this led
to a complete reinterpretation of the Trio, in which tragic, demonic or psychological
meanings were projected onto the music, glaringly absent as they were from the text. The
romantic approach has continued in the 20th century. According to Hermann Abert,
Mozart “veils the harshness of the events and the buffoonish tinge introduced by the poet,
not in order to disguise it, but because he perceives more behind it”, viz. “the play of the
inner, psychological forces, their attraction and rejection, woven into the secret movements
of nature.”543 The Hoffmannesque detachment of the music from the words and the scenic
context is equal to attributing to it an absolute power of utterance, to „trust‟ the music
alone, as it were, and this has led several critics to accept Don Giovanni‟s serenade at its

538 Dent 1947: 165.

539 Kunze 1984: 356.
540 Ibid: 427-8.
541 Leibowitz 1991: 243.
542 “Ah se ritrovo l‟empio / e a me non torna ancor, / vo‟ farne orrendo scempio, / gli vo‟ cavare il cor.”

(139-42).
543 Abert 1956: 431.

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face value! According to Joseph Kerman, consequently, the Don “says that he is proud of
his amorous talent, but if we are to believe the music, it is with a mysterious humility”;544
Massimo Mila suggests that Don Giovanni may be “carried away by the fire of his
simulation and deep down he has never stopped loving Elvira who is his woman”,545 while,
in the ears of Ivan Nagel, not a single note in his declaration of love “suggests that he does
not believe what he is singing.”546 Attempts to evade the overt comedy of the Trio have led
some critics to follow the „absolute‟ track even further. According to Edward J. Dent,
Mozart thus “seems to have forgotten the whole play for a moment in a complete self-
absorption into his musical idea”,547 with the result that the three characters “cease to be
persons – they are merely representatives of musical themes,”548 and to Géza Fodor the
music “will not tolerate the presence of Elvira and Leporello; here only Don Giovanni,
only the genius of sensuality, exists like a single, high-soaring flame.”549 Such interpretations
may unconsciously be influenced by modern performance practice which, as René
Leibowitz points out, nearly always has the number performed in six rather than two beats,
“which invests it with a delicate, lyrical note that may suit the first eight bars, but are
entirely out of place in what follows.”550
Several critics have pointed to the striking melodic similarity between the opening
bars of “Discendi, o gioia bella”, Don Giovanni‟s serenade to Donna Elvira in the Trio,
and “Deh vieni alla finestra”, the serenade which he sings to her chambermaid immediately
afterwards. Da Ponte and Mozart seem to have planned this musical likeness quite
carefully, since the texts are similar too: both serenades open with a plea (“Discendi”/“Deh
vieni alla finestra”) and an address (“o gioia bella”/“o mio tesoro”), and both their first
stanzas end with Don Giovanni threatening to commit suicide if his desires remain
unfulfilled:

Deh vieni alla finestra, o mio tesoro,
deh vieni a consolar il pianto mio:
se neghi a me di dar qualche ristoro,
davanti agli occhi tuoi morir vogl‟io.
(891-4)
Oh come to the window, my treasure,
oh come and wipe away my tears:
if you refuse to relieve me,
I will die in front of your eyes.

544 Kerman 1988: 66.

545 Mila 1988: 182.
546 Nagel 1991: 36.
547 Dent 1947: 156-7.
548 Ibid: 165.
549 Fodor 1986: 204.
550 Leibowitz 1991: 243-4.

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Interpretations of the melodic similarity differ strongly. According to Abert, to whom
dramatic music is fundamentally inseparable from psychological portrayal, the seducer‟s
“emotional world does not in any way deny itself” in the Canzonetta, since only he can sing
a song “of such intoxicatingly sensual ardour”, and the “trace of the Trio only means that
Don Giovanni still finds himself in the same emotional sphere.”551 To Mila, on the other
hand, the similarity confirms that Don Giovanni‟s interior is empty, the “stubborn dryness
of the „sound‟ of this serenade” being “the moral portrait of a great lover who knows how
to seduce, but not how to love.”552 As is the case with “Fin ch‟han dal vino”, the extreme
disparity of the readings bears witness to the fundamental arbitrariness of score-oriented
interpretations refusing to consider the words or the issue of performance.
The lesson drawn from Patti‟s “Casta Diva” is that musical or verbal repetition in
Italian opera always calls for the performer‟s variation, and so we may take it that the effect
of the musical likeness originally consisted in the contrast between the two serenades as sung
by Luigi Bassi. Suggestions as to what this contrast might have been may be found in the
dissimilarities between Don Giovanni‟s addresses to the two women, to which the listeners‟
attention are potentially drawn due to the musical and textual similarities. Thus Frits Noske
has pointed out that the first melody shows more “irregularities” than the second, such as
the contraction on the first “bella”, the ecstatically syncopated contour on the second “o
gioia” and the “urging” effect of the fivefold repetition of the same interval in the second
line,553 which all tend to create an „expressive‟ effect in contrast to the simple lightness of
the more regular and conventional Canzonetta. To these observations one could add that
the first serenade is an andantino accompanied by legato violins supported by flutes and
bassoons, whereas the Canzonetta is a slightly faster allegretto accompanied by mandolin and
pizzicati only.
As for Bassi‟s use of vocal gestures, the fact that the Canzonetta‟s repeat of the
theme lies one note higher than when it occurred in the serenade in the Trio seems to
indicate that it should be sung with a more mixed and hence sweeter voice quality. This
calls to mind the difference in tessitura between Don Giovanni‟s lines to Donna Elvira and
Zerlina in I.x, which was arguably related to the difference in behaviour of Bassi‟s seducer
towards the two women. A similar vocal contrast, in other words, seems to be called for

551 Abert 1956: 432.

552 Mila 1988: 186.
553 Noske 1977: 65.

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between the two serenades: whereas “Discendi, o gioia bella” should be sung with a mock-
romantic voice (“how delightfully he carried and breathed the melody”, the Old Music
Director says), “Deh vieni alla finestra” should be sung with the sugary „seducer‟s voice‟.
This all lends credibility to the Lyser anecdote, according to which Mozart told Bassi
that he should have solos which “will have to be acted, and not just sung, and each of them
differently from the others.” Indeed, the Act Two street scene seems to have been the
singer‟s virtuoso tour de force, in which each of the numbers calls for a different „vocal
makeup: “Eh via buffone” and the following recitatives should be sung in a colloquial
voice, the Trio with a full, pseudo-romantic voice, the Canzonetta with his sugary
„seducer‟s voice‟, and, as the crowning achievement, the scenes II.iv-v including his aria
“Metà di voi qua vadano”, should be sung with an imitation of Leporello‟s voice.

Johann Peter Lyser 1837 – “Fin ch’han dal vino”

In 1837 Lyser published another treatment of Don Giovanni in commemoration of the
opera‟s fiftieth anniversary. Included in the second volume of his Neue Kunstnovellen, the
historical short story „Don Juan‟, which he describes as a “colourful string of scenes that I
would never pass off as an art novella”,554 is divided into nine small chapters that treat
different aspects of Mozart‟s second stay in Prague. The story draws heavily on anecdotes
recorded by Mozart‟s early biographers: František Xaver Nĕmeček, Jan Nepomuk Štĕpánek
and Georg Nikolaus Nissen; but some of the details, which are not found in these sources,
appear to have come from Bassi by way of Lyser‟s Dresden connections, especially since
there are some striking correspondences with anecdotes recorded elsewhere. Thus, as in
Heinse‟s review of the same year, we hear about Bassi‟s disappointment with “Fin ch‟han
dal vino” and about Mozart‟s reaction to his request for a grand aria:

[Mozart] was even persuaded to show him [Bassi] the draft of his part, of
which his three arias were already complete. “Quite good, maestro Amadeo,” Bassi
said, “but these arias seem to be a little too insignificant for me –”
“How?” Mozart asked, looking at him with laughter in his eyes.
“I mean,” Bassi replied, “that there are no difficulties in them at all; it‟s all too
easy.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, and so brief and to the point! – Right, maestro? Write me a grand, difficult
aria, or give me one you have written already, right? That you should do!”

554 Lyser 1837b (Appendix VI).

187
 “No,” Mozart replied with a peculiar smile, “no, my good Bassi! That I should
not do. – Bassi‟s face fell perceptibly, but Mozart continued good-naturedly: “Look,
my friend, that these arias are not long is true, but they are exactly as long as they should
be, neither too long nor to short. – As for the great – only too great easiness about
which you complain, then you shouldn‟t worry about that at all! I am certain that you
will have plenty to do with singing them the way they must be sung.”
“Indeed?” – Bassi drawled.
“For example – sing this aria once: “Fin ch‟han dal vino”!” –
He went to the clavier, and Bassi followed him with some irritation; barely
looking at the notes, he began to sing, rapidly and with a not exactly delicate
expression.
“Softly, softly,” Mozart called out laughing, breaking off already after the first
bars; “don‟t tear along con furia like that! Can‟t you wait till my music is over? – When
I have written presto, must you sing prestissimo and not care a damn about forte and
piano? Who is then singing, I ask? Is it a porter who is already dead drunk, or a
lascivious Spanish gentleman who is thinking more of his beloved than of the wine which
is only there to help him win his beloved, and who, in order to double his pleasure,
visualizes it with exuberant imagination? – I pray you: drink a glass of champagne,
think of your beloved, and then notice how your ears begin to buzz in the lightest,
jolliest tempo, piano-piano! – crescendo-forte-piano! Until everything resounds in the
craziest, loudest exultation – that is what I meant.”555

According to Heinse, Mozart had “explained the dramatic context” to Bassi when the latter
complained about “Fin ch‟han dal vino”, perhaps indicating that Bassi had in fact told
Heinse more than he set down in his small collection of anecdotes. Lyser‟s story may
contain some information about what that “dramatic context” might have been: while the
mention of champagne and buzzing ears is surely a 19th-century addition reflecting the
popular German translation of the aria‟s opening line into “Treibt der Champagner”, the
contrasting of the “porter who is already dead drunk” and the “lascivious Spanish
gentleman” clearly echoes Heinse‟s contrasting of “butchers‟ assistants from Madrid” and
“Spanish gentlemen”, implying that spanischer Cavalier was indeed the term used by Bassi –
and probably by Mozart. As for the composer‟s indication of tempo in the story, Waidelich
quotes an interesting parallel anecdote from Otto Schmid‟s 1926 article, which refers to
some handwritten notes containing Gespräche und Unterhaltungen mit verschiedenen
Persönlichkeiten left behind by one Karl Näke, a 19th-century singing teacher at the Royal
Institute for the Blind in Dresden. On 13 January 1855 Näke reported a conversation with
a grandson of Johann Aloys Mieksch:

Apparently, as it was said, Bassi, the local baritone, had once complained to Mozart
that he could not do much with the so-called Champagne Aria. Mozart is supposed

555 Lyser 1837b (Appendix VI).

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 to have said: “You sing it too fast: when I wrote presto, then it‟s not prestissimo; one
must always understand the words. All the while, you have to talk to Leporello, as
you are giving him an order.” This was what Bassi told Miksch [sic]. I add that one
must simply read the text with intelligence – and the original too – and then it will be
clear that this is no drinking song, but a comical song.556

This not only tells us that Lyser based the episode in his short story on an anecdote told
him by Mieksch, but confirms a number of other details: the aria was addressed to
Leporello, and therefore it should not be too fast, and as for the contrasting of presto and
prestissimo, which was obviously Mieksch‟ and Bassi‟s way of telling the story, the wording
appears to have been quite typical of Mozart who once described a private clavier recital
with the Mannheim composer Georg Joseph Vogler in the following manner:

I should mention that before dinner he had scrambled through my concerto at sight
[…]. He took the first movement prestissimo, the Andante allegro and the Rondo,
believe it or not, prestississimo. He generally played the bass differently from the way it
was written, inventing now and then quite another harmony and even melody.
Nothing else is possible at that pace, for the eyes cannot see the music nor the hands
perform it. Well, what good is it? – That kind of sight-reading – and shitting are all
one to me.557

Put together, the different versions of the anecdote give us a quite clear picture of how
Mozart and Bassi conceived of the aria and its performance, and that what they were
aiming at was evidently as far away from Hoffmann‟s “wild aria”, in which “Don Giovanni
openly reveals his inner, lacerated character” as it was from Kierkegaard‟s absolutely
musical Don Giovanni, “ideally intoxicated in himself” – let alone from the modern critics
who – let us repeat – in this unpretentious, jolly piece have heard an “explosive chain
dance” whose “concentrated vitality and gaiety is probably without precedent in music”, “a
song of desperation, a manifestation of the tedium vitae, a tragic confession of the impotence
of an empty interior”, a “maelstrom” of music, “the incomparable aura of a character who
cannot be grasped, if not in the orgiastic moment”, or, to top it all, “a voice that can try to
grasp, or at least grapple with, metaphysics”. With the possible exception of the supper
scene, to which I shall return later, no other piece in the opera displays the radical degree to
which Mozart‟s music has been distorted by performance tradition along with his and Da
Ponte‟s dramaturgical conception. And like no other piece it betrays to what a degree
score-oriented Mozart scholars have depended too uncritically on a performance tradition

556 Quoted in Waidelich 2001: 191-2.

557 Letter to his Father of 17 January 1778.

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which goes so far back, admittedly, that even Bassi himself had opportunity to laugh at it
when he occasionally heard a baritone in Dresden sing (quoting Kerman) “at full tilt
continuously, save for one two-bar rest which allows him a big gulp of air (or
champagne)”. Nino Pirrotta‟s observes that the rhythm and melody of the aria “demand a
precision and brilliancy that few voices are lucky to achieve, the smallest slowing-down
rendering them banal”,558 and to critics insisting on the transcendent sublimity or
psychological profundity of Mozart‟s music, banality in Don Giovanni‟s only „self-
expressive‟ aria is, of course, inconceivable. Luigi Bassi, however, originally considered “Fin
ch‟han dal vino” a “bagatelle” and he later continued to shake his head at Don Juans
performing “this jolly song […] with all possible kinds of pretensions, complete with mimic
imitation of the dances mentioned en passant.”
If Mozart really told Bassi, as he does in Lyser‟s 1856 novella, that he had solos
which “have to be acted and not just sung, and each of them differently from the other”,
we may ask in exactly what way “Fin ch‟han dal vino” should be performed differently
from Don Giovanni‟s two solos in Act Two. One hint may be offered by what Hartmut
Krones has called Don Giovanni‟s “fanfare melodics”, referring to his predilection for the
rising fourth, which dominates such numbers as “Fin ch‟han dal vino”, the party invitation
in the Act One Finale (“Su svegliatevi da bravi”), the Canzonetta and the Act Two
Finale.559 With the exception of the Canzonetta, these situations all seem to call for what
Sandrini-Caravoglia referred to as Bassi‟s “cheerful stateliness”, Don Giovanni in his most
gentlemanly and sparkling mood, and so it seems plausible that his first aria served to
establish his „gentleman‟s voice‟ in contrast both to the sugary Canzonetta in Act Two and
to his preceding ensemble numbers, “Là ci darem la mano” and the Quartet, which served
to establish his behaviour towards the three women.
Da Ponte‟s text reads as follows:

Fin ch‟han dal vino Now that their heads

calda la testa are hot from the wine,
una gran festa go and prepare
fa‟ preparar. a great party.

Se trovi in piazza If you find some girl

qualche ragazza, in the square:
teco ancor quella try to make her

558 Pirrotta 1991: 168.

559 Krones 1987: 35.

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 cerca menar. come along, too.

Senza alcun ordine Let the dancing

la danza sia: be without any order:
chi ‟l minuetto let some dance
chi la follia, the minuet,
chi l‟alemana some the folia,
farai ballar. some the allemande.

Ed io fra tanto And in the meantime,

dall‟altro canto I for my part
con questa e quella shall flirt
vo‟ amoreggiar. with one after the other.

Ah la mia lista Ah tomorrow morning

doman mattina you can add
d‟una decina ten more
devi aumentar. (542-63) to my list.

The aria is set to the tune of a lively contredanse, the most popular dance in Europe in the
late 18th century, which, as Wye Jamison Allanbrook explains, mirrored the contemporary
democratization of social life, not only due to its typical venue, the urban dance hall, but
also to its choreographic pattern: the contredanse was a group dance, the aim of whose
figures was “to uncouple pairs of partners, regroup them, and through a series of cleverly
mapped manipulations to bring them back to the original ordering”,560 and it is not hard to
imagine what opportunities this gay intermingling of strangers offered to a seducer like
Don Giovanni. The employment of the contredanse indicates, as does the foppish costume
on Thoenert‟s engraving, that Bassi‟s rake was very much a man of his time.
In addition to Mozart‟s correction of the tempo, the mention of dynamic contrasts
found in Lyser‟s version of the anecdote may hold a key to Bassi‟s performance of the aria.
Näke implies that the proper performance proceeds from reading the text “with
intelligence”, so the words should be the starting point for the application of dynamics. In
Lyser‟s 1833 version of the anecdote, it is mentioned that only at “Ah la mia lista” was
Bassi heard to “exult to himself alone”, while in his 1837 version he offers what might be
read as detailed dynamic indications: “piano-piano! – crescendo-forte-piano! Until everything
resounds in the craziest, loudest exultation”. In fact, these five indications (piano-piano-
crescendo-forte-piano) fit exactly the five stanzas of the aria, assuming that the singer‟s
dynamics follow the texture of the orchestra, or rather of the woodwind, since the strings

560 Allanbrook 1983: 61.

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accompany throughout. The first stanza, in which Don Giovanni tells his servant to
prepare a party with lots of wine, is accompanied by strings and solo flute only, which
would allow the performer to sing piano. In the second stanza, in which he tells Leporello
to invite even streetwalkers to the party, first the clarinets and then the bassoons join the
flute for the repetitions of the last two lines, but this, too, could be sung piano. The first
statement of the third stanza, in which Don Giovanni tells Leporello to arrange the bands
for dancing, is accompanied by orchestral sforzandi that evoke the booming and bustling of
the dance floor, while a flute, a clarinet and a bassoon double the vocal line for the
repetitions of the last four lines: this might prompt Don Giovanni to sing crescendo. The first
dynamic climax is then reached in the fourth stanza, in which he looks forward to flirting
with all the women: here he is accompanied by a flute, an oboe, the clarinets, bassoons,
horns and strings, which would require him to sing forte. Then there is a sudden drop in the
accompaniment for the fifth stanza, in which he mentions his secret list of conquest: the
music returns to the tune and the accompaniment of the first stanza, surely calling for a
return to piano as well. During the remainder of the aria, in which Bassi‟s Don Giovanni
would “exult to himself alone” – since Leporello has already been given all his orders –
repetitions of the second and third stanzas (now, for the first time, accompanied by the full
woodwind group, and hence sung forte or even fortissimo) alternate with repetitions of the
fifth stanza (always with flute and strings only, and hence sung piano, the full orchestra only
accompanying the fifth stanza for its final „exultant‟ statement).
If the tempo is not rushed, if the orchestra respects the dynamic markings (the
original band had only eight violins) and if the phrasing follows the words, it should be
possible for the Don Giovanni to make use of contrasting dynamics and vocal colours in
this aria and create the impression of one long crescendo as he evokes the party and how it
will end: in the first stanza orders are given, in the second the girls assemble, in the third
the dancing begins, in the fourth the conquests are made, and in the quiet fifth stanza,
which returns to the music of the first, he enters them in his catalogue. In the violent
dynamic contrasts of the reprise section, he contrasts the noisy tumult of the party with the
delicate discreetness of his seductions. If sung “calmly standing” while leaning “lightly on
Leporello‟s shoulder”, the aria would be the “comical song” suggested by Näke, the
“frivolous-cheerful outburst”, which is in fact “a light-minded instruction” to Leporello,
suggested by Heinse, everything being “scent and champagne”, as suggested by Lyser.

192
Johann Peter Lyser 1845 I – The duel
In the 1840s Johann Peter Lyser‟s treatments of Don Giovanni took a new turn. In 1844 he
published the article „Zweier Meister Sôhne‟ in the Leipzig-based Neue Zeitschrift für Musik,
in which he described his (invented) encounters with the deceased sons of Weber and
Mozart. In 1834 (at a time when he was still living in Leipzig) he had met, he claimed,
Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart in the Dresden home of Dr. Johann Heinrich Feuerstein.
Mozart‟s son had allegedly shown him the fragment of a German translation of Don
Giovanni which his father had begun but left unfinished, and he had encouraged Lyser to
make a copy of the translation, to complete and publish it, which Lyser would indeed be
happy to do, he added bitterly, if only a music publisher would show interest in the
undertaking. He expressed the candid hope, furthermore, that the original manuscript
would turn up in the estate of Mozart‟s son who had died four months previously: in 1834
he had been forced to leave Dresden in a hurry, taking the manuscript with him, and so
Lyser had only had time to copy the opening scene and the supper scene up to the entrance
of the Stone Guest.561
The following spring Lyser then published these two excerpts in the same periodical
under the headline „Mozart‟s eigene Verdeutschung des Textes „Don Giovanni“, nebst
zwei Proben daraus‟ and included a wealth of explanatory remarks.
According to Hirth, the matter is easily explained: Lyser had made a translation of
Don Giovanni of which he was unable to dispose, and now he tried to pass it off as a
translation begun by Mozart, which he had completed in the composer‟s spirit. 562 The
translation reveals clear parallels, however, to the Bassi anecdotes recorded by Lyser
elsewhere as well as to those recorded by Heinse and Marie Börner-Sandrini, and for this
reason it should interest us as more than a quaint footnote in Don Giovanni‟s romantic
history of reception. Though it may be true that Lyser was trying to promote his own
translation by passing it off as Mozart‟s, it seems to have been his obsession with a Don
Giovanni production faithful to the composer‟s intentions that made him do the translation
in the first place. Lavishly furnished with what are ostensibly Mozart‟s stage directions, the
translation seems designed to slip in Lyser‟s dramaturgical points by the back door, to
promote his vision of an „authentic‟ Don Giovanni production, and hence it must be read as
historical source material on a par with Lyser‟s other half-fictional uses of the Bassi

561 Lyser 1845a: 133-4.

562 Hirth 1911: 389.

193
anecdotes. Indeed, in his introduction and notes to the translation, Lyser is himself quick to
point out where the text diverges from the existing translations and contemporary stage
practice:

The stage directions deserve to be taken to heart by all theatre managers and opera
directors who wish to give Don Juan a worthy production! Right at the beginning of
the piece, for example, the effect will be far greater if the Governor‟s house is
situated (as Mozart indicates) in the background (rather than to the side, as is
customary nowadays), so that Don Juan, followed by Donna Anna, bursts forth from
the middle of the stage, both of them singing their first words in the background.
Furthermore: Don Juan does not draw his dagger until after the words “Misero
attendi”, whereas our Don Juan performers draw as soon as the Governor enters! –
If reading the directions with care, in short, one will find how acute and judicious
Mozart‟s decisions were.
As for the translation, I shall say no more! Apart from a few obsolete turns of
speech, which are, moreover, more noticeable in the style than in the words
themselves, it is free, bold, singable and often (just read the end of the Introduction)
more brilliant and poetic than the Italian original [sic!]. Thus it is hardly possible,
mentioning just one feature, to draw Don Juan‟s whole character more faithfully than
Mozart has done in his translation of the four lines at the end of the Introduction!
Here Don Juan does not appear as a cold, unfeeling murderer who murders for the
brutal love of murdering! He has defended himself, the first two lines betraying
compassion and repentance, which benign mood is quickly dissolved, however, in his
boundless recklessness, as he jokes and mocks. Indeed, the music is only done fully
justice through such a rendering of text – how highly desirable, therefore, is then not
a worthy fabrication of the German text for Don Giovanni.563

It is most difficult to gauge, of course, where Bassi stops and Lyser begins. Is the
scenographic suggestion entirely his own, for instance, or does it reflect what he saw or
heard in Dresden? Don Giovanni‟s compassionate reaction to the death of the
Commendatore and his subsequent change in mood, however, tallies perfectly with Börner-
Sandrini‟s description, which was published over forty years later, according to which
“Bassi as Don Juan showed a kind of human compassion and regret at the sad outcome of
this adventure, yet with a quick transition to the frivolous, cheerful character of the role at
the speedy escape together with his waiting servant, Leporello”. Obviously, Lyser‟s
observations cannot be attributed exclusively to his own artistic vision: Don Giovanni‟s
hesitation when challenged to the duel, since it clearly anticipates Börner-Sandrini‟s claim
that Don Giovanni “in a way had resorted partly under compulsion” to the killing of the
Commendatore, clearly goes back to Bassi. Significantly, this element also appeared in

563 Lyser 1845a (Appendix VII).

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Lyser‟s 1837 short story „Don Juan‟, in Mozart‟s speech to the singers on the first day of
rehearsal:

Where would I find a Don Giovanni like my young friend Bassi again? His splendid
figure, his wonderful voice, his deportment, his humour, as well as his heartfelt
ardour when it is about paying tribute to beauty qualify him throughout for the hero
of my opera. As for the dissoluteness, he will have enough of that to pass for a seducer
and to kill a rash old daddy in self defence – and that is enough; for my hero is neither
a coarse butcher, nor a base, perfidious villain, but a passionate, fiery youth.564

Not only does this suggest that Don Giovanni‟s hesitation – which clearly supports Felicity
Baker‟s reading of Da Ponte‟s Don Giovanni as a fundamentally non-violent character –
went back to Mozart, but the exception taken to the “coarse butcher” obviously recalls the
“butchers‟ assistants from Madrid” mentioned by Bassi in Heinse‟s review of the same
year. In other words, the „butcher‟ seems to have been Bassi‟s, and possibly Mozart‟s,
negative counter-image of the spanischer Cavalier.
A closer look at Da Ponte‟s libretto indeed supports the suggestions of Lyser and
Börner-Sandrini. When the Commendatore challenges Don Giovanni, the latter responds:

Va‟, non mi degno Go! I shall not deign

di pugnar teco. (29-30) to fight you.

The Commendatore insists; Don Giovanni repeats the first line; the Commendatore insists
once more; only then does the youth accept the challenge:

Misero attendi, Then come, poor man,

se vuoi morir. (35-6) if you want to die.

Mozart makes Don Giovanni say the word “Misero” three times; first in mezza voce, then
with più voce, and finally forte, as if he were gradually mastering his unwillingness to fight,
and the second line, accompanied by plangent woodwind chords, seems to call for a
sympathetic piano. Don Giovanni‟s non-violence becomes even clearer if we compare with
Giovanni Bertati‟s libretto, in which Don Giovanni draws his sword already when the
Commendatore enters and then puts out the light of his opponent. The fight begins
immediately, accompanied by these lines on which Da Ponte has drawn extensively:

Vecchio, ritirati, ch‟io non mi degno Withdraw, old man, for I shall not deign
del poco sangue che scorre in te. (ii) to spill the little blood which flows in you.

564 Lyser 1837b (Appendix V).

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Not only is the condescending reference to the old man‟s “little blood” absent from the
equivalent lines in Da Ponte‟s libretto, but Bertati‟s Don Giovanni utters these words during
the fight, whereby their disdainful ring becomes much more pronounced than in Da
Ponte‟s version. In the duel as traditionally rendered in Il convitato di pietra, of which Bertati‟s
Don Giovanni is a typical example, both the killing of the Commendatore and Don
Giovanni‟s reaction to it were treated in the farcical manner of the commedia dell’arte,565 but
Da Ponte and Bassi obviously chose to present Don Giovanni as a more realistic and
humane character.
Even so, he has won little sympathy from commentators. Hermann Abert, who is
shaken “at the terrifying force of nature living in Don Giovanni” which “lets him appear
the master of life and death”566 warns against hearing in the repeated “Misero” anything but
“regret for not having a worthy opponent”;567 Julian Rushton hears in Don Giovanni‟s
reservations merely “a disdainful show of reluctance”,568 describing the duel proper as “an
action of such beastliness that only the heartless treatment of the fair theatre (Punch and
Judy) is really suited to it”,569 and according to Thomas Bauman, Don Giovanni only agrees
to duel with the Commendatore‟s because he “never backs down from confrontations with
other males.”570 Not unlike the German reviewers of the late 18th century, these critics seem
to have recognized in Don Giovanni merely his villainous farcical prototype.
In the trio sung by Leporello, Don Giovanni and the dying Commendatore after the
duel, Da Ponte has given Don Giovanni the following lines:

Ah già cadde il sciagurato. Ah, the wretched man has fallen.

Affanosa e agonizzante I see his soul depart,
già del seno palpitante gasping and dying,
veggo l‟anima partir. (41-4) from his palpitating breast.

That Da Ponte intended Don Giovanni‟s involvement to be genuine appears from the
contrast to the equivalent lines in Bertati, which appear quite unfeeling in comparison:

Di mortal piaga ferito il credo; I believe he is mortally wounded,

565 Cf. Biancolelli‟s description of Arlecchino‟s behaviour in the scene as performed in the mid-17th century:
“at her [Donna Anna‟s] cries, the commandeur arrives, whereupon Don Jouan kills him, I perform scenes of
terror, I want to escape, I fall over the body of the dead man, I get up and flee.” (Spada 1969: 105).
566 Abert 1956: 383.
567 Ibid: 396.
568 Rushton 1994: 104.
569 Ibid: 114.
570 Bauman 1993: 137.

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 che già traballa fra l‟ombre io vedo; for I see him stagger in the shadows;
solo singulti d‟udir mi par. (ii) I seem to hear only sobs.

Nevertheless, few critics have been willing to grant Don Giovanni any human traits at this
point too. To Kierkegaard, these lines express Don Giovanni‟s “burlesque mockery”571 and
Abert insists that they “should not be interpreted as compassion or remorse”,572 while to
Allanbrook they seem “reportorial, coolly free from either triumph or regret”,573 Bauman,
too, hearing only “clinical detachment”.574
Scholars of a Wagnerian bent, furthermore, have found a leitmotivic significance in
the fact that the tune of Don Giovanni‟s lines in the trio was heard already in his quarrel
with Donna Anna:

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Questa furia disperata This desperate Fury
mi vuol far precipitar will be my ruin.

DONNA ANNA DONNA ANNA

Come furia disperata Like a desperate Fury
ti saprò perseguitar. (21-24) I shall persecute you.

The melodic repetition has led to some rather fanciful interpretations: Frits Noske believes
that the “quotation” is “unconscious on Don Giovanni‟s part, but certainly not on
Mozart‟s” and that it has “a prophetic meaning”, telling us that fate will take its course and
that the libertine will be persecuted and meet his ruin;575 Fodor hears in the recurrence of
the phrase a linking of Donna Anna‟s resistance and the Commendatore‟s misfortune,
signifying that “Don Giovanni‟s power has been shattered in Donna Anna”,576 while
Kerman simply believes that Don Giovanni is “at a loss for words” and is “lacking in
musical, hence emotional, resource.”577
As argued previously, however, tunes had no independent discursive significance in
Italian opera, and especially not in the 18th century: the effect of their recurrence relied on
the performer‟s contrasting of the two statements, though the score may support the
contrast. In the case in question, a theme which first set an angry outburst and hence was

571 Kierkegaard 1959: 123.

572 Abert 1956: 397.
573 Allanbrook 1983: 211.
574 Bauman 1993: 137.
575 Noske 1977: 52.
576 Fodor 1986: 158.
577 Kerman 1990: 122.

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sung forte and molto allegro recurs as the setting of a compassionate aside, for which reason it
is sung sotto voce, andante and with slurred notes. The contrast emphasizes the suddenness of
the transition from hotheaded passion to grieving commiseration, just as Bassi‟s “quick
transition to the frivolous, cheerful character of the role” would have been underlined by
the contrast between the Introduction‟s elegiac woodwind postlude and the following
recitative.
Another popular argument for Don Giovanni‟s lack of sympathy with the
Commendatore is that the trio is not part of the action at all, but expresses a more general
atmosphere: thus Nino Pirrotta finds that it “transcends the sentiments of the individual
characters in a choral contemplation of the solemnity of death.”578 Such interpretations are
rejected by René Leibowitz, however, who once more points out how critics have been
misled by modern performance practice: “In fact, only a scorrevole tempo and an alla breve
grouping are capable of producing the necessary contrast between the three vocal parts, as
each of them will present a distinct and individual phrasing if interpreted in this way”, and
a simple and convenient performance in four beats “will suppress these differences in
phrasing and thereby neutralize the individuality of the characters entirely.”579

Johann Peter Lyser 1845 II & III – Don Giovanni’s supper

In the notes to his translation of the supper scene – set in a “beautiful hall” in contrast to
the small rooms of Hoffmann and Kierkegaard580 – Johann Peter Lyser emphasizes the
extra-dramatic references to the contemporary operas and the local musicians that made up
the original stage band. In the Italian original we find these lines:

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Che ti par del bel concerto? How do you like the lovely concert?

LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
È conforme al vostro merto. (1243-4) It is worthy of you.

And this is Lyser‟s translation:

DON JUAN DON JUAN

Herrlich spielen diese Leute! These people play excellently!

578 Pirrotta 1991: 160-1.

579 Leibowitz 1991: 232.
580 Lyser 1845a: 153.

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 LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
Es sind Prager Musikanten!581 They are musicians from Prague!

To which Lyser adds in a note: “How fond he [Mozart] was of the Prague orchestra of that
day is proven by this courteous compliment.”582 And to Don Giovanni‟s line (here given
only in the Italian original):

Sta mangiando, quel marrano (1255) He is eating, that rogue

Lyser adds the following note:

Mozart first deleted this line, but then restored it by adding dots underneath, as he has
often done in parlando passages. – It should hardly be necessary to draw attention to
the courteous roguishness with which Mozart makes Leporello excuse his theft of
the “capon”! Just see how coarse and inane the other translations look next to this.583

Despite Lyser‟s imaginative endeavours to conceal his authorship, his contemporaries

looked askance at the authenticity of the translation – especially when the original
manuscript failed to turn up in the estate of Mozart‟s son. Since there was no going back,
however, Lyser seems to have opted for the part of the unappreciated scholar, apparently
taking mortal offence at the massive accusations of fraud. When reading Lyser‟s published
defences, one cannot help wondering, however, whether he believed so much in his cause
that he himself had begun to take the forgery for the real thing.
In the defences, furthermore, that Lyser for the first time refers to his personal
acquaintance with Luigi Bassi. Surely, this is mainly due to the fact that he had moved from
Dresden to Vienna and published his Bassi reminiscences – in fact other people‟s
reminiscences – in Viennese periodicals, which were less liable to be read by those of his
connections in Dresden and Leipzig who might have been able to expose him as an
impostor. Hence his first reference to encounters with Bassi appeared in the Wiener
allgemeine Musikzeitung in the article „Wie wollte Mozart die Tafelscene in „Don Juan“
aufgefasst und gegeben haben?‟ The only one of Lyser‟s writings to have received attention
by modern Mozart scholarship, it was brought to light by Christoph Bitter in 1961 584 and is
now frequently quoted in discussions of the supper scene by scholars unaware that Lyser
never actually met Bassi. As for Lyser‟s Don Giovanni translation as an attempt at Werktreue,

581 Lyser 1845a: 153.

582 Lyser 1845a: 153 (note).
583 Lyser 1845a: 154 (note).
584 Bitter 1961: 29.

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the article on the supper scene is significant, however, since he calls Bassi to witness that
the handling of the scene in the translation is truly Mozartian, implying that some of his
comments and unconventional choices referred to Bassi anecdotes:

[…] as for the place mentioned [the supper scene], I shall quote, to the benefit of all
performers of Don Juan, what the late Luigi Bassi (the creator of Don Juan) imparted
to me on this subject.
Until his death, this old gentleman saw, with the greatest interest, every
performer who came to Dresden guesting in the part of Don Juan, and he also
praised some, such as Forti, Genast (in certain details). The supper scene, however, he
never saw and listened to without a vexed shake of the head, and when, during a
performance of the opera, I once was prompted to ask him the reason – through
Italians – he said to me in his peculiar manner of speaking: “This is all wrong; it lacks
the vivaciousness, the freedom which the great master wanted in this scene. Under
Guardasoni we never sang this number the same way in two performances, we didn‟t
stay strict in time, but made jokes, always new ones, only paying attention to the
orchestra; everything parlando and almost improvised: that was what Mozart wanted.”
– This explains a lot […] Mozart considered everything from the end of the fanfare
“Già la mensa è preparata” and until the entrance of Elvira an amusing intermezzo: the
main ideas he had prescribed Don Juan and Leporello, modelled on the improvised
intermezzi. The orchestra forms the fixed point, the basis! On and over that basis Don
Juan and Leporello must parley about whatever comes to their minds: the more merry
and spirited, the better.585

It is quite possible that the situation described took place in real life – only with Rastrelli or
Mieksch in the role Lyser assigned to himself. In another small article, „Bescheidene
Berichtigung‟, published the same year in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Theater, Literatur und
Mode, Lyser added more details to his description of the scene:

Furthermore, this supper scene (from the end of the fanfare to which Don Juan
enters and until the entrance of Elvira), as Bassi (the first performer of Don Juan) told
me, was Mozart‟s improvised jest arisen at the dress rehearsal before the first
performance in Prague. Originally – (as also Da Ponte‟s original text testifies [sic])
Elvira entered right after Don Juan’s “Già la mensa è preparata” and after he had sat
down to supper, but Mozart found at the dress rehearsal that the Finale was far too
short in comparison with the first, so he improvised this musical joke as an intermezzo.
As Bassi assured me, this role [sic] was always given as an improvised intermezzo
by him and Pozziani [sic] (Leporello), and they made new jokes at almost every
performance and in no way bound themselves strictly to Mozart‟s instructions, but
only maintained time and melody; Mozart expressly demanded that they did this.586

In 1856 Lyser described the scene a third time:

585 Lyser 1845b: 322 (this article is quoted in Waidelich 2001: 192-3).
586 Lyser 1845c (Appendix VIII).

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 Unfortunately, it [the supper scene] is not performed according to Mozart‟s
intentions nowadays, for the Don Giovannis and Leporellos of our time are no Bassis
and Lollis [sic]. These played the scene differently in each performance, sustaining an
uninterrupted crossfire of improvised witticisms, droll caprices and lazzi, so that the
audience was thrown into the same state of hilarity in which it was Mozart‟s intention
that master and servant should appear to be on the stage. This was the art of the opera
buffa singers of old; the Italian singers of today know as little how to do it as the
Germans ever did.587

Of course, Lyser‟s claim that the whole supper scene was invented at the dress rehearsal is
false, as evidenced by the preliminary libretto published in Vienna, but its music was indeed
committed to paper in Prague,588 and Leporello‟s references to the three opera excerpts
played by the stage band in the scene are even absent from the libretto printed for the
premiere:589 when the band plays the end of the first Finale of Martín y Soler‟s and Da
Ponte‟s Una cosa rara, “O quanto un sì bel giubilo”, he exclaims: “Bravo! Cosa rara!”590
When they play Mingone‟s aria “Come un agnello” from Giuseppe Sarti‟s and Carlo
Goldoni‟s Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode, he shouts: “Long live the litiganti!”591 And when
Figaro‟s aria “Non più andrai” is heard, he remarks: “That one I know only too well.”592
That these comments are not in the printed libretto implies that Mozart chose the
three pieces at a fairly late stage and, consequently, must have set the dialogue to music at a
late stage too. This seems to support the indication that the scene was created through
improvisation in close collaboration with the singers, as does the choice of operatic
quotations itself. Scholars have long wondered why Mozart chose those three specific
excerpts for the supper music. Tomislav Volek believes that the composer wanted to
satirize – or pay homage to – some of his fellow composers, while Wye Jamison
Allanbrook and Daniel Heartz have scrutinized the texts of the original pieces for what
might be read as hidden comments on the present drama.593 But if Mozart intended the
supper scene as a highlighting of the concrete performance situation, as implied in the
Lyser quotations, it seems more natural to explain the three quotations by reference to
Luigi Bassi and Felice Ponziani, the original singers of Don Giovanni and Leporello.

587 Lyser 1856 (Appendix XII B).

588 Tyson 1990: 11.
589 Cf. Da Ponte 1995.
590 “Bravi! Cosa rara!” (Da Ponte 1995: 113 (note)).
591 ”E vivano i littiganti!” (Da Ponte 1995: 113 (note)).
592 ”Questa poi la conosco pur troppo.” (Da Ponte 1995: 113 (note)).
593 Allanbrook 1983: 288-90; Volek 1987: 70-4; Heartz 1990: 169-70.

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 Una cosa rara received its Prague premiere at about the same time as Don Giovanni –
probably a little earlier, if we are to judge from the quotation – with Bassi as Lubino594 and
possibly with Ponziani as Tita. Consequently, Don Giovanni‟s question, “How do you like
the lovely concert?”, and Leporello‟s answer, “It is worthy of you”, may very well have
been a kind of theatrical advertisement drawing attention to the other notable premiere of
the season. At all events, the facts that Da Ponte had supplied the libretto for Una cosa rara
and that it probably featured more or less the same cast as Don Giovanni seem to rule out
the possibility that Mozart intended the quotation as a negative comment on Martín‟s
opera, as Volek and Allanbrook (and Lyser himself) suggest.
The two other excerpts apparently referred even more directly to the two singers on
stage. Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode had received its Prague premiere already in 1783, but the
fact that Mozart had used the tune of Mingone‟s aria “Come un agnello” for one of six
German dances composed during his previous visit to the city 595 not only suggests that this
aria was one of its popular hits, but also that the opera was performed during the 1786-7
season. We know from Bassi‟s autobiographical sketch that he sang the role of Mingone,596
which suggests that the quotation referred specifically to his performance of the aria, while
Leporello‟s tribute to the two “litiganti” (contenders) may suggest that Ponziani was Titta,
the other litigante.
After the quotation from an aria sung by Bassi, the next quotation is from an aria
which had achieved enormous popularity in Prague through Ponziani‟s rendition: “Non più
andrai” from Le nozze di Figaro, in which he and Bassi sang Figaro and the Count,
respectively. As stated earlier, it was Caterina Bondini as Susanna and Ponziani as Figaro
who “especially distinguished themselves” in the production, and since the Figaro quotation
in Don Giovanni probably was chosen during rehearsals, it seems to have been a celebration
not only of Mozart, but also very much of the male star of the company. That his aria was
the craze of the city is implied in Nĕmeček‟s description of the Figaro fever that seized
Prague in the 1786-7 season:

As in Bohemia all his [Mozart‟s] works were recognised and appreciated at their true
value; thus it was with the opera, too. It was staged in the year 1787 [sic] by the
Bondini Company and received such an ovation as was only to be equalled by that
given to The Magic Flute at a later date. It is the absolute truth when I state that this

594 Heinse 2001: 203.

595 Nettl 1938: 105.
596 Heinse 2001: 202.

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 opera was performed almost without a break throughout the winter and that it
greatly alleviated the straitened circumstances of the manager. The enthusiasm shown
by the public was without precedent; they could not hear it often enough. A piano
version was made by one of our best masters, Herr Kucharz; it was arranged for
wind parts, as a quintet and for German dances; in short, Figaro‟s tunes echoed
through the streets and the parks; even the harpist on the alehouse bench had to play
„Non piu andrai‟ if he wanted to attract any attention at all. 597

Leporello‟s remark that he knows the aria “only too well” suggests that Ponziani had been
encouraged to give it da capo several times in the theatre. Mozart who had been invited to
Prague on account of the success of Figaro may have heard this when he attended a
performance of Figaro and conducted another at the National Theatre in January, just as his
letter to Gottfried von Jacquin of 15 January 1787 suggests that he had heard “Non più
andrai” turned into the German dances mentioned by Nĕmeček:

I looked on, however, with the greatest pleasure while all these people flew about in
sheer delight to the music of my „Figaro‟, arranged for quadrilles and waltzes. For
here they talk about nothing but „Figaro‟. Nothing is played, sung or whistled but
„Figaro‟. No opera is drawing like „Figaro‟. Nothing, nothing but „Figaro‟. Certainly a
great honour for me!

Finally, Jan Nepomuk Štĕpánek mentions that Mozart improvised on “Non più andrai” at
his piano recital at the National Theatre on 19 January 1787:

He began for the third time with increased enthusiasm, achieving what was entirely
unheard of, when suddenly a loud voice from the parterre broke the dead silence
with the following words: “From Figaro!” This prompted Mozart to introduce the
motif from the favourite aria “Non piú andrai farfallone etc.” improvising a dozen of
the most interesting and artful variations, thereby ending this remarkable artistic
performance, which was surely the most glorious of his life and the most pleasurable
for the blissful Bohemians, to a roar of exultation.598

The first excerpt referring to the new premiere and the two last ones to arias made famous
by the singers of Don Giovanni and Leporello, respectively, the operatic quotations all
concentrate on the playful exposure of Bassi‟s and Ponziani‟s different theatrical personas.
This highlighting of the theatrical situation is also hinted at by other hidden references,
which have been uncovered by Tomislav Volek. During the first course, Don Giovanni
sings the following line:

597 Niemetschek 1956: 35.

598 Stiepanek 1828: 517.

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 DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI
Ah che piatto saporito! (1245) Ah, what a tasty dish!

Volek points out that the word “saporito” was a reference to the original Donna Anna,
Teresa Saporiti, who, according to a review from 1782, was indeed admired for her „tasty‟
figure.599 The musical highlighting of the word (Don Giovanni sings it four times) probably
arose as a result of improvisations during rehearsals, in which context Lyser‟s implication
that both Mozart and Bassi flirted with the soprano may not be entirely without
significance.600 On the last “saporiti” Don Giovanni is even given a fermata, which may
have prompted an insinuating cadenza from Bassi in his „seducer‟s voice‟, echoing his
cadenza on “Signorina” in “Ah chi mi dice mai”. By blurring the distinction between
Donna Anna and Teresa Saporiti, thereby adopting an extra-dramatic audience perspective,
Bassi would also have blurred the distinction between Don Giovanni the seducer of
women and Luigi Bassi the „seducer‟ of audiences and potentially of sopranos.
Another hidden reference discovered by Volek is found in Leporello‟s defence of his
food theft, which is heard during the Figaro excerpt:601

Sí eccellente è il vostro cuoco Your cook is so excellent

che lo volli anch‟io provar. (1263-4) that I wanted to try him out myself.

The word cuoco is a reference to the harpsichordist of the original production, Jan Křtitel
Kuchař, whose last name means „cook‟ in Czech. A great fan of Mozart, he had, as

599 “[…] her younger sister [Teresa Saporiti] is still a complete beginner as an actress, and halfway a beginner
as a singer, but she repays with her figure.” (Literatur- und Theater-Zeitung. Für das Jahr 1782, Berlin, Part III,
No. 38, 21 September 1782: 606, quoted in Weidinger 2002 Vol. I: 94). Volek shows how these lines were
considered so closely associated with Teresa Saporiti that they were crossed out in the oldest Prague score,
apparently when she left the company, and substituted with an entirely different text (Volek 1987: 82).
600 In the 1837 short story Bassi goes to kiss Saporiti on the forehead after singing “Fin ch‟han dal vino” at

the rehearsal, when Mozart tells him to think of his beloved (Lyser 1837b (Appendix V)). Later in the story
Mozart is deeply offended when hearing that Saporiti has come with the following remark: “I could fall in
love with signor Amadeo, for he is a great man, and then I shall not be confused by his insignificant figure.”
(Ibid). Twenty years later, in his Mozart-Album, Lyser drew on the anecdote again in a more biographical
context: “the singer for whom he wrote his Donna Anna almost fell out with him when she allowed herself
the following remark after the performance of Don Juan: “This Herr Mozart is indeed a great man in spite of
his small, insignificant figure.” (Lyser 1856 (Appendix XII B)). That Lyser got these stories from Bassi‟s
connections appears from the fact that the singer apparently told the same stories to Stendhal who claimed to
have met him in 1813: “If I were to tell of the respectful curiosity with which I tried to induce this kindly old
man [Bassi] to talk, no one would take me seriously. “Mr. Mozart”, he would answer (how entrancing to hear
someone who still said Mr Mozart!) “Mr Mozart was an extremely eccentric and absentminded young man,
but not without a certain spirit of pride. He was very popular with the ladies, in spite of his small size; but he
had a most unusual face, and he could cast a spell on any woman with his eyes…” On this subject, Bassi told
me three or four little anecdotes, which, however, I must refrain from including at this point.” (Stendhal
1970: 476).
601 Volek 1987: 74-8.

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mentioned by Nĕmeček, published a piano reduction of Figaro in June 1787,602 which piece
of „cookery‟ was apparently considered eccellente by the composer, or by the performers. 603
That the pun arose during rehearsals is revealed by the fact that the preliminary libretto
published in Vienna has “The cook is certainly so excellent”:604 by saying „your cook‟ the
double entendre is sharpened: Leporello is now not only referring to Don Giovanni‟s cook,
but to Figaro‟s (and perhaps to Don Giovanni‟s) „cook‟. It may, furthermore, have added to
the playful breach of the theatrical illusion that the orchestra in the pit, including the
harpsichord, is to remain silent throughout Don Giovanni‟s supper, which would have
allowed Kuchař and the two singers to interact more freely with improvised jokes.
Even though the supper scene as such was not invented during rehearsals, it seems
plausible that Mozart arrived with the canvas half-blank in order to give the two comedians
a freer scope and establish an atmosphere of hilarity. It indeed seems that the references to
actual performers in the original production, including the choice of operatic excerpts,
emerged in Prague, even if some of them took their cues from existing words in the
libretto. In his three descriptions of the scene, Lyser makes no reference to concrete puns,
but his translation of the scene implies at least one: the reference to the musicians in the
stage band who are “worthy” of Don Giovanni. Lyser interprets this as a reference to the
orchestra of the National Theatre, but since the wind players of the theatre were probably
all in the pit, I find it more likely that an external woodwind band had been hired for the
occasion, Prague being particularly proud of its many skilled wind players, some of whom,
as Nĕmeček and Mozart tell us, would perform operatic excerpts in the private homes of
the aristocracy. Perhaps the woodwind band, which would have played only in the
cemetery and supper scenes, was borrowed from one of Mozart‟s aristocratic patrons, all of
whom entertained private orchestras, or maybe it consisted of some of the most skilled
woodwind players of the city who may even have volunteered in order to work with the
„great Mozart‟. This may also be supported by the anecdote quoted by Lyser in 1847 that
the accompaniment of the statue‟s chorales in the cemetery scene was conducted by
Mozart‟s old friend František Dušek, in whose home he was staying during most of his
sojourn in Prague, but who does not appear to have had any formal connection to the

602 Milan Poštolka: „Jan Křtitel Kuchař‟ IN The New Grove.

603 According to Gottfried Johann Dlabacž who wrote in 1815, “Mozart much applauded” Kuchař‟s
translations of his operas, “and all friends of music considered themselves lucky to own one of his works.”
(Dlabacž 1973: „Johann Baptist Kucharž‟).
604 “Sí eccellente è certo il cuoco” (Da Ponte 1995: 112 (note)).

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National Theatre.605 At all events, Don Giovanni‟s and Leporello‟s comments on the stage
band once more tend to dissolve the boundary between the theatrical illusion and the social
world of the audience.
But to what degree were Bassi and Ponziani meant to improvise? In his first
description Lyser quotes Bassi as saying that “we didn‟t stay strict in time […] only paying
attention to the orchestra; everything parlando and almost improvised”, adding that Mozart
had prescribed for Don Juan and Leporello “the main ideas” and that the orchestra formed
“the fixed point, the basis! On and over that basis, Don Juan and Leporello must parley about
whatever comes to their minds”. In the second description Lyser claims that the singers “in
no way bound themselves strictly to Mozart‟s instructions, but only maintained time and
melody”. Considering that the vocal lines of Don Giovanni and Leporello consist only of
recitative-like exclamations and somewhat pedestrian contra-parts of orchestral melodies
borrowed from other operas, which means that there is not really any music to „respect‟ in
the scene, and that the puns and extra-dramatic references most likely emerged during
rehearsals, the words and vocal lines as written in the score were most likely intended as the
“the main ideas”, i.e. as mere springboards for both verbal and musical improvisation. The
words parlando and parliren used by Lyser in the first description suggest that most of these
improvisations were in fact spoken or half-spoken insertions, which were apparently not
uncommon among Italian buffo singers, as appears from some of the recordings with
Antonio Pini-Corsi. One passage which especially seems to call for variations, insertions
and improvisations is the sequence of lines heard right after the Saporiti reference:

LEPORELLO A parte. LEPORELLO Aside.

Ah che barbaro appetito! Ah what a barbarous appetite!
Che bocconi da gigante, What giant mouthfuls,
mi par proprio di svenir. and I myself feel faint.

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Nel veder i miei bocconi At the sight of my mouthfuls
gli par proprio di svenir. (1246-50) he himself feels faint.

These dramatically fairly inane lines are repeated beyond all bounds of reason to the
extremely banal music of the Martín quotation: Leporello repeats all his three lines twice,
and Don Giovanni, having repeated his lines once, repeats the last line another four times.
The purpose of this apparently unmotivated retardation of the action could only have been

605 Lyser 1847 (Appendix IX).

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to introduce various “improvised witticisms, droll caprices and lazzi”, as suggested by
Lyser: it is doubtful whether the audience in Prague ever heard the words “par proprio di
svenir” sung the nine times indicated in the score.
Rather than “the last banquet of an aristocrat who, lonely and bored, is addicted to
monotonously repeated diversions, and who, devoid of a future, opens all the stops of his
power in order to reach a utopian climax of pleasure”, as suggested by Sonja Putscher
Riekmann606 the supper scene, as envisioned by Da Ponte and Mozart, seems to have been
in the brightest colours possible. This also meant a departure from Hoffmann and
Kierkegaard, in whom the scene always is coloured with a sense of foreboding. The
hilarious atmosphere was achieved through the inclusion of the audience in a celebration of
the theatrical situation itself: a tribute to the traditional Convitato di pietra, in which the
supper scene always included humorous references to the performance venue, such as the
toast to Venice and Venetian women proposed by Pasquariello in Bertati‟s libretto. Lyser
did draw attention, however, “to the courteous roguishness with which Mozart” – i.e. Lyser
himself, but possibly inspired by the Dresden production of Don Giovanni – “makes
Leporello excuse his theft of the “capon””, which was contrasted to the “coarse and inane”
supper scenes in the conventional productions. In the equivalent scene in Bertati‟s libretto
(xxiii), when Pasquariello tries to conceal his theft of a meat rissole by claiming that he
suffers from a tumour, Don Giovanni grabs him in the cheek and threatens to cut off the
tumour with his table knife. In comparison, Da Ponte‟s supper scene is indeed
characterized by “courteous roguishness”, probably intended as a correction of the
traditional farce, and the „naturalness‟ for which Ponziani and Bassi were praised would
have helped matters in this regard.
Lyser‟s translation of the subsequent scene with Donna Elvira clearly recalls the Old
Music Director‟s description, according to which Bassi never forgot the “galantuomo”,
“never turned his back on Elvira, never showed his teeth in scornful laughter, never
kneeled down or suchlike”, but subtly and adroitly “knew how to extract himself from the
matter, as if he took Donna Elvira for far too beautiful and wise to seriously think of
converting a Don Juan”. The translation also anticipates Bôrner-Sandrini‟s claim that Don
Giovanni behaved towards Donna Elvira “as the perfect gentleman who still treats his
former mistress with chivalrous amiability, but who at appropriate moments shows clear

606 Riekmann 1982: 188.

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signs of some impatience, which is always suppressed as quickly and wisely as possible,
however”, again indicating that Lyser drew on anecdotes related to Bassi.
Donna Elvira enters “disperatamente”, i.e. in her characteristic overwrought manner
(when separating Don Giovanni and Zerlina in Act Tone she had entered “with most
desperate gestures”):607

L‟ultima prova The last proof

dell‟amor mio of my love
ancor vogl‟io once more
fare con te I will show you.

Piú non rammento I have forgotten

gli inganni tuoi, your deceptions:
pietade io sento… (1267-73) I feel pity…

Potentially, Donna Elvira recalls her emotionally transfigured namesakes in Bertati and
Molière who are about to take the veil, but her forgiving attitude only serves as a comical
contrast to the explosive virago into whom she is transformed the instant she realizes that
Don Giovanni is not going to change his lifestyle. The recognition prompts the following
flood of invective which is strikingly uncharacteristic of the earlier Donna Elviras:

Restati, barbaro, Then remain, barbarian,

nel lezzo immondo, in your filthy stench,
esempio orribile as a horrible example
d‟iniquità. (1295-8) of iniquity.

Like the mock-seduction earlier in the act, the scene exposes Donna Elvira as a parody of
the sentimental heroine: she is a guardian angel as long as Don Giovanni conforms to her
desires, but a Fury when he fails to do so. In this light, his chivalrous behaviour towards
her again speaks to his credit, and both the revisions of the libretto and Lyser‟s anecdotes
seem to indicate that he became increasingly sympathetic during rehearsals. Having entered
the stage, Donna Elvira kneels in front him, and according to the preliminary libretto “he,
too, kneels in front of her, with affectation”,608 while there is no mention of how they get
up again. The libretto printed for the premiere, however, merely mentions that Don
Giovanni “kneels in front of Donna Elvira”, and “after some fuss they both get up”, 609
while the score has changed the last direction into “Don Giovanni, rising, makes Donna

607 “[…] con atti disperatissimi” (352).

608 “Si mette anch’egli in ginocchione davanti Donna Elvira con affettazione” (Da Ponte 1995: 113 (note)).
609 “S’inginocchia davanti Donna Elvira. […] Dopo alcun tratto sorgon ambidue.” (1281, 1283).

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Elvira stand up.”610 In other words, Mozart seems to have been intent on making Don
Giovanni more sympathetic than was Da Ponte‟s original plan, and he may have been
inspired to do that by Bassi‟s charming stage presence. Lyser‟s anecdotes suggest, however,
that Bassi went even further, possibly due to changes made after the libretto had been
printed and the music committed to paper. According to the Old Music Director, Don
Giovanni “never kneeled down or suchlike”, Lyser‟s translation having replaced the
direction requiring him to kneel with the following direction: “He raises her again and
treats her courteously.”611 Furthermore, Da Ponte‟s indication that Don Giovanni should
say the line “What do you want, my darling?” with “affected tenderness”612 is replaced with
the direction “He tries to take Elvira around the waist and kiss her”, whereupon she
“breaks loose from D. J.”613 When Don Giovanni invites her to join him for supper, Lyser
has added the following stage direction: “Don Juan returns to his seat in order to eat,
urging Elvira to sit beside him, but she refuses angrily.”614
Donna Elvira‟s request that Don Giovanni should change his way of life prompts his
exclamation “Brava” (1291): probably one of the “clear signs of some impatience, which is
always suppressed as quickly and wisely as possible, however”, though it may also be here
that Bassi‟s Don Giovanni hinted that Donna Elvira was “far too beautiful and wise to
seriously think of converting a Don Juan”. In Molière and Bertati, the seducer is aroused by
the sight of his former mistress and invites her to spend the night in his house, and Lyser‟s
suggestions may well imply that Bassi performed the scene in a similar manner until this
moment, when Don Giovanni is discouraged by her wish to reform him. Instead he
proposes his famous toast to women and wine:

Vivan le femmine, Long live women,

viva il buon vino, long live wine,
sostegno e gloria the sustenance and glory
d‟umanità! (1303-6) of mankind!

Although Donna Elvira‟s un-integrated shift from suffering heroine to avenging Fury
comically exposes the possessiveness behind her forgiving attitude, Don Giovanni‟s toast
to women and wine has met with little sympathy from critics. To Hermann Abert, it seems

610 “ Sorgendo fa sorgere Donna Elvira.” (Da Ponte 1995: 113 (note)).
611 Lyser 1845a: 155.
612 “Don Giovanni sempre con affettata tenerezza. Che vuoi, mio bene?” (1289).
613 Lyser 1845a: 154-5.
614 Lyser 1845a: 155.

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filled with “ice-cold scorn”,615 to Stefan Kunze with “diabolic scorn”,616 and according to
Joseph Kerman, “Giovanni is at his most odious on this occasion, abandoning even the
mask of civility.”617 According to Lyser‟s Old Music Director, however, Don Giovanni‟s
chivalrous behaviour made even the “impudent” toast “count as flattery.” It was at this
point that “the sentimental-malicious frivolity appeared most unambiguously as the essential
feature of the character – “Devil! Viper!” one might have exclaimed – but it was impossible
to be angry with the beautiful devil, with the dazzling viper.” Considering Donna Elvira‟s
behaviour, one might wonder whether Don Giovanni can be called a viper with any
justification.

Johann Peter Lyser 1847

Two years after the publication of his ill-fated forgery, which caused Schumann to break
off their friendship, Lyser published a further defence, but this time in a German
periodical, Siegfried Engländer‟s Salon. This was the first time he referred to his
acquaintance with Luigi Bassi in Germany. In the article – whose title, „Der alte Bassi. Aus
den Erinnerungen eines wandernden Enthusiasten‟, refers directly to the subtitle of
Hoffmann‟s Fantasy Piece – Lyser states that he wants to “meet the request of highly
esteemed, elderly musicians and pass on the information about Mozart which I learned
from the old Bassi, and which I have withheld from the public, as I was so poorly rewarded
for my first publications.”618 The real reason why Lyser had withheld this information until
now was that his sources could have exposed him as an impostor, but in 1847 there was no
longer anyone to object: Morlacchi and Pauli had died in 1841, Rastrelli in 1842, Kind in
1843, and Mieksch in 1845.
For all its peculiar lies and elaborations, the article, which has escaped the notice of
scholars till now, is still one of the most fascinating documents to have come down to us
on the subject of Mozart‟s Don Giovanni:

Luigi Bassi, who like Da Ponta [sic] was Mozart‟s friend and admirer, died in old age in
the 20s as director of the Italian Opera. He had been the first performer of Don
Giovanni – and, as everyone who saw and heard him in this part maintain, the most
excellent. – Mozart himself had rehearsed the role with the twenty-year-old [sic]
youth, as he was in 1787, and Bassi, whose acquaintance I made in 1811, assured me

615 Abert 1956: 452.

616 Kunze 1984: 325.
617 Kerman 1990: 122.
618 Lyser 1847 (Appendix IX).

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in later years that he had always exerted himself to sing and act the role exactly as
Mozart wanted, and the “gran maestro” had apparently been very satisfied with him. In
the year 1812 Callot-Hoffmann came to Dresden, and one can imagine that he did not
fail to seek out Bassi who was still quite imposing back then – (I saw him myself as
Axur in Salieri‟s opera by the same title, in which he acted admirably). – When
returning to Dresden for a short time some years later, I visited Bassi too, on which
occasion I read Hoffmann‟s Fantasy Piece “Don Juan” to him. Bassi, who understood
German very well, was delighted with the story but then observed: Hoffmann‟s hero is
quite different from Mozart‟s; I laughed and said that the same thing occurred to me,
but what happened to Hamlet will happen to Don Giovanni: people will never be
done commenting on and adding to him. “Don Giovanni is complete, entirely so,”
Bassi said with emphasis. “Mozart has depicted him as a fiery, Spanish young
nobleman who worships women above all and who does not really take it for a sin to
seduce as many as will let themselves be seduced. He is lucky and feels lucky; why
should he not? – He does not perceive the Devil behind the flowers and would fear
nothing from the Devil, for which reason the latter comes to fetch him in the end.
That is all; only it is not easy to represent this exactly the way Mozart wanted it, and it
would be easier, much easier, to perform Hoffmann‟s Don Juan; it would not be right,
however, for Don Giovanni is a comical opera.”
“With tragic moments, Master Bassi!”
“But these should never get the upper hand of the hero‟s untameable joy: is
every tragic number not immediately followed by one, even two, three cheerful
numbers? – The Introduction begins comically, then becomes tragic, immediately
follows a comical Trio, Leporello‟s Catalogue Aria – the merry wedding chorus
[Lyser‟s footnote: “I must emphasise that Bassi only cited the situations which make
up the original score, just as Mozart himself fiercely objected to all later insertions”] –
then the half-sentimental duet – “Là ci darem la mano.” The Quartet as a transition
to Donna Anna‟s great scene – magnificent, glorious, but not as tragic as the
recitative by her father‟s corpse – this having barely died out, however, what joy and
rejoicing in Don Giovanni‟s aria? – now follows Zerline‟s roguish aria, the Finale,
overflowing with joy, fun and boldness until the spot with the three maskers, and
ending with the fortunate escape of Don Giovanni and his servant. The whole
second act does not contain a single tragic moment which is not immediately
dissolved in joy again – for however serious the beginning of the grand Sextet, as
soon as Leporello is recognized, the anxious tension is over; the two chorales of the
stone man are indeed harrowing, but above them is heard Don Giovanni‟s
presumptuous, bold invitation. In the last Finale – after Don Giovanni has received
his just desserts – the three comical characters, Leporello, Zerline, Massetto,
counterbalance the three sad ones, and he who would seek anything else in the
closing presto fugue than the customary moral which the Spanish comedy writers
attached even to their most cheerful pieces, he would have to be very keen on a
melancholy of which there is no trace in the Don Giovanni by our great Mozart. – As I
say, Don Giovanni is a comical opera and always will be, the most glorious ever
created, but Mozart insisted on making it comical rather than silly: he fooled about
and terrified at the right places and always observed the nobility and dignity of his
characters; these represent noble Spaniards, and therefore his opera was misunderstood
so very often, and the Viennese would not let it pass for a good comical opera.
As for the first performance of Don Giovanni, which took place on 28 [sic]
October 1787, I learned the following from Bassi: the performer of the

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 Commendatore also played the role of Masetto. The wind instruments were not
reinforced, but were all single (2 flutes, 2 horns, etc.). – The whole peasant chorus
consisted of six male and the same number of female individuals. Sumptuous
decorations and costumes were out of the question [Lyser‟s footnote: “At the
beginning of Act Two, for instance, Leporello appeared in an ordinary, long servant‟s
roquelaure, which Don Giovanni later wore”], Furies did not appear on stage, and their
chorus sounded from the trapdoor through which Don Giovanni toppled down. The
3 trombones, 2 contrabasses and bassoons which form the accompaniment of the
two chorales of the stone man were posted on the stage behind the pedestal; Mozart‟s
friend Dussek conducted these two pieces, the effect is supposed to have been awe-
inspiringly beautiful.
Bassi himself accompanied his Serenade on the mandolin (in Vienna, Mozart
took over the accompaniment, alternating with the poet, as the singer of Don
Giovanni there did not play the instrument.) In the ballroom scene Bassi led the
dancing together with Zerline; Mozart, who is supposed to have been an excellent
dancer, rehearsed the minuet with him and the chorus himself. – As is still the case in
Dresden, there were two [sic] actually playing bands on the stage, just as the wind
harmony in the supper scene was performed on stage. Mozart took the minuet almost
twice as fast as it is taken now, yet he rushed neither in the Champagne Song nor at
the beginning of the second Finale, as is the case nowadays. In his E major duet with
Leporello, Bassi, following Mozart‟s express intention, treated his part as Don
Giovanni almost parlando until the moment when he, made attentive by Leporello‟s
narration, boldly – though not without a secret shudder – approaches the statue in
order to convey his invitation himself. At “Verrete a cena” Bassi let his voice sound
amply and for a long time, which at the first performance in Prague caused a
thundering applause to interrupt him here, so that one could only guess the stone
monument‟s answer from its nodding. When Bassi went to receive the ghost, he later
regularly grabbed the filled champagne glass instead of the candelabrum; at the first
performance he had done it unconsciously and instantly became surprised and
confused; Mozart, who had noticed it from the conductor‟s stand, shouted a loud
“Bravo!” to him as he was going off and, after the performance, told him to continue
doing that: it looked good. As for the writing down of the overture in one night, this is
the absolute truth; that is the overture we now possess, and it was chosen by Dussek
among three that Mozart played to him – Mozart did not even write down the two
others; one in C minor is supposed to have ended with a fugue (the closing fugue of
the opera?), and in Bassi‟s opinion it was probably the most beautiful of three, but too
long.
I must contradict the assertion that Hoffmann enthusiastically wrote his Fantasy
Piece „Don Juan‟ after a performance by Bassi. Hoffmann wrote his Fantasy Piece in
Bamberg one year before his personal acquaintance with Bassi, and I presume that
the actor Paulmann (he died in Hanover) may have served as his model; I got to know
Paulmann in Aix-la-Chapelle in the year 1817; he did not have much voice left then,
but as for his acting, I consider him the most satisfactory among all the Don Juans I
have seen, and I found that his performance agreed entirely with Hoffmann‟s view.619
And yet I agree with Bassi that one should not read anything into Don Juan‟s
character which is not there: the character will not dissolve, but it will lose grace and

619I have not been able to find any biographical information about this performer, apart from an artist profile
published by Lyser in 1833, which gives a description of his Don Giovanni and mentions that he died “last
year” (Lyser 1833b: 192).

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 „noble recklessness‟, as Friedrich Kind called it, who was old enough to have seen
Bassi as Don Giovanni and who would accept no one else after him.620

To start with the beginning, Johann Peter Lyser was only eight years old in 1811, when he
claims to have met Bassi, and the latter was not in Dresden before 1815, of which fact
Lyser was obviously unaware. Lyser did not, of course, hear Bassi sing Axur (though Bassi
indeed sang that role in Dresden in 1815), nor does anything suggest that Hoffmann ever
met Bassi. The big question is whether a conversation similar to the one in the essay ever
took place in real life: did it occur to someone like Friedrich Kind to read Hoffmann‟s
„Don Juan‟ to Bassi, or did Bassi of himself state his opinion on Hoffmann‟s Fantasy Piece
in another context? It almost seems to be wishful thinking on Lyser‟s part, though the
possibility cannot be ruled out entirely. Friedrich Hirth rejects everything that Lyser wrote
for Engländer‟s Salon in those years as his “worst lies” and “brazen fiction”,621 but Hirth
was not acquainted with Heinse‟s and Bôrner-Sandrini‟s recollections, and even if the
conversation on Hoffmann is itself entirely invented, most of Bassi‟s responses are quite in
keeping with what we know from elsewhere. The characterization of Don Giovanni as “a
fiery, Spanish young nobleman” tallies with Heinse‟s description, and the emphasis of all
three sources on the charm and amiability of Bassi‟s Don Giovanni subtly supports the
claim that he only seduced “as many as will let themselves be seduced”. This formulation
hints that Donna Anna and Zerlina were not exposed to attempted rapes, thus anticipating
Felicity Baker‟s point that the women must shoulder their share of the responsibility.
Bassi‟s claim that Don Giovanni is sent to hell because he “does not perceive the Devil
behind the flowers and would fear nothing from the Devil”, according to which logic the
closing licenza is nothing but “the customary moral which the Spanish comedy writers
attached even to their most cheerful pieces”, would indeed be a viable subtext for the
staging of the Finale, and it is far from impossible that Mozart and Da Ponte really told the
original singers something in that vein, though it evidently fails to do justice to the
dramaturgical intricacies unveiled by Baker, of which the authors were, of course, aware. As
for the highly interesting argument that Don Giovanni is a comedy – supported by the
designations of Da Ponte and Mozart themselves (dramma giocoso and opera buffa,
respectively) – this also seems to have derived from Bassi or from Lyser‟s Dresden friends
who had seen Bassi‟s production, though it cannot be excluded that Lyser based the

620 Lyser 1847 (Appendix IX).

621 Hirth 1911: 459.

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analysis wholly or partly on the production he himself had seen in Dresden. As for the rich
amount of information which is then listed in one big jumble and with an uncharacteristic
lack of literary embellishment, I see no reason to doubt that Lyser here quite faithfully
reproduces stories told to him by people in Dresden. Most of it tallies with information
found elsewhere, and a few obvious errors (surely there were three, stage bands in the Act
One Finale, as Lyser indeed himself states elsewhere; and, as argued above, Mozart and Da
Ponte almost certainly did not play the mandolin in the Viennese production) appear
merely to be due to carelessness or to the fact that the material is derived from theatrical
gossip.

A Spanish comedy
The number-by-number reading of the opera in Lyser‟s „Der alte Bassi‟ seems to be
intended, above all, as a rebuttal of Hoffmann‟s interpretation of Don Giovanni and
Donna Anna as tragic characters. The observations that the “Introduction begins
comically” and that Donna Anna‟s dramatic recitative and the aria “Or sai chi l‟onore” are
“no longer as tragic as the recitative by her father‟s corpse” suggest neither Hoffmann‟s
romantic passion nor an attempted rape, just as Börner-Sandrini‟s above-mentioned
observation that Bassi coloured the words in which Donna Anna recognizes the voice of
her assumed assaulter with “an almost painfully reproachful expression of rejected love”
seems to contradict the accusation of physical assault. Furthermore, the emphasis that the
opera is about “noble Spaniards” and that Mozart “always observed the nobility and dignity
of his characters”, though it has relevance for the Commendatore, Don Ottavio and
Donna Elvira too, also seems to bear on Don Giovanni and Donna Anna in particular: it
was in the music of these two that Hoffmann perceived unfathomable tragic depths,
though the „grand manner‟, which characterizes Don Giovanni‟s behaviour towards the
statue and practically all of Donna Anna‟s music, may be read and performed as a social
marker rather than as the profound expression of sublime souls.
The emphasis on the Spanish element, „Spanish‟ being indeed a recurring adjective in
Lyser‟s writings on Don Giovanni, must also have referred to the original costumes.
“Sumptuous decorations and costumes were out of the question”, Lyser assures us, which
is indeed consonant with Thoenert‟s copperplate which shows that Don Giovanni (“a
perfect late-18th-century beau” as Vĕra Ptáčková‟s says) wore contemporary dress, but also

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from the indication that Leporello wore “an ordinary, long servant‟s roquelaure”.622 The so-
called „Spanish dress‟ (black with a white ruff), however, was also contemporary, though
decidedly formal and old-fashioned in 1787, and it was considered a mark of distinction in
the Austro-Hungarian Empire in particular. Thus when Giacomo Casanova, who was in
Vienna in the early 1750s, saw the Emperor Francis I in his role of Imperial Majesty, he
was surprised at seeing him dressed in the Spanish fashion, thinking that he was seeing
Charles V,623 “who established this etiquette, which still existed despite the fact that after
him no Emperor was Spanish and Franz I had no connection with that nation.”624 In other
words, the opera‟s Spanish dress and the dignified Spanish bearing, to which it seems to
have been inextricably linked, were less a question of romantic couleur locale than the
emblem of a social group that set great store by conservative values like aristocratic
honour, controlled behaviour and distinguished appearance, and to which all the noble
characters clearly belong, though Donna Elvira sometimes has difficulties with fitting in.
Lyser suggests that the Spanish element was the key to the noble characters as comical
characters, which seems to imply that Donna Anna‟s „Spanish‟ obsession with feudal
concepts like honour and blood vengeance had a parodic tint. Her exaggerated
preoccupation with keeping up appearances may be one reason why we are never actually
told what happened between her and Don Giovanni in her bedchamber and why “an
ambiguous grimace” (quoting Wye Jamison Allanbrook‟s apt phrase) is frozen on her
face.625
A complementary reason may be the one pointed out by Hans Ernst Weidinger: even
if Austro-Hungarian theatrical censorship allowed male characters to assail virtue on stage,
“a woman may never consent, not even for the sake of appearances.”626 In other words,
censorship would have forbidden Donna Anna to admit if she had freely allowed Don
Giovanni to have his way with her, which may imply that her “ambiguous grimace” was a
play with the legal bounds of propriety. Indeed, her „imperial‟ Spanish dignity may have
been intended as a satire on the prudish sensibilities that controlled the theatres of the

622 A roquelaure, derived from French fashion and named after Antoine Gaston Jean Baptiste, Duc de
Roquelaure (1656-1738), was a rather heavy cloak worn by men in the 18 th century. The servant‟s version of
the garment is described by Cunnington and Lucas: “The rocket (variously spelt “Roquelaure”, “Rocklo”)
common at this date (1746) was a knee-length cloak with a single or double cape-collar and buttoned down
the front with a back vent for wearing on horseback.” (Cunnington & Lucas 1967).
623 King Charles V of Spain was Holy Roman Emperor 1519-56.
624 Casanova 1997 Vol. III: 227, cf. 338-9 (note).
625 Allanbrook 1983: 229.
626 Franz Karl Hägelin: Denkschrift, 1795, quoted in Weidinger 2002 Vol. IV: 871.

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realm in the late 18th century! That something similar was the case with Donna Elvira and
Zerlina appears from another clause in the censor‟s regulations brought to light by
Weidinger, according to which one should take care “that two enamoured characters never
leave the stage together unaccompanied”.627 When Donna Elvira in Act Two apprehends
Don Giovanni and Zerlina before they do exactly that, she is thus a device meant to pacify
the censors, but at the same time she is herself an outrageous parody of hidebound
censorship, which may help to explain the famously antiquated style of her aria.628 And
when Don Giovanni in I.xx tries his luck with Zerlina a second time, making her enter a
door in the ballroom “almost by force”, the horrified reaction of the guests (“Soon the
entire world shall know of your horrendous and black misdeed”)629 again exposes the
imperial censors as a wee bit too prohibitive. If no force had been involved, the scene
would have been morally unacceptable, but it was risky even as it stands: as Weidinger
convincingly argues, it was due to the censors that the ballroom scene was omitted in the
preliminary libretto printed in Vienna before the premiere, and it was certainly due to this
scene that Don Giovanni was originally banned in Munich in 1791.630
Accordingly, a more or less overt challenge to the censors seems to underlie Donna
Anna‟s famous ambiguity. It must be emphasized, however, that the way Teresa Saporiti
chose to present that ambiguity must have been of vital importance, and it is in this light
that we should „read‟ the character of Donna Anna.
The Introduction is itself highly ambiguous. Everything we know about Luigi Bassi
and about his performance of the role tells us that he would hardly strike the audience as a
fearsome rapist (“As soon as he appears, joy and merriment spread to the whole house”, as
Reichard said of Bassi in 1792); and even more so, since Don Giovanni is not presented as
an assailant when entering the stage. It is Donna Anna who, in her own words, is “the
assailant from being the assailed”631 and who holds on to his arm like “a desperate Fury”,
thus anticipating the Furies who will torment Don Giovanni in the end. It is the irony of
this Don Giovanni that it opens with the presumed predator being preyed on: there is no
chance that Don Giovanni could have raped this woman even if he wanted to, and
therefore Bassi-Lyser could safely claim that the “Introduction begins comically”.

627 Ibid Vol. IV: 872.

628 Cf. Ibid Vol. IV: 879.
629 “Saprà tosto il mondo intero / il misfatto orrendo e nero” (753-4).
630 Weidinger 2002 Vol. IV: 835.
631 “[…] sono / assalitrice d‟assalita” (482-3).

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 Whether Donna Anna gave herself to Don Giovanni before changing her mind in a
fit of Spanish honour is another matter. Due to the censors, this could not be proclaimed
openly in the text: it could only be hinted at piquantly in performance, but the skilled
theatre-makers gave Teresa Saporiti opportunities to play with such hints.
In order to get an impression of Da Ponte‟s treatment of Donna Anna, it may be
fruitful to compare with his model, Giovanni Bertati‟s Don Giovanni. In the third scene of
Bertati‟s libretto, when Donna Anna and Duke Ottavio find the Commendatore killed,
Donna Anna complains that she does not know the identity of the assassin, and this is
what prompts her account of the attempted rape. She says that she was expecting Don
Ottavio for their “appointed rendezvous” in her apartment, which frivolity she excuses
with her “clinging to your promise of marriage”632 (apparently, Venetian censors were more
liberal on this point than their Austro-Hungarian colleagues), when the unknown man
entered wrapped in a cloak. Donna Anna therefore took him for the Duke, and when she
blushingly objected to the embraces of her supposed fiancé, “he calls me his beloved, his
darling, and says that he loves me.”633 Only then did she see through the deception and
offered resistance; he tried to escape, but she followed him, vainly trying to unmask him.
The narration ended, Donna Anna withdraws to a convent in order to wait for justice to be
done and does not appear again in the opera.
Da Ponte followed the basic outline of this scene, but made some important
changes: he concluded the scene in which Donna Anna and Don Ottavio find the
Commendatore dead (I.iii) with the duet “Fuggi, crudele, fuggi”, in which Donna Anna
makes her fiancé swear revenge, and transferred the narration to their second appearance
(I.xiii), where it is prompted by Donna Anna‟s recognition of her „attacker‟ and succeeded
by her second call for revenge, the aria “Or sai chi l‟onore”. The division of Bertati‟s scene
into two separate situations not only allowed Da Ponte to focus on Donna Anna‟s grief in
the first scene, thereby introducing a tragic note not present in his model, but also to add a
potentially more ambiguous quality to the narration by placing it much later than the events
it describes. As Bassi supposedly claimed, her great scene is “magnificent, glorious, but no
longer as tragic as the recitative by her father‟s corpse”:

632 “A voi, Duca, stringendomi / la promessa di sposa, io me ne stava / ad aspettarvi nel mio appartamento /
pel nostro concertato abboccamento.” (iii).
633 “[…] mi chiama / suo ben, sua cara, e dicemi che m‟ama.” (iii).

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 DONNA ANNA DONNA ANNA
Era già alquanto It was already a somewhat
avanzata la notte, advanced hour of the night, when
quando nelle mie stanze, ove soletta in my rooms – where I unfortunately
mi trovai per sventura, entrar io vidi found myself alone – I saw a man enter,
in un mantello avvolto wrapped in a cloak,
un uom che al primo istante whom I at first
avea preso per voi; would have taken for you.
ma riconobbi poi Then I realized, however,
che un inganno era il mio… that I was deceived…

DON OTTAVIO Con affanno. DON OTTAVIO Breathless.

Stelle! Seguite. Heavens! Continue.

DONNA ANNA DONNA ANNA

Tacito a me s‟appressa
e mi vuole abbracciar; sciogliermi cerco,
ei piú mi stringe; grido:
non viene alcun. Con una mano cerca
d‟impedire la voce
e coll‟altra m‟afferra
stretta cosí, che già mi credo vinta.
Silently, he approaches me, trying
to embrace me; I try to tear myself away,
but he holds me faster; I scream;
nobody comes. With one hand he tries
to stifle my voice,
and with the other he holds me so fast,
thus, that I already think myself defeated.

DON OTTAVIO DON OTTAVIO

Perfido! e alfin? Disgraceful! And finally?

DONNA ANNA DONNA ANNA

Al fine il duol, l‟orrore
dell‟infame attentato
accrebbe sí la lena mia, che a forza
di svincolarmi, torcermi e piegarmi
da lui mi sciolsi.
Finally, the pain and horror
at the infamous assault
so increased my strength that,
by detaching, twisting and bending myself,
I tore myself away from him.

DON OTTAVIO DON OTTAVIO

Ohimè respiro! (459-79) Oh dear, I breathe again!

The absence from the narration of an “appointed rendezvous” with Don Ottavio and of
the intruder having opportunity to declare his love creates the apparent image of a Donna
Anna more virtuous than her namesake in Bertati and in most other Convitati di pietra. But
should we really take her account at its face value? Not only does she recognize her
attacker by a voice more suitable for the tender words reported by Bertati‟s less demure
Donna Anna than for the threats of a rapist, but as Allanbrook has pointed out, the idea
that Don Giovanni and Donna Anna were sexually united relies on “a careful ambiguity” in
her last five lines. Don Ottavio is led to believe that she „escaped in time‟, but this may not

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be the case at all: line 475 suggests a gap in her narration.634 The ambiguity is supported by
the both connotatively and acoustically evocative verbs “svincolarmi”, “torcermi”,
“piegarmi” and “sciolsi”, which are accompanied by string figures played forte and legato that
may suggest sexual abandon and that lead to a false cadence and a calm piano on Don
Ottavio‟s “respiro”, which may suggest the „dying moment‟. How easily and amusingly the
scene lends itself to an interpretation with sexual undertones – amusing because of the
lady‟s attempt to stage herself as a model of noble virtue and righteous rage and because of
her fiancé‟s starry-eyed credulity – appeared in Bettina Jensen‟s and the conductor Kirill
Petrenko‟s performance in Peter Konwitschny‟s production of Don Giovanni, which I saw at
the Komische Oper in Berlin in 2003. Here Donna Anna‟s accompagnato was one of the
comical highlights of the evening.

The ballroom scene

At the ball in Don Giovanni‟s house in the Act One Finale, three dances, each with its own
rhythm, are played simultaneously by three different stage bands: according to the score,
the minuet is danced by Donna Anna and Don Ottavio, the contredanse by Don Giovanni
and Zerlina, and the allemande by Leporello and Masetto. Daniel Heartz interprets the
three dances as symbols of the respective social classes of the dancing characters, which
leads him to conclude that Don Giovanni is a kind of social impostor who wilfully adopts
the forms of the lower classes in order to pursue his sexual goals: “A man for every social
class, Don Giovanni picks a dance appropriate to Zerlina‟s social status.”635
Both Johann Peter Lyser and Marie Börner-Sandrini tell us, however, that not only
Donna Anna and Don Ottavio, but also the chorus and Don Giovanni and Zerlina danced
the minuet. In his 1847 essay, Lyser claims that “Bassi led the dancing together with
Zerline; Mozart, who is supposed to have been an excellent dancer, rehearsed the minuet
with him and the chorus himself.” But he had already used the anecdote ten years
previously in his short story „Don Juan‟:

In the Act One ball scene, in which he [Mozart] was not sufficiently pleased with
Bassi‟s dancing, he stepped into the line himself and danced the minuet with Zerlina-

634 Allanbrook 1983: 228-9.

635 Heartz 1990: 189.

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 Bondini with so much dignity and so much grace that he did his master Noverre636
great credit.637

Börner-Sandrini added in 1876 that Bassi‟s Don Giovanni, “in accordance with his duty as
host and with respectful gallantry, first asked Donna Anna and Donna Elvira for a dance.”
Only when these had declined his offer, “did he turn – with an indescribable gesture of
indifference – to Zerlina, dancing the minuet with her according to all the rules and with
the greatest nobility, not leading her away before the figure where the couples join hands.”
According to Wye Jamison Allanbrook, it was customary in the 18th century to open
a ball with minuets, probably as a nod to tradition: “Assemblies moved on to the
contredanse as soon as decently as possible, after perfunctorily performing a few minuets
as a solemn prelude to the evening‟s more enthusiastic exercises,” 638 i.e. the contredanses.
To this Daniel Heartz adds that the simultaneous performance of several different dances
within the same ballroom was no uncommon practice in the 1780s,639 which all implies that
the dance sequence was intended as a fairly realistic representation of the social space in
which an urban seducer would play his games. As for Börner-Sandrini‟s detail that Don
Giovanni did not lead Zerlina away before the figure where the couples join hands, Daniel
Heartz tells us that the partners “are across from each other for most of the minuet,
separated by a few yards”, the dance cultivating the aristocratic ideals of deportment and
decorum: “Only at the conclusion do they come together and touch hands, and that is all
they touch.”640 When Lyser remarks in his 1847 essay that “Mozart took the minuet almost
twice as fast as it is taken now”, this may have to do with the fact that the dance was not
originally associated with the aristocratic solemnity of Don Ottavio and Donna Anna (as
Heartz‟ interpretation would suggest), but that also Don Giovanni, Zerlina and the peasant
chorus joined in, who, according to Lyser, consisted of “six male and the same number of
female individuals”.641 With a total of eight couples, the minuet must have been a splendid
spectacle.

636 Though Mozart befriended the famous French dancing-master Jean-Georges Noverre during his stay in
Paris in 1778 and contributed to his ballet Les petits riens, nothing is known about his taking dancing lessons
with him. According to Nissen, Mozart‟s dancing teacher was Gaetano Vestris, generally recognized as the
greatest dancer of his time; Mozart “also danced most beautifully, especially the minuet.” (Nissen 1928: 692).
637 Lyser 1837b (Appendix V).
638 Allanbrook 1983: 61.
639 Heartz 1990: 191-3.
640 Ibid: 182.
641 When Guardasoni‟s company, including Luigi Bassi, made a guest performance of Don Giovanni at the

estates of Prince Lobkowitz in Eisenberg and Raudnitz in 1804, the troupe included ten dancers, however
(Macek 1988: 160).

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 Starting from these observations, we may attempt to reconstruct the dance scene as it
was blocked by Mozart and Da Ponte. The libretto reads as follows:

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Ricominciate il suono.
Si suona come prima.
A Leporello che porrà in ordine etc.
Tu accoppia i ballerini.
Si mette a ballar con Zerlina.
Il tuo compagno io sono:
Zerlina, vien pur qua!
Start the music again!
The band plays as before.
To Leporello who arranges the lines.
You assemble the couples!
He begins to dance with Zerlina.
I am your partner.
Come this way, Zerlina!

LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
Da bravi, via ballate. Cheer up, fellows, start dancing!
Qui ballano. They start dancing.

DONNA ELVIRA A Donna Anna. DONNA ELVIRA to Donna Anna.

(Quella è la contadina). (That is the peasant girl).

DONNA ANNA DONNA ANNA

Io moro! I am dead!

DON OTTAVIO DON OTTAVIO

Simulate. You must feign!

LEPORELLO, MASETTO LEPORELLO, MASETTO and

e DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI
Masetto dirà questo verso in tono ironico. Masetto says this verse in an ironic tone.
Va bene, in verità! It all goes well, in truth!

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

A bada tien Masetto. Keep an eye on Masetto!

LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
Non balli, poveretto. You are not dancing, poor wretch.
Vien qua, Masetto caro, Come here, my dear Masetto,
facciam quel ch‟altri fa. let‟s do what the others do.

MASETTO MASETTO
No no, ballar non voglio. No, I won‟t dance.

LEPORELLO Fa ballar per forza Masetto. LEPORELLO forces Masetto to dance.

Eh balla, amico mio! Hey, dance, my friend!

DONNA ANNA A Donna Elvira. DONNA ANNA to Donna Elvira.

(Resister non poss‟io). (I can‟t stand it any longer).

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 DONNA ELVIRA e DON OTTAVIO DONNA ELVIRA & DON OTTAVIO
(Fingete, per pieta!) (You must feign; we implore you!)

DON GIOVANNI Ballando conduce DON GIOVANNI leads Zerlina, while

Zerlina presso una porta e la fa entrare quasi dancing, towards a door and makes her enter,
per forza. almost by force.
Vieni con me, mia vita… Come with me, my life…

ZERLINA ZERLINA
Oh numi! Son tradita! O Gods! I am betrayed!

MASETTO Si cava dalle mani di Leporello MASETTO tears himself away from Leporello
e seguita Zerlina. and runs after Zerlina.
Lasciami! Ah no! Zerlina!... Let me go! Ah no! Zerlina!...

LEPORELLO Sorte in fretta. LEPORELLO runs out in haste.

Qui nasce una ruina. This will lead to disaster.

DONNA ELVIRA, DON OTTAVIO DONNA ELVIRA, DON OTTAVIO

e DONNA ANNA and DONNA ANNA
L‟iniquo da se stesso The villain walks into the trap
nel laccio se ne va. of his own accord.

ZERLINA Di denctro ad alta voce, ZERLINA offstage, in a shrill voice,

strepito di piedi a destra. the sound of feet from the right.
Gente aiuto, aiuto gente. (713-35) Someone, help! Help, someone!

When setting this scene to music, Mozart relocated both poetic lines and stage directions,
but, as the anecdotes reveal, the original production did not even follow the stage
directions in the score. According to the score, the first stage band begins to play the
minuet after Don Giovanni‟s second line (not after his first), and Don Ottavio starts
dancing with Donna Anna already here. From Börner-Sandrini, however, we know that this
did not happen until she had refused to dance with Don Giovanni. Mozart has relocated
the indication that Don Giovanni begins to dance with Zerlina, as well as his two lines to
her, to the beginning of the contredanse, but the relocation of the stage direction appears
to have been a mistake: in fact, Bassi‟s Don Giovanni started to dance with Zerlina when
Don Ottavio starts dancing with Donna Anna. This also explains some of the lines that
may otherwise seem obscure: when Don Giovanni orders Leporello to assemble the
couples, this evidently means that everyone should dance, including himself. The only people
on stage not dancing the minuet are Leporello, Masetto and Donna Elvira, and only
therefore can Leporello press Masetto with the argument that this is “what the others do.”
Accordingly, Donna Elvira‟s line to Donna Anna (“That is the peasant girl”) as well as

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Donna Anna‟s horrified response (“I am dead!”) are prompted by seeing Zerlina dancing
with the seducer, and it also prompts Don Giovanni‟s and Leporello‟s contented “It all
goes well, in truth!” as well as Masetto‟s embittered repetition of the same words. Finally,
the fact that the couples “are across from each other for most of the minuet, separated by a
few yards”, allows Don Giovanni to converse with Leporello while dancing without being
heard by Zerlina, just as it allows Donna Anna and Don Ottavio to converse with Donna
Elvira. Leporello‟s exchange with Masetto, which Mozart has expanded considerably
through word-repetitions, begins at the end of the minuet, at the point when Don
Giovanni and Zerlina would “come together and touch hands”, and it is exactly this figure
which master and servant do not want the jealous bridegroom to witness. It is also here
that Don Giovanni asks Zerlina for a second dance, the contredanse, for which the second
stage band has begun to tune their instruments. The reason for this is obvious: not only
does the lively contredanse call for more bodily contact than does the minuet, but it was
presumably intended to be performed towards one of the sides of the stage, which means
that Don Giovanni is given an excuse for “leading her away”, as Bôrner-Sandrini says, i.e.
out of Masetto‟s reach (“Come this way, Zerlina!”). It is the new sight of the seducer
dancing the contredanse with the peasant girl, of his steady progress, which prompts Donna
Anna‟s next injection (“I can‟t stand it any longer”). Masetto‟s quarrel with Leporello lasts
the whole contredanse, which means that Don Giovanni has free rein with Zerlina, and
Leporello only starts dancing the allemande with him at the moment when his bride is led
away.
This presumed blocking of the dance scene tends to confirm the image of Don
Giovanni as an elegant lady-killer drawn from the everyday life of the 1780s rather than as a
demonic villain or a social revolutionary. As mentioned, Felicity Baker points out that he
only leads Zerlina away “quasi per forza”, and the clauses of the Austro-Hungarian censors
may imply that this „force‟ was introduced into the libretto merely in order to appease
censorship. Like the „assault‟ on Donna Anna, little indicates that the situation should be
interpreted as an attempted rape at all, which has been the traditional interpretation; more
likely, Caterina Bondini‟s Zerlina was charmed by Don Giovanni‟s sugary tone and elegant
manners, as she had been in I.ix. In that case, Elaine Sisman is probably right when she
suggests that “Zerlina screams during the Act 1 Finale not because Don Giovanni is
attempting rape, but rather because she knows that if she does not make a scene no one

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will ever believe that nothing occurred; only one missing narrative to a customer.” 642 As
suggested earlier, the reaction of the other characters to Don Giovanni‟s second attempt to
seduce Zerlina is extremely exaggerated in this context and exposes the grotesque
discrepancy between the seducer‟s transgressions and society‟s moral condemnation.643
Since Hoffmann, there has sometimes been a tendency to view the closing stretta in a
„sublime‟ light. Hoffmannesque echoes are certainly discernible in Hermann Abert,
according to whom the orchestral thunder in the stretta betrays “a stronger power – a
feature pointing towards romantic opera”,644 but as Julian Rushton has pointed out, the
„transcendent‟ effect is hard to maintain if the “riotous mass” mentioned by Hoffmann
consists of only five people, three of them women. Indeed, Bassi told Friedrich Heinse that
according to Mozart‟s original idea, “the country people gathering at Don Juan‟s party flee
as soon as they notice a serious quarrel arising between the two gentlemen, and the stirring
stretta of the first Finale is executed by the main characters alone.” Though Heinse placed
the exeunt of the chorus later than in Da Ponte‟s libretto, where they leave already when
Zerlina starts screaming, it is clear that only the main characters should be on stage at the
end.

642 Sisman 2006: 191 (note).

643 Comparing the different text versions of the Act One Finale, Charles C. Russell has argued that Mozart‟s
score tones down the buffo elements of Da Ponte‟s libretto, thereby transforming “a jolly seduction” into “a
serious attempted rape” (Russell 1997: 32). Russell focuses on the fact that the score omits stage directions
referring to Zerlina‟s offstage movements and to Don Giovanni‟s semi-armed re-entrance, and this leads him
to support the romantic and modern interpretation of the title role as “a heroic or demonic figure” (Ibid: 33).
Allegedly, the music itself does not always lend support to Da Ponte‟s text: after her first offstage scream for
help, Zerlina “has only about six measures to get in position for her next offstage scream, passing from stage
right across stage rear to stage left”, and the three maskers, following the direction of her voice, “have only
about five measures to recognize that she is now on the other side of the stage; to get there, presumably from
stage right; to stand before a door; to notice that it is locked and to make this fact clear to the audience”
(Ibid: 32). As Russell mentions himself, however, the omission of stage directions in a score did not mean
that they were not meant to be observed, and his assumption that the singers had to move from one wing to
the other is based on a false idea of 18th stage design. The stage could not have been closed to the sides,
which means that the doors would have to be located on the back scene, implying that the distance to be
covered by the singers would have been much smaller. Russell maintains, furthermore, that Mozart ignored
the stage direction “Don Giovanni pretends to want to wound him [Leporello], but the sword will not leave
the sheath”. In support of his claim, he summons the libretto published under Da Ponte‟s supervision in
connection with the New York premiere in 1826 (cf. the facsimile in Müller & Panagl 1991). Some of the
stage directions in this version depart from the original version, evidently in favour of a more „violent‟ Don
Giovanni, and in Russell‟s opinion this shows “that Da Ponte may finally have come around to Mozart‟s way
of thinking or at least that he was willing to let comedy slip somewhat into the background”, Mozart‟s
presumed intention being “an earnest struggle between good and evil” (Russell 1997: 35). The New York
libretto, however, was printed for a production by the visiting troupe of the famous tenor Manuel García who
himself sang the title role who must have certainly have formed his own – decidedly romantic – interpretation
of the opera before Da Ponte got into the picture. That the poet revised his libretto in 1826, consequently,
reveals less about his view of the opera than about his pragmatic view of the operatic trade: always a practical
man of the theatre, he would not hesitate to adapt his work to suit the current taste.
644 Abert 1956: 428.

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 Charles C. Russell has argued that Mozart deliberately buried the first of Don
Giovanni‟s two quatrains in the stretta in the musical texture, since these lines did not
support the composer‟s alleged conception of Don Giovanni as a demonic figure:645

È confusa la mia testa My head is confused,

non so piú quel ch‟io mi faccia, I no longer know what I am doing,
e un‟orribile tempesta and a horrible tempest
minacciando, oddio, mi va. is threatening me, o God.

Ma non manca in me coraggio, But I do not lack courage,

non mi perdo o mi confondo, I shall not be lost or confounded:
se cadesse ancora il mondo, even if the world comes to an end,
nulla mai temer mi fa. (760-7) I shall fear nothing.

According to Russell, “Mozart‟s solution” was to bury the problematic first quatrain “as
much as possible in a low, repeated sotto voce pattern […] against sharp, loud, clearly
articulated denunciations and threats from Don Giovanni‟s enemies”, whereas his voice
breaks free and gains heroic strength in the second quatrain, making it “impossible for
anyone in the audience not to hear or understand what he is saying”, and thus presenting a
final image of Don Giovanni “fully in command of himself”.646
Not only is this interpretation characteristic of the extremely un-Mozartian 20th-
century notion that the music can or should work against the text, but it also seems
influenced by modern performance practice that often gives little attention to clear delivery
of the text. In fact, Don Giovanni‟s first quatrain is not necessarily covered by other voices,
as Russell claims: the first two lines, which are to be sung sotto voce, are sometimes
accompanied only by slender orchestral punctuations played piano (and the original band
still contained only eight violins), whereas it goes without saying that the last two lines,
which are accompanied alternately by an orchestral forte evoking the “horrible tempest” and
by oboes and low strings only, should not be sung sotto voce at all. Every word that Da
Ponte wrote is meant to be heard by the audience.
In other words, Da Ponte and Mozart presented Don Giovanni as a much more frail
and human character than Russell would have him: once more, the young man is standing
with his back to the wall, cornered by a quintet of the morally self-righteous and fighting to
gain his footing. Lyser‟s Bassi describes the first Finale as “overflowing with joy, fun and
boldness until the spot with the three maskers, and ending with the fortunate escape of

645 Russell 1997: 33.

646 Ibid: 33-4.

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Don Giovanni and his servant.” This suggests that the encounter between Don Giovanni
and the others was indeed one of the few dark moments of the opera originally, but also
that sympathy was with the seducer and that their escape suggested a preliminary lieto fine.
Lyser‟s Old Music Director claimed never to have heard “such penetration as Bassi‟s in the
first Finale on the words “ma non manca in me coraggio””, which suggests a heroic note:
the first Finale foreshadows the second Finale in which Don Giovanni‟s courage will not
suffice, but it also, by inversion, exposes his ultimate punishment as social rather than
divine.

Masetto, the Stone Guest and the Furies of hell

When the Stone Guest, according to Friedrich Heinse, enters in the second Finale, “Don
Juan (as Bassi saw it, with Mozart‟s own approval) takes this odd sight for a mortal avenger
in disguise”, and according to Marie Bôrner-Sandrini, Bassi “behaved as a completely calm,
fearless, indifferent gentleman who, suspecting an attempt on his person or at least a bad
joke, is most unpleasantly affected by the scene.”
Don Giovanni has indeed good reasons to suspect a violent assault: in the opera‟s
opening scene the Commendatore had insisted on mortal combat; in the ballroom scene
Don Ottavio had threatened him with a gun in his own home; in the subsequent street
scene Masetto, armed with a musket and a pistol, had expressed the desire to “kill him” and
“tear him to pieces”; and in the atrium scene Don Ottavio, backed up by the other
characters, had almost killed Leporello whom he took for his master in the dark.647 Don
Giovanni is not popular among the men. But who exactly was the “mortal avenger” from
whom Bassi‟s Don Giovanni suspected a design against himself in the supper scene?
Both in the original production and in the first Viennese production, the
Commendatore and Masetto were performed by the same singer: Giuseppe Lolli in Prague,
Francesco Bussani in Vienna. In his 1847 essay Lyser laconically included among the pieces
of information allegedly gathered from Bassi, but in reality gathered from their common
Dresden acquaintances, that “the performer of the Commendatore also played the role of
Masetto”. One of Lyser‟s sources may have added something to this well-known fact,
which anyone could have found in Nissen‟s Mozart biography from 1828, but what? In
Mozart‟s speech to the cast in Lyser‟s 1837 short story „Don Juan‟ we find the following
remarks:

647 “In atto di ucciderlo. No no, morrà!” (1032).

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 Signor Giuseppo [sic] Lolli has, due to his affection for me, taken over Massetto in
addition to the already quite extensive part of the Commendatore, because he wants
all roles to be performed well! – I have already thanked him in private for his love
and attention and now do it once more.648

It is not unlikely that these details were invented by Lyser, but it is striking, nevertheless,
that Lolli was the only the singer in the cast whom Mozart could actually have known from
Vienna where he had performed in the previous season, which fact Lyser could not have
read anywhere. It is also noteworthy that Lolli, among the whole cast, had the longest and
most remarkable stage career behind him: having made his debut as early as 1770, he had
created the role of Sumers in Domenico Cimarosa‟s Italiana in Londra in Rome in 1779, in
which role he had made his Viennese debut in 1786,649 and he was later described as “an
excellent singer” who in 1792 sang Mozart‟s Bartolo in Prague “to an unqualified
applause”.650 In 1856, furthermore, when Lyser lamented the disappearance of “the art of
the opera buffa singers of old”, he momentarily forgot that Leporello had been sung by
Ponziani when maintaining that “the Don Giovannis and Leporellos of our time are no
Bassis and Lollis”. Could it be that Lyser heard Lolli praised as the excellent buffo whom
Mozart had brought with him from Vienna because he needed an experienced comedian to take
on the demanding double role of the Commendatore and Masetto? That the roles were meant
to be doubled appears from the fact that they were doubled in Vienna too – by Bussani
who had doubled the roles of Bartolo and Antonio in the original production of Figaro, and
who in 1790 became the first Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte.
If we accept that the doubling of the Commendatore and Masetto was not due to
thrift or a lack of able performers, but that the roles were meant to be doubled by a
dramatically gifted buffo, a number of dramaturgical points suddenly stand out. It not just
becomes possible, but inevitable that Bassi‟s Don Giovanni would have taken the Stone
Guest for Masetto, “a mortal avenger in disguise”, who had come to make a second
“attempt on his person” or at least to play “a bad joke” on him in return for the practical
joke of being beaten up by an equally disguised Don Giovanni.
The doubling would underline Da Ponte‟s asymmetrical juxtaposition of the beating
and the damnation scenes which Felicity Baker has already shown to be a grotesque
unmasking of the injustice of the seducer‟s punishment: “Masetto‟s plan to murder Don

648 Lyser 1837b (Appendix V).

649 Cf. Weidinger 2002 Vol. I: 116-21.
650 Dlabacž 1973: „Lolli‟.

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Giovanni is far in excess of the humane though insulting lesson he receives, the mild
chastisement of a beating; thus the beating scene serves to demonstrate, by
contradistinction, that Don Giovanni‟s death by torture is far in excess of the disturbance
he has caused in his society and the pain he has inflicted on women.” Baker‟s interpretation
is further supported by the fact that Don Giovanni, in Da Ponte‟s preliminary version of
the libretto, serves Masetto with “kicks and blows, while laughing”,651 whereas he merely
“beats Masetto with the flat side of his sword” in the final version. Obviously, Mozart or
Bassi found it necessary to emphasize the gentlemanly aspect of Don Giovanni‟s character
– as a contrast both to the brutality of Masetto and to the extreme horror of the seducer‟s
death. Through the doubling of Masetto and the Stone Guest, the primitive violence of the
former and the religiously justified violence of the latter are exposed as two sides of the
same coin. The supreme irony of the doubling and the profound sophistication of Da
Ponte‟s dramaturgy are contained in Masetto‟s grumbling answer to Zerlina when she asks
him who has beaten him up: “Leporello or some devil that resembles him.”652 When the
Stone Guest enters Don Giovanni‟s dining room in the Finale, this scion of the Age of
Reason who has little faith in bogeymen naturally expects the strange figure to be a
disguised Masetto, but tragically – or rather, grotesquely – it turns out to be “some devil
that resembles him”. Although enlightened, Don Giovanni does not live in an enlightened
world, but in a world where common sense and respect for the rights and independence of
the individual lose to the absurd logic and obsolete „Spanish‟ morality of Il convitato di pietra.
The role-doubling would naturally affect the performance of the opera in different
ways: it should probably be regarded as a virtuoso comical act, and most likely Lolli was
able to create not only a contrast in body language, but a contrast in vocal makeup for the
two roles, just as Bassi would have done when Don Giovanni disguises himself as
Leporello. Conjecturing the nature of these contrasts exceeds the limits of this treatment; I
shall merely point out that they most probably would have highlighted the theatrical, and
hence the potentially comical, dimension of the Stone Guest, which would support the
dramatic ironies discussed above.653

651 “Dà de’ calci e de’ pugni a Masetto ridendo.” (Da Ponte 1995: 103 (note)).
652 “Leporello / o qualche diavol che somiglia a lui.” (963-4).
653 The doubling also has a practical consequence which seems to have escaped the notice of scholars and

editors: according to the Prague libretto and the manuscript score, Masetto is to remain on stage throughout
II.x and to exit together with Donna Elvira, Zerlina and Don Ottavio after “Il mio tesoro intanto”. This
leaves him no time to change into the statue‟s costume, however, which he should wear at the beginning of
the following scene: the change would only have been possible if Masetto left the stage before the others.
This raises the question whether the end of the atrium scene was really performed as set down in the Prague

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 The planned doubling and the fact that Don Giovanni does not take the Stone Guest
for a ghost in the Finale should naturally influence our reading of the cemetery scene.
Indeed, already the beginning of the dialogue between Don Giovanni and his servant
contains not only another instance of the seducer playing with his vocal makeup, but a
potential play on Masetto‟s „disguise‟ as a ghost:

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

È desso; oh Leporello. That‟s him; oh Leporello.

LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
Chi mi chiama? Who says my name?

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Non conosci il padron? Don‟t you know your master?

LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
Cosí nol conoscessi! I never knew him thus!

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Come birbo? How, scoundrel?

LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
Ah siete voi, scusate. (1114-7) Oh, it‟s you; excuse me.

Though we cannot know with what tone of voice Bassi said “oh Leporello” and “Non
conosci il padron”, the situation seems to call for a „sepulchral‟ voice with which the
prankish Don Giovanni tries to scare his superstitious servant. Setting the scene for the
actual sepulchral voice of the Commendatore, this brief vocal masquerade reveals in
advance that Don Giovanni regards such supernatural occurrences as mere ghost stories
for simple souls.

libretto, or if the Viennese version of II.ix-x, or parts thereof, in which Masetto leaves immediately after
Leporello (Cf. Da Ponte 1995: 105 (note)), were already performed at the premiere in Prague. This, in turn,
leads to the question whether Leporello‟s aria “Ah pietà signori miei” was ever performed in Prague: as
Weidinger has shown, textual variations of the scene following the Sextet, which are in Giacomo Casanova‟s
hand and were found in his estate (Cf. Weidinger 2002 Vol. IV: 991-1017), indicate that Mozart was
dissatisfied with the aria for one reason or another, which may have been the real reason why it was omitted
in Vienna. Maybe the revisions were made too late to be included in the printed libretto, in which case the
Viennese version of II.ix-x may have been written by Casanova. This does not explain, however, why Mozart
did not enter such changes into the manuscript score. In this context, it is interesting that Lyser wrongly
considered Leporello‟s aria “Ah pietà, signori miei” an addition made for the Viennese production (Lyser
1849: 66; Lyser 1856: 87). Weidinger convincingly argues that Mozart already in Prague pondered a revision
of the scene following the sextet (II.ix), which was completely rewritten for the Viennese premiere
(Weidinger 2002 Vol. IV: 991-1017). If Mozart indeed omitted Leporello‟s aria in Vienna not because of the
new singers, but because he was dissatisfied with it, Lyser‟s rejection of it may indeed reflect a tradition going
back to Bassi.

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 Since the seducer‟s encounter with the statue in the cemetery was a key situation in
the traditional Convitato di pietra, there is good reason to compare Da Ponte‟s treatment with
Bertati‟s, on which the remainder of the opera (except from the scene in Donna Anna‟s
house) has been modelled. First of all, the moral difference between the two seducers is
apparent from the fact that Bertati‟s Don Giovanni has come to the cemetery in full
daylight with the obvious intention of mocking Donna Anna‟s dead father. “Is it not
enough that you have killed him”, his servant Pasquariello asks, “Do you even have the
need to come and see his grave? But is not this an act against nature?” Don Giovanni is
ruthless, however: “What a fool you are! What an idiot! Why should there be any harm in
coming to see, for the fun of it, how he dwells now that he is dead?”654
In Da Ponte‟s libretto, on the other hand, Don Giovanni ends up on the cemetery by
coincidence at two in the morning. He only recognizes the equestrian statue of the
Commendatore because a mysterious voice suddenly pronounces his death sentence:

Di rider finirai pria dell‟aurora. (1148) Your laughter shall cease before dawn.

The superstitious Leporello believes that the voice belongs to “some spirit from the other
world who knows you inside out”,655 but Don Giovanni, who refuses to accept such
nonsense, is convinced that it belongs to “someone out there who pokes fun at us” 656 just
as he himself poked fun at Masetto earlier in the act and at Leporello a moment ago. He
strikes the gravestones with his sword in search of the prankster, prompting a reprimand
from the spirit:

Ribaldo audace, Audacious scoundrel!

lascia a‟ morti la pace. (1152-3) Leave the dead in peace.

A more subtle difference between the two librettos has to do with the epitaph on the
Commendatore‟s tomb. In Bertati, it reads like this:

Di colui che mi trasse a morte ria, I wait here for heaven‟s revenge
dal ciel qui aspetto la vendetta mia. (xx) on him who killed me wickedly.

And in Da Ponte, like this:

654 “PASQUARIELLO: Non vi basta / che l‟abbiate ammazzato, / che vi viene anche voglia / di andar
vedere la sua sepoltura? / Ma questo non è un far contro natura? / DON GIOVANNI: Che stolido! Che
sciocco! / Che male c‟è, se vengo / a veder per diporto / come sta ben di casa ora ch‟è morto?” (xx)
655 “Ah qualche anima / sarà dell‟altro mondo / che vi conosce a fondo.” (1149-51).
656 “Sarà qualcun di fuori / che si burla di noi…” (1154-5).

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 Dell‟empio che mi trasse al passo estremo I wait here for revenge
qui attendo la vendetta. (1161-2) on the impious man who killed me.

Da Ponte has removed the reference to heaven from the Commendatore‟s epitaph, thereby
toning down the religious aspect of Don Giovanni‟s punishment at the end of the opera,
which once more supports Baker‟s claim that the damnation of the seducer is societal
rather than divine.
This does not mean, however, that the voice or appearance of the statue should be
less serious. Quite on the contrary, Mozart seems to have taken great pains to ensure that
the statue became much more awe-inspiring than was the case in the traditional farce:
surely – and indeed the wrath of a petrified society cloaking its oppression in a religious
aura is no less frightening than a speaking statue. In his 1847 essay, Lyser informs us that
the “3 trombones, 2 contrabasses and bassoons which form the accompaniment of the two
chorales of the stone man were posted on the stage behind the pedestal; Mozart‟s friend
Dussek conducted these two pieces, the effect is supposed to have been awe-inspiringly
beautiful.” This detail had already been included in his 1837 short story, in which we hear
that Mozart “had posted the three trombonists behind the tomb in the cemetery scene in
order to enhance the horror effect of the two adagios sung by the stone man.”657 That the
placement of the accompaniment behind the equestrian statue of the Commendatore was
still the practice in Dresden appears from Lyser‟s 1849 review of a Viennese production of
the opera, to which the Dresden production is favourably compared: “the trombones,
bassoons and the six contrabasses accompanying the two chorales of the stone man are
placed in the trapdoor behind the horse, which makes a horrifying impression”.658
Lyser‟s indication that the accompaniment consisted merely of trombones, bassoons
and contrabasses is slightly puzzling, since the score also includes two oboes and two
clarinets, but it may have reflected theatrical practice in Dresden. At all events, Lyser knew
Mozart‟s score almost by heart and he certainly knew the following anecdote, which was
recorded in Nissen‟s biography, and on which he drew extensively in his 1837 and 1856
short stories about Mozart in Prague:

In 1787, when Mozart held the first rehearsal of his opera Don Juan, he broke off at
the Commendatore‟s passages, “Di rider finirai etc.” and “Ribaldo audace etc.”,
which were accompanied by three trombones only, because one of the trombonists

657 Lyser 1837b (Appendix V).

658 Lyser 1849 (Appendix X).

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 did not play his part correctly. As it did not go any better at the second try, Mozart
went to his music desk and told him how he wanted it executed, to which the man
replied quite dryly: “It cannot be played that way, and I am not going to learn from
you how to do it.” Mozart retorted smilingly: “God forbid that I should teach you
how to play the trombone; just give me your part, and I will change it right away.”
This he did, also adding two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons.659

The first fact which supports Lyser‟s anecdote about the onstage placing of the
accompaniment is that the trombones are heard only in the two scenes with the statue.
This makes it plausible that they appeared exclusively as stage instruments, though the
players may have slipped into the pit before the entrance of the Stone Guest in the Finale
in order to see the conductor. In support of Nissen‟s anecdote speaks the fact that two
oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons were already available to Mozart as onstage
instruments, since the table music in the second Finale features exactly these instruments in
addition to two horns and a cello. Apart from the trombones and the contrabasses, the
statue accompaniments could thus be performed by the same musicians who played the
table music, the contrabasses having already appeared in the first Finale, however, where
the dance music may be performed by four violins, a viola, a cello, two contrabasses, two
oboes, two horns and possibly two bassoons.
The onstage placing of the statue‟s accompaniment calls to mind Mozart‟s
description of how he had envisioned the accompaniment of the oracular voice in the
original production of Idomeneo six years previously:

The accompaniment to the subterranean voice consists of five instruments only, that
is, three trombones and two French horns, which are placed in the same quarter as
that from which the voice proceeds. At this point the whole orchestra is silent.660

In a previous letter to his father, Mozart had spoken of the effect he hoped to create with
this passage:

Tell me, don‟t you think that the speech of the subterranean voice is too long?
Consider it carefully. Picture to yourself the theatre, and remember that the voice
must be terrifying – must penetrate – that the audience must believe that it really
exists. Well, how can this effect be produced if the speech is too long, for in this case
the listeners will become more and more convinced that it means nothing. If the
speech of the Ghost in Hamlet were not so long, it would be far more effective.661

659 Nissen 1828: 559.

660 Letter to his Father of 3 January 1781.
661 Letter to his Father of 29 November 1780.

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Mozart clearly wanted to repeat this trick from Idomeneo with in Don Giovanni: the brevity of
the Commendatore‟s speeches and the three onstage trombones both point in this
direction. Indeed, stage music in the opera house, through its displacement of the acoustic
sources, is capable of giving the audience a temporary experience of presence which can be
exploited to create either a reality effect, as is the case with the onstage bands in the two
Finales, or an unreality effect, as is the case with the trombones accompanying the statue. This
may have been what the composer meant when he declared that “the audience must
believe that it really exists”. The „unreality effect‟, however, since it relies on the sudden
suspension of an operatic convention, can only be momentary, of which Mozart was aware:
the impression depends on succinctness.
This adds another dimension to Da Ponte‟s claim that the composer had determined
to cast Il convitato di pietra “exclusively as serious”: like the subterranean voice in Idomeneo,
the voice of the Commendatore “must be terrifying – must penetrate” the souls of the
audience, which was a far throw from the traditional commedia dell’arte statue criticized by
Goldoni “who speaks, walks, dines out, invites people to supper, threatens, revenges itself,
and works miracles”. It is tempting to conclude from this attempt at a „sublime‟ effect that
the Commendatore was intended as a divine agent, but as the comparison with Bertati‟s
libretto reveals, Da Ponte carefully toned down religious references. This goes for the
epitaph, but it also goes for the libertine‟s traditional blasphemy, which in Bertati manifests
itself in these words:

Oh vecchio stolto! E ancor di lui più
stolto
quel che la fece incidere!
La vendetta del ciel? Mi vien da ridere.
[…]
Va‟, va‟ a dire alla statua
che della sua minaccia io non m‟offendo,
anzi rido. E perchè veda ch‟io rido
di questo a bocca piena,
meco l‟invita questa sera a cena. (xx)
Oh, foolish old man! And even more
foolish than him
is the one who carved these words!
The vengeance of Heaven! I must laugh.
[…]
Go, go and tell the statue
that I am not offended at his threat,
but that I laugh. And as he should see
that I roar with laughter at this,
invite him to sup with me tonight.

The supper invitation of Bertati‟s Don Giovanni is presented unambiguously as an act of

blasphemy and as a scornful insult to the man whom he has cruelly killed in combat. This
contrasts with Da Ponte‟s libretto, in which Don Giovanni reacts in the following manner
to the epitaph:

233
 O vecchio buffonissimo! O most comical old man!
Digli che questa sera Tell him that tonight
l‟attendo a cena meco. (1163-5) I shall await him at my supper.

The religious reference being absent from the tombstone, Don Giovanni no longer laughs
at the “vengeance of Heaven”, and the “foolish old man” has become the “most comical
old man”: Don Giovanni knows what happened in Donna Anna‟s bedroom, he knows that
her father “begged for injury himself” and that he has no right, consequently, to demand
revenge in such self-righteous manner. In a sense, the Commendatore really is a “vecchio
buffonissimo”, irascible and blustering, which characteristics might well have been
enhanced when the role was sung by the company‟s terzo buffo who doubled as Masetto. In
his defence of Don Giovanni as a comedy, Lyser‟s Bassi points out that “the two chorales of
the stone man are indeed harrowing, but above them is heard Don Giovanni‟s
presumptuous, bold invitation”, which seems to imply that the invitation had a comical
flavour dispelling the gothic gloom of the chorales. This does not suggest demonic
wickedness, though Sabine Henze-Döhring speaks for many when she interprets Don
Giovanni‟s behaviour in the scene as “contempt for the dead man” and describes his
supper invitation as “the height of scorn”, which “once more confirms Don Giovanni‟s
character”.662 In fact, Da Ponte has turned the supper invitation into the practical joke of
an anti-obscurantist poking fun at his benighted servant. Leporello is half-dead with fright
at encountering the Commendatore‟s sinister-looking statue in the nocturnal cemetery, and
the enlightened Don Giovanni, who does not believe in ghosts, amuses himself by forcing
his servant to converse with the stone figure:

Che gusto, che spassetto, What gusto! What a nice little joke!
lo voglio far tremar. (1178-9). I shall make him tremble.

The contrast between the „sublime‟ voice of the Commendatore and its ironical framing is
enhanced in Don Giovanni‟s and Leporello‟s duet, “O statua gentilissima”, which opens in
an unambiguous buffo style. The horror-stricken Leporello claims that the statue nods and
Don Giovanni refuses to believe it until beholding it with his own eyes. This prompts the
following lines which master and servant sing a due:

Colla marmorea testa With his marble head

ei fa cosí, cosí. (1195-6) he does like this, like this.

662 Henze-Döhring 1986: 222.

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Apparently, both the preceding situation and the simultaneous imitation of the nodding
statue hark back to traditional commedia dell’arte routines such as the „lazzo of the statue‟, in
which Arlecchino, who is brought in as a statue, plays tricks on the other characters when
their backs are turned, always returning to the statue position when they look at him. 663
Whereas this situation, in other words, seems to have retained the comical mood, Lyser
suggests that a change in Bassi‟s behaviour occurred for his next lines:

Parlate, se potete, Speak, if you can:

verrete a cena? (1197-8) will you come for supper?

“Bassi, following Mozart‟s express intention, treated his part as Don Giovanni almost
parlando until the moment when he, made attentive by Leporello‟s narration, boldly –
though not without a secret shudder – approaches the statue in order to convey his
invitation himself.” At the said lines “Bassi let his voice sound amply and for a long time,
which at the first performance in Prague caused a thundering applause to interrupt him
here, so that one could only guess the stone monument‟s answer from its nodding.” The
change from the speech-like parlando, which had characterized the scene till this point, and
the full-toned singing of the invitation suggests the sudden advent of seriousness, but since
we know that Bassi took the Stone Guest for a mortal in disguise in the supper scene, he
must, of course, have done the same here. Indeed, his last lines in the scene do not imply
that he has changed his view of the hereafter:

Bizzarra è inver la scena, The scene is truly bizarre:

verrà il buon vecchio a cena. the good old man will come to supper.
A prepararla andiamo… Let us go and prepare it…
partiamo via di qui. (1199-1202) Let us leave this place.

Although unable to come up with a proper explanation, he must have assumed that the
speaking statue is somehow a mortal who pokes fun at him or threatens him. In other
words, Don Giovanni‟s basic attitude towards the statue is the one shared by Molière,
Goldoni, Goethe and all other enlightened people who saw themselves as high above the
popular superstitions of the Leporellos of this world: as a theatrical trick.
The ambiguous mixture of comedy and secret terror also seems to have characterized
the entrance of the Stone Guest in the Finale. Donna Elvira‟s encounter with the statue

663 Gordon 1983: 11.

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must at least have had a comical tint: having hurled her insults at the seducer, according to
the Prague libretto, she “leaves, then re-enters, emitting a horrible cry, and flees towards
the other side.”664 An anecdote recorded by Jan Nepomuk Štĕpánek in 1825, which deals
with Zerlina in the ballroom scene, originally seems to have dealt with this situation:

Mozart studied the roles with each of the named members of the cast himself.
During the first stage rehearsal of this opera, when, after several repeats, Signora
Bondini as Zerlina failed to cry adequately and at the right moment when grabbed by
Don Juan at the end of Act One, Mozart left the orchestra, went to the stage, had the
scene repeated once more and waited for the right moment, at which he grabbed her
so quickly and violently that she cried in fright. “That is right,” he said, praising her,
“That is how one should cry.”665

The obvious reason why this anecdote could never have referred to Zerlina is that she
never cries in the first Finale. Her twice-heard offstage “Scellerato” (“Wicked man”) is
indeed described in the libretto as a “cry”,666 but it is a sung word all the same, whereas
Donna Elvira really has an A flat cry (“Ah!”) in the second Finale. Furthermore, Mozart
must have attached such importance to Donna Elvira‟s expression of terror because Don
Giovanni and Leporello are to react with astonishment: “What a cry! What a cry!”667 The
transfer of the anecdote from the second to the first Finale testifies once more to the
stigmatization of Don Giovanni and to the tragic-demonic interpretation of the drama
which had become conventional by 1825. Firstly, it is highly unlikely that Bassi‟s Don
Giovanni gave Zerlina cause to cry out that violently in the ballroom scene, and secondly,
the cry acquires, when transferred from the ballroom scene to the entrance of the Stone
Guest, a comical tint.
The obvious elements of comedy included in the scene with the Stone Guest are
mainly associated with Leporello. When Donna Elvira has left, Don Giovanni sends his
servant off to find out what scared her. Leporello “leaves and, before he returns, emits an
even louder cry”,668 sounding “like one possessed”, as his master describes it.669 Leporello‟s
repetition of Donna Elvira‟s cry thus becomes a veritable „terror lazzo‟ requiring the
performer to „out-cry‟ the soprano. Judging from his humorous tone in the Štĕpánek
anecdote, this may well have been the kind of effect Mozart aimed at, especially since

664 “Sorte, poi rientra mettendo un grido orribile, e fugge dall’altra parte.” (1307).
665 Stiepanek 1828: 519-20.
666 ”Si sente il grido e lo strepito dalla parte opposta.” (737).
667 ”Che grido è questo mai!” (1307).
668 “Sorte, e prima di tornare mette un grido ancor piú forte.” (1309).
669 “Che grido indiavolato!” (1309).

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Leporello‟s behaviour in the scene is composed of similar terror lazzi, including his
disconnected description of the approaching statue: “Ah master… Please!... Don‟t go out
that way!... The stone man… I‟m paralyzed… I‟m fainting… If you saw that figure!... If
you heard how he does. Ta ta ta ta ta ta ta.”670 No less comical is his hiding under the table
instead of opening the door, as his master orders him to do, and only when Don Giovanni
tells him to lay a place for the Stone Guest, he “crawls out and makes for the door with
many terror-stricken gestures”,671 suggesting more terror lazzi. When the Stone Guest
prevents him from slipping away, to the sound of a startling orchestral forte, this is likely to
have prompted another comical physical reaction from Ponziani, which gives way to the
trembling state described in his subsequent lines: “I seem to have the tertian fever: I can no
longer keep my limbs still.”672 Even at the dramatic highpoint of the scene, Don Giovanni‟s
final heroic exchange with the Commendatore, Leporello‟s remarks have a clearly comical
flavour: when the Stone Guest returns the supper invitation, he cries “from afar,
trembling”, that Don Giovanni “has no time, sorry”,673 while crying to his master the next
moment: “Tell him no!”674
Leporello‟s comical terror both here and in the cemetery scene corresponds entirely
to the servant‟s traditional reactions in Il convitato di pietra, in which the statue scenes were
played for laughs. Da Ponte and Mozart may have retained this comical element in their
“serious” version in order to create a contrast to Don Giovanni‟s behaviour, which departs
significantly from that of the traditional seducer: Don Giovanni behaves as an enlightened
sceptic, whereas Leporello is exposed as a caricature of simpleminded superstition.
According to the libretto, when the Stone Guest knocks on the door and Leporello
hides under the table, Don Giovanni “takes a candelabrum and goes to open etc”,675 but
Heinse, Börner-Sandrini and Lyser all agree that he (also) carried a sword. According to
Heinse, “he holds his sword against him [the Stone Guest] when he enters”; according to
Börner-Sandrini, Bassi had, in addition to the candelabrum and a napkin, “his bared sword
in hand”; and in Lyser‟s translation of the libretto, “Don Juan takes his sword in one hand,
a candelabrum with candles in the other and leaves boldly”.676

670 “Ah signore… per carità!... / non andate fuor di qua!... / l‟uom di sasso… io gelo… io manco… / Se
vedeste che figura!... / Se sentiste come fa. / Ta ta ta ta ta ta ta.” (1311-5).
671 “Leporello con molti atti di paura esce e va per partire.” (1333).
672 “La terzana d‟avere mi sembra / e le membra fermar piú non so.” (1338-9).
673 “LEPORELLO Da lontano tremando: Oibò! / Tempo non ha, scusate.” (1347-8).
674 “Dite di no.” (1352).
675 “Don Giovanni piglia il lume e va ad aprire etc.” (1324).
676 Lyser 1845a: 155.

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 The sword seems to signal that Don Giovanni is expecting an attempt on his life,
probably by Don Ottavio or by Masetto and his six peasants. As for the candelabrum,
which both Börner-Sandrini and Lyser mention, the latter has a slightly different version in
the 1847 reminiscences: “When Bassi went to receive the ghost, he later regularly grabbed
the filled champagne glass instead of the candelabrum; at the first performance he had
done it unconsciously and instantly became surprised and confused; Mozart, who had
noticed it from the conductor‟s stand, shouted a loud “Bravo!” to him as he was going off
and, after the performance, told him to continue doing that: it looked good.”
Mozart must have liked the detail with the champagne glass – which is not
mentioned in Heinse or Börner-Sandrini, however – because it emphasized Don
Giovanni‟s carefree nonchalance and thus made a grotesque contrast to the supernatural
appearance of the Stone Guest. Börner-Sandrini adds that Don Giovanni “kept holding on
to the sword, the light in his other hand, as he cautiously and calmly went to the supper
table, never letting the Governor out of his sight.” Then he “put down candelabrum and
sword on the table and remained standing there with folded arms as he gave Leporello his
order about new servicing.” If he had carried a champagne glass, he would probably have
put it down now as well. This action must have occurred during the following lines:

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Non l‟avrei giammai creduto, I would never have imagined,
ma farò quel che potrò! but I shall do what I can!
Leporello! un‟altra cena Leporello! Immediately
fa‟ che subito si porti. lay the table for a guest.

LEPORELLO Mezzo fuori col capo LEPORELLO His head protruding halfway
della mensa. from under the table.
Ah padron! Siam tutti morti. Ah Master! We are all dead.

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Vanne dico… (1328-33) Go, I tell you…

In Bassi‟s interpretation, Don Giovanni here behaves, according to Bôrner-Sandrini, “as a

completely calm, fearless, indifferent gentleman”; he is “quite far from fearing the spectre
in the beginning”, but rather “suspects a design against himself and therefore, being visibly
most unpleasantly affected by the whole scene, never leaves the ghost out of sight”. Both
Heinse and Börner-Sandrini emphasize that Don Giovanni became increasingly troubled,
Börner-Sandrini writing that “Bassi perfectly understood how to cloud his features
accordingly and to suggest his growing discomfort quite excellently”, which was done

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“through a constant, threatening frown and a troubled darkening of his noble features”.
This growing discomfort may have shown itself already when the Stone Guest has
announced that he has not come to eat, but that he has been guided “by more serious
business”.677 Don Giovanni responds:

Parla dunque: che chiedi, che vuoi? Then speak: what do you ask? What do
(1340) you want?

Heinse adds that Bassi‟s Don Giovanni “later” – apparently after he had put down the
sword and ordered new servicing – “hovers about him [the Stone Guest] with great
caution, becoming a little more anxious only gradually”, suggesting that Don Giovanni left
his calm position next to the table. The natural place to do this would be during the Stone
Guest‟s repeated claim that he has “no more time”,678 which prompts this repeated
invitation from Don Giovanni:

Parla parla: ascoltando ti sto. (1342) Speak, speak: I am listening to you.

Then follows the statue‟s re-invitation, and according to Börner-Sandrini, Bassi‟s Don
Giovanni “remained indifferent until the moment when he in defiant foolhardiness gave
the ghost his hand in pledge.” Both Heinse and Bôrner-Sandrini mention the coldness of
the Stone Guest‟s hand as the shock that makes Don Giovanni realize that he is not facing
a mortal avenger: “The real truth of the matter,” says Heinse, “does not set in before – and
now with full effect – he grabs the cold hand of the Stone Guest”, and Bôrner-Sandrini
speaks of the magnificent intensification “when Don Juan has to give his hand to the
ghost, and when despair at the icy coldness of the „Stone Guest‟s‟ hand suddenly
overwhelms the improvident rake”:

Che gelo è questo mai? (1357) What icy coldness is this?

“The bold criminal was now seized with despair,” Bôrner-Sandrini says, “his hair standing
on end: his features and gestures expressed horror, he turned to and fro, writhing at the
ghost‟s handshake”. Then follow the Stone Guest‟s request for repentance and Don
Giovanni‟s refusal.

677 “Altre cure piú grave di queste / altra brama quaggiú mi guidò!” (1336-7).
678 “Parlo, ascolata, piú tempo non ho.” (1341)

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 As in the cemetery scene, Da Ponte has systematically toned down openly Christian
references in the final encounter between Don Giovanni and the Stone Guest, as appears
from another comparison with Bertati, who gives the latter the following words:

Pentiti; e temi il cielo, Repent and fear heaven

che stanco è omai di te. (xxiv) which is now weary of you.

These are his words in Da Ponte‟s version:

Pentiti, cangia vita: Repent, change your ways:

è l‟ultimo momento. (1368-9) this is your last chance.

By emphasizing that the Stone Guest is a theatrical rather than a religious figure and by
making Don Giovanni view him as such, the poet has taken great care, once more, not to
present the latter as an atheist and a blasphemer. This is a significant departure from Bertati
whose Don Giovanni not only offends the statue of his victim in the cemetery, but who
treats his supernatural visitor as calmly and indifferently as Da Ponte‟s does although he has
no doubts about his divine origin. This is what makes Bertati‟s seducer an artificial figure of
demonic wickedness and Da Ponte‟s a realistic figure of the enlightened 1780s who has
merely been trapped in an artificial world where bogeymen roam the earth and where the
right to consign people to hell has been entrusted to an “infatuated old man”679 dressed up
as a divine avenger. By showering on the unworthy dramatic expedient of the convitato di
pietra not just the pathos of high tragedy, but the sublime grandeur (though not the moral
authority) of Christian righteousness, Mozart and Da Ponte went much further than
Goldoni in their rejection of the traditional farce, exposing to the full view of the audience
the bigoted morality which had kept the Stone Guest alive on European stages for one and
a half centuries.
As discussed previously, this crucial dramatic point was lost both on Mozart‟s
German contemporaries and on the critics and opera practitioners of the following century.
The 19th-century interpretations, furthermore, have heavily influenced the conventional
performance of the scene: with its exceptional appeal to the romantic imagination, the
„sublime‟ music of the Stone Guest simply could not be slow, loud or grand enough. Unlike
the modest number of string-players of the original production, the large romantic
orchestras were able to provide the deafening “storm” and “thunder” through which

679 “No, vecchio infatuato!” (1363).

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Hoffmann‟s Don Giovanni “shouts his fearful “No!””, and though Giuseppe Lolli had
essentially been a buffo singer and originally a tenor, the Commendatore was meant to
require a voice of almost superhuman power. Kierkegaard heard “the thunders of heaven
reverberate in his earnest, solemn voice”, and Hector Berlioz considered in 1835 that
“one‟s imagination becomes excessively demanding” in regard to this scene, why “a unison
of ten Lablaches680 would hardly suffice to give utterance to such a speech.”681
Just as most 20th-century critics proved unable to detach the scene from its romantic
interpretation, most conductors proved unable or unwilling to react against the customary
slow tempo which appears to have originated in the early 19th century. According to
Mozart‟s score, the entrance of the Stone Guest should be performed andante, which tempo
marking signalled a faster tempo in the 18th than in the 19th century and is given throughout
the opera to numbers requiring a gentle and relaxed tempo: the trio in the Introduction, the
second half of the Catalogue Aria, “Là ci darem la mano”, the Quartet, “Or sai chi
l‟onore”, “Batti batti, o bel Masetto”, Don Giovanni‟s re-entrance in the ballroom scene,
“Metà di voi qua vadano”, the Sextet and “Il mio tesoro intanto”. The scene should be
faster than the Trio, which is marked andantino, and only a little slower than the Canzonetta
and “Mi tradí quell‟alma ingrata”, which are both marked allegretto,682 but in most recordings
and performances of the opera it is, as noted by René Leibowitz, given as “a heavy adagio in
four beats”.683 Not only does this make it difficult for the Commendatore to deliver his
phrases in single breaths, but the combination of a slow tempo and a loud orchestra
entirely precludes the conversational tone, which the scene seems to have possessed in
Bassi‟s performance despite the eerie brass scoring and ominous dynamic contrasts. Don
Giovanni‟s phrases are often in danger of drowning in what Hoffmann describes as “the
horrible accompaniment of the infernal spirit-world”, and hence he can be in little doubt
that what he has let into his house comes directly from the gates of hell. Although none of
them mentions the fact, the 19th-century interpretations criticized by Heinse and Börner-
Sandrini, according to which Don Giovanni recognizes his visitor as a ghost at once,
presuppose a slow tempo. They both spoke admiringly of Bassi‟s build-up towards the
moment when he grabs the hand of the Stone Guest, and it is exactly at this point that the

680 Luigi Lablache (1794-1858) was an Italian bass renowned for the enormous power of his voice.
681 Berlioz 1835: 134.
682 Neal Zaslaw argues that Mozart‟s andantino is on the slow side of andante: “Evidence exists that the slow

Andante originated only in the nineteenth century – that for Mozart‟s time Andante was a flowing tempo a
few nuances slower than Allegretto.” (Zaslaw 1972: 722).
683 Leibowitz 1991: 248.

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tempo changes from andante to più stretto and the high strings launch their tremolo. In other
words, the moment of recognition introduces a musical intensification, implying that the
preceding andante calls for an atmosphere of reticent eeriness and uneasiness rather than of
overwhelming doom and damnation.
At Don Giovanni‟s penultimate cry of “No” the string tremolo ceases, and his last
“No” puts a temporary stop to the forte discharges of the full orchestra which have
accompanied his last struggle with the Stone Guest. Börner-Sandrini explains how Bassi
played at this point: “having disengaged himself after unspeakable efforts he finally fell to
the ground in fear of death, tormented by the Furies of his conscience.” In other words,
the string tremolo is meant to be specifically suggestive of the icy handshake of the Stone
Guest: it begins the moment Don Giovanni gives him his hand in pledge and it stops when
he disengages himself on his penultimate “No”. On the final “No”, apparently, Bassi fell to
the ground. According to Lyser‟s Old Music Director “the last, drawn-out “Nñ” in the
ghost scene, heard above blasting trombones and thundering timpani, filled all listeners
with horror.” Apparently towering over the collapsed seducer and accompanied by a
sudden stillness in the orchestra, the Stone Guest declares:

Ah tempo piú non v‟è. (1365) Ah, there is no more time.

The libretto merely mentions that he leaves, apparently through the door where he came in,
but both Lyser and Börner-Sandrini suggest that he disappeared through a trapdoor in the
floor, descending to hell rather than “ascend[ing] into heaven as a blessed spirit”, as in the
Convitato di pietra Goethe saw in Rome in 1787. In the original production, the
Commendatore‟s sudden disappearance also served a practical purpose: Giuseppe Lolli
would have needed the forty-eight bars from his exit as the Stone Guest until his re-
entrance as Masetto in the scena ultima to change his costume.
With Don Giovanni and Leporello left alone on stage, the seducer‟s actual scene of
perdition begins:

Foco da diverse parti, tremuoto etc. Fire in different places, earthquake etc.
DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI
Da qual tremore insolito What unknown tremor
sento assalir gli spiriti? assails my spirit?
donde escono quei vortici From where come these fiery vortices
di foco pien d‟orror? filled with horror?

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 CORO Di sotterra con voci cupe. Subterranean CHORUS with dark voices.
Tutto a tue colpe è poco. This is a small punishment for your sins.
Vieni, c‟è un mal peggior. Come: you are going to suffer more.

DON GIOVANNI DON GIOVANNI

Chi l‟anima mi lacera? Who lacerates my soul?
chi m‟agita le viscere? Who tears up my entrails?
che strazio, ohimè, che smania! Woe me: what agony, what fury!
che inferno! che terror! What a hell! What terror!

LEPORELLO LEPORELLO
Che ceffo disperato! What a desperate face!
che gesti da dannato! What gestures of the damned!
che gridi, che lamenti! What cries, what laments!
come mi fa terror! How it fills me with terror!

Il foco cresce. Don Giovanni si sprofonda. The fire increases. D. G. topples down.

CORO CHORUS
Tutto a tue colpe è poco. This is a small punishment for your sins.
Vieni, c‟è un mal peggior. Come: you are going to suffer more.

DON GIOVANNI e LEPORELLO DON GIOVANNI and LEPORELLO

Ah! (1365-81) Ah!

In two reviews of Don Giovanni Lyser described how this scene was staged in Dresden
under Morlacchi. This performance from 1836 had Alfonso Zezi in the title role:

Don Giovanni cries his No!! – the ghost sinks, and I was already on the point of
leaving, since I have always found the spectacular showers of fire in this opera
ghastly – but no rocket began to belch forth; Don Giovanni, sunk to the ground
after his last No!, staggers to his feet; his features marked by fear of death and staring
madly around he begins: “Da qual tremore insolito sento assalir gli spiriti? donde
escono quei vortici di foco pien d‟orror?”
But no silly devils, as they are usually seen in the theatre, appeared in front of
the spectator; the subterranean chorus joins in invisible: “Tutto a tue colpe è poco.
Vieni, c‟è un mal peggior.” So it continues until the ground opens under Don Juan
and he sinks under thunder and lightning.”684

Evidently, Zezi – surely in accordance with Bassi‟s staging – “staggers to his feet” after
having fallen to the ground on his final “No”, as implied in Bôrner-Sandrini‟s description:
Lyser‟s description of how his features were “marked by fear of death” and of how he
stared “madly around” clearly tallies with Bôrner-Sandrini‟s description of how Bassi
seemed “tormented by the Furies of his conscience” – though it would probably be more

684 Lyser 1836 (Appendix IV).

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correct to describe these as „invisible executioners‟, as will be argued below. Lyser returned
to the scene again in his 1849 review, in which the Dresden production was favourably
compared to productions in Vienna and Berlin:

In Berlin, there is always a heavy fire and powder stench when Hell starts; in Dresden
one sees naught of all that nonsense. When the ghost sinks, an impenetrable darkness
descends on the hall, the invisible chorus sounds from the earth, a flaming pit opens,
Don Juan topples down, the pit closes again, and the stage remains empty for a few
moments until Ottavio, Anna, Elvira, Masetto and Zerline burst in, accompanied by
the servants of the Holy Tribunal with torches.685

Both Lyser and Börner-Sandrini set great store by the scenic economy of Don Giovanni‟s
death scene, emphasizing that the subterranean chorus should not be visible on the stage.
In his 1837 short story, Lyser indicates that this practice had been established by Mozart:

He had the chorus of Furies sung from under the stage and would not tolerate Don
Juan to be torn by infernal spirits visible to the audience. “He is man enough not to
have the devil called for in vain,” he remarked with a laugh.686

Börner-Sandrini claimed that in Prague “an infernal revenge and demons rushing around
with spirit torches were out of the question, as was the inevitable powder stench”, adding
that “Guardasoni always refused to suffer such nuisances.” The tragic scene ended, she
said, “with Don Juan falling lifeless to the ground (as if he had had a stroke) and
disappearing into the floor like the ghost.”
That Don Giovanni originally died on stage supports Baker‟s thesis that Da Ponte
does not show us his eternal punishment, but his death by torture, for which his infernal
suffering is merely a metaphor (“What a hell! What terror!”), just as the Stone Guest is a
metaphor for societal condemnation. This may also be the reason why Leporello – who is
not comical any more – is occupied with Don Giovanni‟s face, gestures and cries rather
than with the supernatural stage effects of earthquake, smoke and fire mentioned in the
libretto, though he refers to these in the following scene. The genuine agony of Don
Giovanni was apparently meant to awake the sympathy of the audience through its
unexpected violence and extreme pathos – Lyser‟s Old Music Director indeed claimed that
Bassi‟s basic idea of the role was “deeply tragic” – but this effect would presuppose scenic
economy and a radical departure from the traditional infernal spectacle of Il convitato di pietra
where, in Goldoni‟s words, “all the spectators, alive and in good health, travel to the

685 Lyser 1849 (Appendix X).

686 Lyser 1837b (Appendix V).

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Devil‟s abode in company with the protagonist,” and which “saddens the devout and
causes the disbelievers to laugh” by “mixing laughter with terror”. The economy of Da
Ponte‟s solution becomes obvious if we compare with the equivalent scene in Bertati:

Segue trasformazione della camera in infernale,
Restandovi solo le prime quinte dove
Pasquariello spaventato si rifugia;
D. Giovanni tra le furie.
Ahi, che orrore! Che spavento!
Ah, che barbaro tormento!
Che insoffribile martir!
Mostri orrendi, furie irate,
di straziarmi, deh, cessate!
Ah, non posso più soffrir.
Sparisce l’infernale e torna come prima
la camera di D. Giovanni. (xxiv)
The room is transformed into an infernal scene;
all that remains are the first wings where
the terrified Pasquariello finds refuge;
Don Giovanni among the Furies.
Oh, what horror! What terror!
Ah, what barbarous torment!
What insufferable torture!
Horrible monsters, irate furies,
oh, stop tearing me to pieces!
Ah, I cannot endure it anymore.
The infernal scene vanishes and
Don Giovanni’s room returns.

When Bassi, according to Lyser, described Gazzaniga‟s setting of Bertati‟s libretto as “an
opera buffa in the customary taste of those times, with an infernal music in the style of
Wenzel Müller at the end”, Bassi (and perhaps Mozart) may have reacted specifically
against the conventional ending as exemplified by this opera when refusing to “tolerate
Don Juan to be torn by infernal spirits visible to the audience”. In order to make clear that
Don Giovanni‟s retribution was a social punishment and the Stone Guest a societal
metaphor, the audience had to be deprived of the pleasing spectacle of Don Juan frying in
hell which Goldoni found so deplorable and Goethe so ridiculous, and which would have
undermined the opera‟s serious case against Il convitato di pietra. Da Ponte and Mozart may
have been inspired to this serious-parodic solution by Molière who also exposed the
artificiality of the Stone Guest‟s deus ex machina function by omitting its theatrical raison
d’être, the infernal spectacle.
The 19th century, however, which tacitly turned Il convitato di pietra into the „Don Juan
myth‟, had no problem with the apparent tastelessness and lack of verisimilitude in the
infernal spectacle. It appealed, in fact, to the romantic taste for gothic horror and the terror
of the sublime, the result being that the gambolling devils, spirit torches, powder stench
and showers of fire, which Da Ponte, Mozart and Guardasoni had carefully eliminated
from their version of the story, were reintroduced with all due pomp and circumstance on
the operatic stages of the following century. Goethe had devils copied from an antique vase

245
for the opera‟s Weimar production,687 and in Hoffmann‟s story, “Don Giovanni may be
seen from time to time under the seething tumult of demons” until he is “removed from
earthly vengeance by the infernal powers”. That some German spectators found the Prague
production in which the infernal chorus remained invisible a tad too no-frills – unaware
that Guardasoni simply carried out Mozart‟s wishes – seems implied in Nĕmeček‟s
nationalistically biased criticism of the Italian impresario from 1800. It appears to me, at
least, that the critic is here referring specifically to the second Finale of Don Giovanni:

That not a single extra chorus stays in time and tune and that disorder always arises
between singers and orchestra is due to Guardasoni‟s thrift. For he invariably leaves
the extra singers in the wings because a man only costs him 10 Kreuzer there, while
he would have to give him 20 Kreuzer if he should appear on stage and in
costume.688

In the Dresden production, as Lyser tells us, after Don Giovanni has been swallowed by
the ground, “the stage remains empty for a few moments until Ottavio, Anna, Elvira,
Masetto and Zerline burst in, accompanied by the servants of the Holy Tribunal with
torches.” But who are these silent characters who in the libretto are called “ministers of
justice”?689
Social punishment was basically alien to the make-believe world of the traditional
Convitato di pietra, but in the atrium scene of Da Ponte‟s libretto Don Ottavio, no longer
doubting the guilt of Don Giovanni, promises to “approach the right people” and to return
to Donna Anna “only as a harbinger of destruction and death”,690 which indeed he does in
the scene in her house prior to the Finale: “Shortly, we shall behold the punishment of the
grave excesses of that scoundrel; we shall be avenged.”691 When the ministers of justice
enter the final scene, we see that he suits the action to the word, Donna Anna declaring
that only seeing the unworthy man “clapped in irons” will set her mind at rest.692
A subtle dramatic point is revealed, however, when we begin to work out who
performed these mute roles. In the original production, the choruses were considered by
the Prager Oberpostamtszeitung among the “heavy additional costs”, which must imply that
non-singing extras were out of the question, and so the ministers of justice were most

687 Cf. letter from Goethe to Heinrich Meyer of 30 May 1813 (Carlson 1978: 268).
688 Niemetschek 1995: 51.
689 “Leporello, Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, Masetto, Zerlina con ministri di giustizia.”
690 “[…] un ricorso / vo‟ far a chi si deve, e in pochi istanti / vendicarvi prometto […] sol di stragi e morti /

nunzio voglio io tornar.” (1092-4, 1102-3).

691 “[D]i quel ribaldo / vedrem puniti in breve i gravi eccessi. / Vendicati sarem.” (1207-9).
692 “Solo mirandolo / stretto in catene, / alle mie pene / calma darò.” (1386-9).

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probably played by chorus members. According to Lyser, the peasant chorus originally
consisted of “six male and the same number of female individuals”, and to the peasant
chorus should be added Don Giovanni‟s four servants who appear in the two Finales and
who probably doubled as the mute servants of Donna Anna and Don Ottavio in the
beginning and in the atrium scene. Assuming that the tenors joined in the subterranean
male chorus – a unison of basses – this would make a total of ten offstage Furies who
would then have eight bars to get from below the stage and onto the stage, now
transformed into “ministers of justice” side by side with the Stone Guest transformed into
Masetto.
The symbolism is subtle but clear: the infernal punishment is once more exposed as a
theatrical representation of a societal punishment. The men who a few moments ago had
inveighed against Don Giovanni that this was “but a small punishment” for his sins and
that he was “going to suffer more”, now arrive as formal representatives of the executive
power and with the lawful purpose of prolonging those same sufferings. The point would
acquire a particularly ironic accent if not all ten Furies appeared on stage, but only the six
choristers who had played Masetto‟s lynch-mob in the Act Two street scene, their swords
and guns changed for the torches mentioned in Lyser‟s 1849 reference to the Dresden
production.
At all events, the visual effect of this must have been extremely powerful. In
Dresden, Lyser tells us, after the Stone Guest had sunk into the ground, “an impenetrable
darkness” descended on the stage, the chorus of Furies sounded from the earth, and a
“flaming pit” opened in the floor, into which the Stone Guest apparently descended. When
Don Giovanni has followed suit, the grave closes, and the next moment the Furies (human
rather than conventional devils) carry onto the stage those same hell-flames, the “spirit
torches”, which according to Bôrner-Sandrini had been banned from the infernal spectacle.
Not until now is the stage suffused with the scorching fires of hell.
This may – in quite a literal sense – have thrown an ambiguous light on the rejoicing
of the remaining characters, which conventional close was borrowed from Bertati. In the
earlier opera the others, attracted by the infernal noise, run onto the stage and learn about
the seducer‟s terrible end from his servants before throwing drama to the winds and
launching into a funny and completely nonsensical closing ensemble in which they take
turns at dancing and imitating musical instruments! The opera ends with the following tutti:

247
 Che bellissima pazzia! What lovely madness!
Che stranissima armonia! What strange harmony!
Così allegri si va a star. (ultima scena) That‟s the way to stay cheerful.

Da Ponte retained the outline of Bertati‟s ending for his own scena ultima, but gave it an
ironical twist exposing the shallowness of the surviving characters and their moral world-
scheme. That the entering characters unblinkingly accept Leporello‟s absurd description of
walking statues and infernal flames as the plain truth – in open contrast to Don Giovanni
who, as the only reasoning character in the drama, remained sceptical till the last – shows
them to be inhabitants of a theatrical world steeped in obscurantist delusions and biases.
The whole scene is high comedy. The three noble characters are already in the
process of withdrawing into their „Spanish‟ world of stifling respectability: while Donna
Anna postpones her marriage in deference to the inevitable year of mourning, she and Don
Ottavio sealing their bond with a joyless love duet, Donna Elvira retires to a convent in
accordance with unrelenting propriety.
A comical reference to the scene with the Stone Guest if heard in Masetto‟s lines in
his small duet with Zerlina:

Noi, Zerlina, a casa andiamo We, Zerlina, will go home

a cenar in compagnia. (1420-1) and sup together.

Da Ponte, who of course knew that the Commendatore and Masetto were to be performed
by the same singer, could only have intended this as a comical reference to another supper
appointment:

Don Giovanni, a cenar teco Don Giovanni, you invited me

m‟invitasti, e son venuto. (1326-7) to sup with you, and I have come.

Here the supper guest was not intent on eating, however, Da Ponte using a line which
appears to have been a stock ingredient in the traditional farce: “He does not eat the food
693
of mortals who eats the food of heaven.” And later the supper recurs in the
conversation:

Tu m‟invitasti a cena, You invited me to supper,

693“Non si pasce di cibo mortale / chi si pasce di cibo celeste.” (1344-7). In the 18th-century German puppet
play Don Juan und Don Pietro oder das Steinerne-Todten-Gastmahl, the Statue has the following line: “Young man, I
did not come for mortal food but rather to offer you eternal refreshment.” (Don Juan und Don Pietro 1963:
276). Bertati has the following: “He who left the human form eats no low food.” (“Di vil cibo non si pasce /
chi lasciò l‟umana spoglia” (xxiv)).

248
 il tuo dovere or sai. so now you know your duty.
Rispondimi: verrai Answer me: will you come
tu a cenar meco? (1344-7). to sup with me?

Don Giovanni was invited to supper, but the invitation was really an invitation to hell.
Now Masetto, having regained his mortal form, has also regained his appetite for the food
of mortals, and since his guest has turned out to be elsewhere engaged, he decides to sup
with Zerlina instead. The round-cheeked complacency of the newlyweds nicely parodies
the self-righteous Stone Guest and his fake supper invitation, Leporello‟s equally optimistic
resolve to “go the inn to find a better master”694 functioning as another surreal contrast to
the fantastical events of the previous scene.
Lyser‟s Bassi claimed that “the three comical characters, Leporello, Zerline, Massetto,
counterbalance the three sad ones, and he who would seek anything else in the closing
presto fugue than the customary moral which the Spanish comedy writers attached even to
their most cheerful pieces, he would have to be very keen on a melancholy of which there
is no trace in the Don Giovanni by our great Mozart.” As indicated earlier, this interpretation
of the final scene may have missed its parodic intent, but as a dramatic subtext it may have
been fit to create the mood probably intended by Da Ponte and Mozart. The closing
ensemble, in which “the three comical characters” invite “the three sad ones” to forget
their aristocratic earnestness for a moment in order to celebrate the glorious victory of
decorum, parodies “the customary moral” attached to Italian opere buffe rather than that
attached to Spanish comedias:

LEPORELLO, MASETTO e ZERLINA LEPORELLO, MASETTO & ZERLINA

Resti dunque quel birbon Then let that villain remain
con Proserpina e Pluton; with Proserpina and Pluto,
e noi tutti, o buona gente, while we, O good people,
ripetiam allegramente cheerfully repeat
l‟antichissima canzon. this most ancient song:

TUTTI ALL
Questo è il fin di chi fa mal: Such is the end of evildoers,
e de‟ perfidi la morte and the death of deceivers
alla vita è sempre ugual. (1424-31). always match their lives.

The reference to the classical deities of the underworld establishes once and for all that
Don Giovanni‟s punishment was due not to a higher morality, but to convention itself,

694 “Ed io vado all‟osteria / a trovar padron miglior.” (1422-3).

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personified by that time-worn and frequently ridiculed device: the deus ex machina of
baroque court spectacle. The „moral‟ hits the nail on the head, since only characters living
in a world of trapdoors and walking statues can claim with any justification that evildoers
always get their just deserts and that “the death of deceivers always match their lives.” The
moral is undermined by its own blatant falsity, Da Ponte leaving the final verdict to the
audience.
The scena ultima has always had its detractors and its supporters. To the latter belongs
Hoffmann who found that “as though, for the first time, we are liberated from the horrible
circle of hellish monsters.” Here the final scene has an almost ritual function, which
viewpoint many of its later supporters have adopted, assuming that the closing lines indeed
constitute the moral of the opera. Such is the case with Steptoe who claims that Mozart‟s
conception transcends the tragedy of Don Giovanni‟s death and aims at “a higher
humanity in equilibrium – the duality of serious and comic is re-created in the closing
ensemble”,695 while to Kunze, the ritual takes the form of a musical event: “Mozart
establishes a superior harmony”, in which the closing fugue “strikes the balance and,
together with the maxim, re-establishes the order of things.”696
According to another predominant view of the final scene, it is simply Mozart‟s bow
to an outdated 18th-century convention, however, for which reason it was routinely cut in
practically all 19th-century productions of the opera. This view was held by romanticists
insisting that the cheerfulness of the surviving characters tends to trivialize or reduce the
sublime pathos of the supper scene. It was shared by Adorno whose modernism continued
the romantic renunciation of convention as a mere straitjacket; the final revealed “how
irrevocable the dix-huitième has become through Mozart”, and it was better to protect the
opera from “intrusions of a forced naivety”.697 Like Adorno, Michel Poizat openly admits
his support of the 19th-century practice of omitting the final scene which is rejected as mere
“moral reaffirmation” introduced “more or less reluctantly” by Mozart “so as not to leave
the spectator in a state of shock at the double scream of Don Giovanni/Leporello after the
earth has opened to swallow the libertine.”698
The recurring historical argument for the dispensability of the final scene is that
Mozart at least considered cutting it for the Vienna premiere in 1788: it is absent from the

695 Steptoe 1988: 204.

696 Kunze 1984: 329, 370.
697 Adorno 1984 Vol. 19: 544.
698 Poizat 1992: 68.

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printed libretto for this production, and in the Viennese manuscript score the scene has
first been crossed out, and then apparently been reinstated.699 In the romantic and
modernist interpretations, this means that Mozart apparently was able to „free himself from
convention‟ after the Prague premiere and to give the opera its „proper shape‟, which view
basically harks back to Nĕmeček‟s idea of the „natural‟ German artist struggling to liberate
himself from the bloodless artifice of Italian opera.
Another misconception regarding the Finale has to do with the opera‟s genre. It is
sometimes argued that it is the final scene which establishes Don Giovanni as a comedy:
“Had the curtain fallen right after the destruction of Don Giovanni,” as Noske claims, “the
opera would have ended as a melodrama; now the work ends as a true comedy.”700 As a
consequence, Heartz and other supporters of Don Giovanni as a tragedy have argued since
the 19th century that Mozart‟s contemplated suppression of the final scene confirms “that
his main vision of the work was a tragic one.”701
Mozart would have had little confidence in the dramaturgical cohesion of his opera
buffa, had he suddenly decided to turn it into a tragedy, believing that this could be done
simply by cutting the final scene! The Viennese score is full of cuts and additions
undertaken in order to suit the new singers and the local taste (for farce, notably!), and the
omission of the final scene simply appears to have been one of these changes. All that the
composer‟s uncertainties regarding the omission of the scene reveals is that he considered
it dispensable, its very dispensability establishing that he assigned little significance to it in
relation to the dramaturgy of the opera as a whole. The function of the final scene is to add
a final ironic touch to the drama and to stress, once and for all, the shallowness of the
other characters and the allegorical link between infernal and social punishment – but it
does not set out new directions.

Johann Peter Lyser 1856 – The Overture

The 1847 essay on Luigi Bassi was not Lyser‟s last word on Don Giovanni. 1856, the year of
the Mozart centenary, saw his most ambitious publication on the subject of his favourite
composer, the Mozart-Album, which he compiled together with Johann Friedrich Kayser.
This popular homage volume included the „Mozartiana‟, a cycle of sixteen biographical

699 Cf. the preface by Plath and Rehm for Mozart 1968: xii-xiii.
700 Noske 1977: 85.
701 Heartz 1990: 174.

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Mozart short stories, a short biography of the composer, the article „Charakterzüge aus
Mozart‟s Leben‟, a collection of eulogies written mainly by Mozart‟s contemporaries, a
memorial speech, a collection of Mozart‟s songs provided with an explanatory postscript,
and the text for the operetta Winzer und Sänger.
The fifth of the short stories, „Don Giovanni‟, is introduced by the editor as a reprint
of the story from 1837,702 but it is, in reality, an entirely new creation, though the form and
subject remains the same: a literary elaboration in nine small chapters of anecdotes
recorded by Mozart‟s early biographers, whereto are added some recorded in Da Ponte‟s
Memorie which Lyser had come across in the meantime. There are also, however, new
additions to the Bassi anecdotes recorded elsewhere, among which I will focus on the story
about the three overtures here.
Of all the well-known stories about the creation of Don Giovanni, the most famous is
surely the one about how Mozart wrote down the overture overnight, either on the night
before the premiere or on the previous night. The story is recorded, with small variations,
by Nĕmeček, Friedrich Rochlitz, Štĕpánek, Nissen (who quotes Constanze), Eduard
Genast and Alfred Meissner.703 Lyser, however, has an addition to this anecdote, which is
found already in the 1847 essay: “As for the writing down of the overture in one night, this
is the absolute truth; that is the overture we now possess, and it was chosen by Dussek
among three that Mozart played to him – Mozart did not even write down the two others;
one in C minor is supposed to have ended with a fugue (the closing fugue of the opera?),
and in Bassi‟s opinion it was probably the most beautiful of three, but too long.” In his 1856
novella Lyser elaborates on this anecdote:

The true facts of the case, as Duscheck and Bassi report them, are the following. The
whole opera was finished, except from the Overture, when Mozart one day entered
Duscheck‟s room as Bassi was present, saying: “Children! You must judge; I have
three overtures for Don Giovanni running in my head, but I can‟t make up my mind
which one I should choose! I will play them to you in turn.”
And now Mozart played three overtures; the first started in E flat major, the
second in C minor, the third began with an andante in D minor and then passed into
an allegro in D major. The overture in C minor is supposed to have been a free fugue
like the one later written for Die Zauberflöte, although thoroughly different in
character. Duscheck and Bassi described all three overtures as priceless according to
their own inner worth, but both declared that the one in D major with the
introductory D minor andante was the most suitable for Don Giovanni, so this was the

702 Johann Friedrich Kayser: „Vorwort‟ IN Lyser 1856.

703 Cf. Genast 1862 Vol. I: 3-5. For the other versions, cf. Nettl 1938: 138-44.

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 one Mozart wrote down in four hours. He could never be induced to write down the
two other overtures as well […]704

Lyser, who must have heard this story in Dresden, then continues to ponder whether the
loss of the two other overtures is really a great loss to art, or whether Mozart wanted to
avoid confusing producers of the opera. It sounds plausible that the composer really had
three overtures in mind and that this was the reason he waited so long with committing
one of them to paper; it also seems plausible that Lyser had heard in Dresden that one of
them began in C minor and ended with a free fugue, and that Mozart had asked František
Dušek which one he found most suitable for the opera. The key of E flat major for the
third overture could have been invented for the sake of narrative balance, and we cannot
know, of course, whether the C minor overture really used the subject from the opera‟s
closing fugue, though the assumption is certainly reasonable.
Most intriguing is the claim that the C minor overture was rejected due to something
as prosaic as its length, since the romanticists specifically hailed the organic relationship
between the overture and the drama in Don Giovanni. According to his 1841 essay „Über die
Ouvertüre‟, Richard Wagner found in the Don Giovanni overture “the outline of the basic
thought of the drama carried out in a purely musical, but not in a dramatic presentation”, 705
and to Søren Kierkegaard the Overture was “a perfect masterpiece” because it entirely met
his demand that an operatic prelude “should contain the central idea, and grip the listener
with the whole intensity of this central idea”, the Overture for Don Giovanni being
“impregnated with the essence of the whole opera”, to which it is related “as a
prophecy.”706 One can only wonder what Wagner and Kierkegaard would have thought of
the opera if Dušek had opted for the overture in C minor!
The extamt overture, which famously opens with the ominous music of the Stone
Guest, indeed seems to have played a central role in the establishment of Don Giovanni as a
drama with tragic or demonic overtones. The impressions of Hoffmann‟s enthusiast are
characteristic in this regard:

In the andante the terrors of the fearsome, infernal regno all pianto gripped me;
awesome portents of the horrible filled my being. The jubilant fanfare in the seventh
measure of the allegro sounded to me like a brazen wantonness; I saw fiery demons
stretch their glowing claws out of the deep night towards people who, joyful in life,

704 Lyser 1856 (Appendix XII A).

705 Wagner 1887 Vol. I: 201-2
706 Kierkegaard 1959 Vol. I: 126.

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 were dancing merrily on the thin bridge over the bottomless abyss. The conflict of
human nature with the unknown, monstrous powers that surround it, watching its
destruction, rose clearly before my mind‟s eye.707

The andante using the Stone Guest‟s music lasts only the first 30 out of 292 bars, whereas
the rest of overture, arguably, is in the brightest buffo colours imaginable. The infernal
horror of the opening seems to have invaded Hoffmann‟s perception of the whole piece,
however: with the hellish smoke still hanging in the auditorium, the merry dancing has
difficulty gathering momentum and coming to life. This serves as a further example of how
critical interpretations are inextricably linked to performance practice, René Leibowitz
pointing out that the music of the Stone Guest, both here and in the Finale, is rarely
performed as an andante at all, but nearly always as a solemn adagio.708 As argued in the
preceding chapter, the Stone Guest is an extremely effective scarecrow who has been
mistaken for a divine emissary, and if his music is performed too slowly and thus
emphatically, in order to terrify the audience with a glimpse of hell, the remainder of the
overture – or indeed of the opera, it seems – will be unable to dispel the impression. If
Mozart really had two alternative overtures in mind, which did, by implication, not feature
the music of the Stone Guest, this could not have been his intention.
Lyser described how Francesco Morlacchi conducted the Overture in Dresden in
1836, and it indeed seems to have been characterized by an absence of dragging tempi (of
course, we should not put too much faith in Lyser‟s conversations with old musicians in
Prague where he had never been):

The Overture began; already the andante gave evidence of a new conception: it was
kept throughout just as old musicians in Prague told me that Mozart himself had it
performed, every semiquaver, every dot sharply accentuated, yet everything unforced
and sterling; the allegro fiery, challenging, escalating until the last defiant [Lyser quotes
the descending five-note figure first appearing in bar 77] and then subsiding in itself
– just as Mozart imagined.709

Obviously, the terror of the andante did not influence Lyser‟s perception of the allegro molto
section here, just as it is striking that Lyser in his 1856 version of the story about the three
overtures does not refer to the extant overture as the one in D minor but as the “one in D
major with the introductory D minor andante”.

707 Hoffmann 1945: 505.

708 Leibowitz 1991: 248.
709 Lyser 1836 (Appendix IV).

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 By beginning the Overture with a forte D minor tutti, Mozart seems to command his
audience to shut up, sit down and listen, which was by no means a matter of course in 18 th-
century opera houses where overtures seem to have served mainly as festive background
music heralding the beginning of the show proper. That Mozart, with the emphatic
opening chords of his Overture, found it necessary to inform the audience that this was no
time for conversation may be due to an intention of establishing the fourth-wall
convention characteristic of Don Giovanni from the outset.
Mozart seems also to have begun with the music of the Stone Guest in order to
inform the audience that the hackneyed subject of Il convitato di pietra would be taken
seriously this evening, that this opera was no farce but contained moments of genuine
terror. Yet only the first thirty bars are terrifying. The Overture – as well as Don Giovanni
itself – is ten percent terror and ninety percent laughter.

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 The Charmer’s Song
My follies are the follies of youth.
You will see that I laugh at them,
and if you are kind you will laugh at them with me.710
– Giacomo Casanova, 1797

In the light of the preceding reconstruction of Luigi Bassi‟s Don Giovanni, I read the
action of the opera in the following manner:
A young and extremely licentious Spanish nobleman has stolen into the house of a
young noblewoman one night in order to seduce her. Whatever happened in her bedroom,
the woman is furious and chases him out into the street. Quite taken aback, he is then met
by her father who insists on a duel to the death in defence of his daughter‟s honour. The
young man finds such measures excessive, but the old man insists and is killed. The young
man is moved, but since he was challenged to the fight, he does not feel responsible and
immediately returns to his general cheerful mood. The next day, when he is roaming the
streets in search of women, he encounters a former mistress of his who is furious that he
abandoned her. As she keeps yelling at him, refusing to accept that he will not tie himself
to one woman alone, he steals away, only to run into a rustic wedding company. He finds
the bridegroom boorish, but the bride charming and throws a party in their honour with
the secret intention of seducing her along with some of her bridesmaids. The groom
objects, but the young seducer threatens him suggesting that he follow the others back to
his house. Alone with the bride, the young man finds her willing, but his old mistress
shows up again, makes a scene and spoils his plan. A little later he runs into the
noblewoman whom he tried to seduce last night: together with her fiancé; she is out to find
clues to the identity of the man who killed her father. Unfortunately, his old mistress
returns once more making another scene, as she believes that he is making up to the
noblewoman, and the young man, fearing that her charges of licentiousness will lead the
noble couple on to the right track, tries to keep her off. Still charmed by the noblewoman,
he kisses her hand when leaving, but the soft tone of his voice betrays his identity, and
when he has left, she demands that her fiancé avenge her. The young man has forgotten

710 Casanova 1997 Vol. I: 27.

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the troubles of the day and is looking forward to his party and a new attempt to seduce the
bride, but he has barely cornered her in the garden before the bridegroom shows up again.
During the dancing in the grand hall he makes a third attempt, but their exit is not
sufficiently discreet, and soon he is chased through the corridors by the groom. When he
enters the hall again, he is met by the bridal couple, the noble couple and his old mistress
who all agree that he is the scum of the earth and deserves to be punished for his
attempted seduction. He is constrained to take flight. Later that night, compelled to give up
the bride but optimistic as always, he decides to have a go with the chambermaid of his old
mistress instead, whom he always found charming. First he has to entice his old mistress
away, however: he pretends to have become suddenly transfigured by love and to have
realized that they should live together forever, and the credulous woman is instantly
transformed from vengeful Fury into lovelorn maiden. Disguised as his servant and having
sent off his old mistress together with his servant dressed up as himself, he serenades the
chambermaid. He is interrupted by the bridegroom and a lynch-mob of peasants, however,
who are out to kill him for the attempted seduction of the bride, but the young man
manages to isolate the bridegroom and give him a good thrashing as thanks for his
murderous plans. Shortly afterwards, his servant is caught together with his old mistress by
the bridal couple and the noble couple who take him for his master and hence almost kill
him on the spot. The noble fiancé is now convinced that the young seducer murdered the
father of his betrothed and he decides to approach the authorities. A little later, master and
servant are united in a cemetery where the young man amuses himself by scaring his
superstitious servant: he imitates the speech of a ghost, and when his trick is copied by
someone in the dark who, apparently by ventriloquizing, makes the equestrian statue of the
noblewoman‟s father address him in harsh accents, the young man, though puzzled and
secretly disturbed by the situation, makes his servant invite the statue to supper. The next
evening, having forgotten all about this practical joke, he is eating supper alone when his
old mistress shows up again: she knows that the noble fiancé has made contact with the
forces of order and tries to persuade her former lover to become monogamous. As he
politely refuses, she showers him with invective, curses him and runs off. Then the
prankster from the cemetery turns up, unexpectedly. The young man is most unpleasantly
affected: the walking statue has a certain likeness with the bridegroom, who tried to kill him
last night and who may be setting a trap for him in order to repeat the attempt – yet the
whole thing might also be a mere practical joke in rather poor taste. The young man will

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not betray his fear, so when the odd guest invites him to supper, he gives him his hand in
pledge. The hand of his guest is cold as ice: this is no mortal avenger. The ghost urges him
to change his ways, but he has no right to do so, the young man finds, and finally he
manages to tear himself away. The ghost disappears, but the young man has lost control of
his senses: his entrails are torn by invisible Furies, and he finally collapses on the floor,
tortured to death. The remaining characters enter, agreeing that this was the best of all
possible endings: the young man deserved to go to hell.
The drama may be a defence of the young seducer and a charge against the self-
righteous stone-throwers, but since Da Ponte refrained from turning the stage into a
judgment seat, only the audience can pass the moral judgment. In his Memorie the poet
describes his own principles as those of “an enlightened poet who was no hypocrite”,711 but
Don Giovanni is hardly virtuous by any standard.
In fact, the question mark with which the drama ends strikingly echoes Da Ponte‟s
attitude towards one of his old Venetian friends: Giacomo Casanova.
That Casanova was involved in the genesis of Don Giovanni in one way or another has
been known since the Czech musicologist Paul Nettl in the 1920s found among his papers
two text variations of the scene immediately succeeding the Sextet.712 As Hans Ernst
Weidinger convincingly argues, these suggest that the Italian writer assisted Mozart with
text revisions after Da Ponte‟s departure from Prague around 15 October, two weeks
before the premiere.713 Casanova is known with certainty to have been in Prague from 25
October,714 but he may very well have arrived earlier, and already Nettl drew attention to
the Rococo-Bilder from 1876, Alfred Meissner‟s literary elaboration of his grandfather‟s 18th-
century reminiscences from Prague, in which Casanova figures as a member of the circle
involved in the original production of Don Giovanni.715
That the two most famous seducers of the 18th century – the historical one and the
fictive one – should have been thus interrelated is a great story, but was it merely due to a
conjunction of circumstances? After all, it was far from unusual to draw characters after
live models in 18th-century comedy (Da Ponte had himself been impersonated on stage by
Michael Kelly in Vincenzo Righini‟s and his own Demogorgone the previous year),716 and

711 Da Ponte 1929: 195.

712 Weidinger 2002 Vol. IV: 991.
713 Ibid Vol. IV: 992.
714 Ibid Vol. IV: 991.
715 Nettl 1938: 140-4.
716 Kelly 1968 Vol. I: 232-3.

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surely the sixty-two-year-old Casanova, the living legend, who had lived at the Bohemian
castle of Dux the last few years as librarian to Count Waldstein, was well-known to the
cultured circles of Prague – the kind of people Mozart would have referred to as the
“friends” for whom the opera was written. Da Ponte associated with Casanova when he
was in Vienna in 1783-4 as secretary to the Venetian ambassador,717 and it is not
unthinkable that he introduced Mozart to him on this occasion, nor that poet and
composer later determined to base their “serious” version of Don Giovanni on the most
obvious live model available to them. Perhaps Luigi Bassi was even requested to portray
the title role as a youthful version of the old adventurer who frequented rehearsals. This
would certainly have given the opening night a piquant touch when people saw that
Casanova himself was in the audience.
The similarities between Giacomo Casanova and Da Ponte‟s Don Giovanni are
indeed far too many to be enumerated here, but a few should suffice: Casanova had indeed
made love to a young seamstress (Zenobia!) on her wedding day after they had danced
minuets and contredanses at the party he had thrown in her honour,718 he had travelled all
the countries mentioned in the Catalogue Aria, and in his youth he had been involved in
countless disguises, attempted assassinations repaid with thrashings, half-violent seductions
and frauds aimed at occultists, ordinary obscurantists or even at lovesick women. Avoiding
hypocrisy he considered “a shining virtue”,719 and he claimed to have loved women “even
to madness”, but always to have preferred his freedom to them: “When I have been in
danger of sacrificing it, only chance has saved me.”720 That Da Ponte dramatized or
incorporated Casanova‟s ways and maxims into the libretto seems to appear from these
quotations from the adventurer‟s self-characterization in the preface to L’Histoire de ma Vie,
which hardly need any comment:

[…] since I never aimed at a set goal, the only system I followed, if system it may be
called, was to let myself go wherever the wind which was blowing drove me.721

[…] I often had no scruples about deceiving nitwits and scoundrels and fools when I
found it necessary. As for women, this sort of reciprocal deceit cancels itself out, for
when love enters in, both parties are usually dupes. But fools are a very different

717 Casanova 1997 Vol. I: 8-9 (Introduction).

718 Ibid Vol. VIII, Chapter VII. This similarity was pointed out in Stoneham 1988: 531.
719 Casanova 1997 Vol. III: 93.
720 Ibid Vol. III: 185.
721 Ibid Vol. I: 26.

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 matter. I always congratulate myself when I remember catching them in my snares,
for they are insolent and presumptuous to the point of challenging intelligence.

The sanguine temperament made me extremely susceptible to the seduction of any

pleasurable sensation, always cheerful, eager to pass from one enjoyment to another
and ingenious in inventing them.722

I leave it to others to decide if my character is good or bad, but such as it is, anyone
versed in physiognomy can easily read it in my face. It is only there that a man‟s
character becomes visible, for the physiognomy is its seat.723

Cultivating whatever gave pleasure to my senses was always the chief business of my
life; I have never found any occupation more important. Feeling that I was born for
the sex opposite to mine, I have always loved it and done all that I could to make
myself loved by it. I have also been extravagantly fond of good food […]724

As for women, I have always found that the one I was in love with smelled good, and
the more copious her sweat the sweeter I found it.725

In regard to Bassi‟s cheerful, lively and irresistible Don Giovanni, it may be significant that
Casanova – not surprisingly – was remarkable for his liveliness and personal charm. When
Da Ponte introduced his wife to the old adventurer who was then in his late sixties, she was
thus “amazed at the extraordinary old man‟s sprightliness, fluency and eloquence, and at all
his ways”.726
Most crucially, Da Ponte always regarded his Venetian friend with some
ambivalence. He described him as “an extraordinary mixture of good and evil”, 727
observing that “although I did not like his principles or his conduct, none the less I
appreciated and took note of his advice and precepts which were really very valuable, and
from which I might have benefited much, but have not.”728 In Da Ponte‟s opinion,
Casanova was a thief and a fraudster, but in addition to his charm, education and
intelligence he also had a peculiar sense of morality that was all his own. To my mind, Da
Ponte‟s description of how he made Casanova‟s acquaintance in the houses of the Venetian
senators Pietro Antonio Zaguri and Bernardo Memmo holds the key to Don Giovanni:

722 Ibid Vol. I. 30-1.

723 Ibid Vol. I: 31.
724 Ibid Vol. I: 31-2.
725 Ibid Vol. I: 32.
726 Da Ponte 1929: 205.
727 Ibid: 210.
728 Ibid: 208.

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 It was in the year 1777 that I had the opportunity of making his acquaintance and
having intimate talk with him sometimes at Zaguri‟s and sometimes at Memmo‟s,
both of whom loved what was good in him and forgave what was ill, and taught me
to do the same. And even now, after due consideration, I do not know to which side
the balance leant.729

Always refusing to fit in, Casanova is a challenge to the moral concepts of any age, and Da
Ponte dramatized this challenge, playing off an irresistible and morally ambiguous Don
Giovanni drawn from real life against the relentlessly conventional framework of Il convitato
di pietra, symbolic of a condemnatory society. That Don Giovanni was inspired by Casanova‟s
life and personality in one way or another seems more than likely, but it may have been
more than that: it may have been an opera about Casanova, Da Ponte‟s way of paying
homage – with a twinkle in the eye – to this extraordinary character.
The poet‟s descriptions of Casanova seem to anticipate the ambiguous responses of
Luigia Caravoglia-Sandrini and Johann Peter Lyser‟s Old Music Director to Luigi Bassi‟s
seducer: he, too, was “the most amiable of rakes”, and it was “impossible to be angry with
the beautiful devil, with the dazzling viper.” Though this ambiguity certainly is present as a
theatrical potential in the text, it would have been enhanced by Mozart‟s music and realized
by Bassi‟s performance.
It seems to have been the unmistakably Casanovan mixture of elegance, humour,
amiability, confidence, passion and sanguine vivacity that constituted the „type‟ of Bassi‟s
Don Giovanni. It seems to underlie Friedrich Heinse‟s reference to “the attractive, subtle,
charming seducer” and the “Spanish gentleman”, and Marie Bôrner-Sandrini‟s focus on the
“impeccable, chivalrous elegance and seductive amiability towards the women” as well as
the “peculiar, almost cheerful stateliness in certain, even tragic moments of the role” that
characterized Bassi‟s Don Giovanni. It is also reflected in the Old Music Director‟s
description of his performance as “full of southern glow, southern humour, southern
dignity”, where a “grace and lightness, which cannot be described in words, characterized
every glance, every movement and every note”; in Mozart‟s assertion in Johann Peter
Lyser‟s 1837 novella that Bassi‟s “splendid figure, his wonderful voice, his deportment, his
humour, as well as his heartfelt ardour when it is about paying tribute to beauty qualify him
throughout for the hero of my opera” who should be portrayed as “a passionate, fiery
youth”; and in Bassi‟s assertion in Lyser‟s 1847 essay that Mozart depicted Don Giovanni
“as a fiery, Spanish young nobleman who worships women above all and who does not

729 Ibid: 207-8.

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really take it for a sin to seduce as many as will let themselves be seduced”: he is a man who
“is lucky and feels lucky”.
This constituted Don Giovanni‟s fundamental character, his „ethical emotions‟,
which must have corresponded to an equivalent basic vocal makeup, probably the one
characterized by the Old Music Director as a “grace and lightness, which cannot be
described in words”, but which characterized “every note”, suggesting a bright baritonal
colour and a light and graceful phrasing full of humorous nuance. As I have argued in the
preceding chapters, however, sections of the opera, on both large-scale and more detailed
levels, are constructed around the contrasting of Don Giovanni‟s different vocal
behaviours, his temporary or „pathetic‟ emotions, which would all (except for the imitation
of Leporello) be encompassed by the character‟s ethos. The score seems to call for these
contrasting vocal behaviours which to some extent may have reflected Bassi‟s peculiar
vocal talents, Börner-Sandrini pointint to the affective contrasts of Bassi‟s performance as
one of its main theatrical attractions. It is possible to distinguish between at least three
dominant vocal behaviours: a colloquial parlando voice which Don Giovanni would use
when addressing Leporello and Donna Elvira; a full-toned, clarion-like „gentleman‟s voice‟
for formal, festive or dramatic situations which he would use when addressing the other
men as well as Donna Anna; a „seducer‟s voice‟ in falsetto or voce mista with a more
extensive use of portamento which he would use when addressing Zerlina.
One of the central dramaturgical functions of Don Giovanni‟s music was apparently
to support and enhance these vocal contrasts, and pinpointing the changing vocal
requirements is thus a way of structuring the musical construction of the opera:
When making his first entrance in the Introduction, Don Giovanni should sing with
his „gentleman‟s voice‟ in order to establish the noble stateliness of the character, but
should the change colour for a soft, lachrymose voice in the trio. Both Börner-Sandrini and
Lyser point to the transition from this mood to his cheerfulness in the subsequent
recitative, which would be sung with the colloquial voice. This voice would be retained in
the opening of the street scene with a sudden transition to the „seducer‟s voice‟ when he
interrupts Donna Elvira‟s aria, and when recognizing his old mistress he would return to
the colloquial voice. Leporello who might have parodied both the „gentleman‟s voice‟ and
the „seducer‟s voice‟ in his opening aria would then focus on the latter in the following
Catalogue Aria. The following sequence would concentrate on his contrasting behaviour
towards the other characters, as suggested by Börner-Sandrini. In the scene with the rustics,

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Don Giovanni would change between his three voices: the colloquial voice when talking to
Leporello, the „gentleman‟s voice‟ when talking to Masetto and the „seducer‟s voice‟ when
talking to Zerlina, and the latter voice would of course be given full scope in the following
Duettino. In the scene with Zerlina and Donna Elvira the „seducer‟s voice‟ and the
colloquial voice would be contrasted, and in the scene with the noble couple, the „seducer‟s
voice‟ would tend to shine through the „gentleman‟s voice‟, with which he would try to
address Donna Anna as well as Don Ottavio, as implied in Börner-Sandrini‟s description.
In the Quartet, furthermore, his „gentleman‟s voice‟ and his colloquial voice would be
contrasted, and I take the same to be the case with “Fin ch‟han dal vino”: the colloquial
voice when giving Leporello orders and the „gentleman‟s voice‟ when picturing the party to
himself. When entering the garden he would use the „gentleman‟s voice‟, slipping into the
colloquial voice when giving orders to his servants, and then use the „seducer‟s voice‟ when
cornering Zerlina, which would be suppressed in favour of a return to the „gentleman‟s
voice‟ when Masetto shows up. In the ballroom scene all the three behaviours would
alternate once more: Don Giovanni would welcome his guests with the „gentleman‟s voice‟,
he would communicate with Leporello in the colloquial voice and seduce Zerlina with the
„seducer‟s voice‟. In the closing stretta he would express his bewilderment in the colloquial
voice and his fearlessness with the „gentleman‟s voice‟, as suggested by the Old Music
Director‟s emphasis on his force in this passage. The second street scene would open with
Don Giovanni addressing Leporello in the colloquial voice, and in the serenade I suggest
that he would address Donna Elvira in a a broad, somewhat affected and uncharacteristic
„romantic voice‟, a comical effect relying on the contrast to his general vocal behaviour
(“how delightfully he carried and breathed the melody in the glorious A major Trio”,
according to the Old Music Director). The Canzonetta would then be performed with the
contrasting „seducer‟s voice‟ and the scene with Masetto with an imitation of Leporello‟s
more speech-like bass voice and more coarsely comical effects, as suggested by the Old
Music Director. Most of the scene in the cemetery would be sung in the colloquial voice,
but with a slip into the defiant „gentleman‟s voice‟ when addressing the statue, as suggested
in Lyser‟s 1847 essay. The opening of the supper scene would be sung in the „gentleman‟s
voice‟ with a change to the near-spoken colloquial voice in the half-improvised dialogue
with Leporello, as suggested by Lyser, which voice would be retained for the following
scene with Donna Elvira. As suggested by Börner-Sandrini, the Stone Guest would be
addressed in the „gentleman‟s voice‟, but the remarks to Leporello would have been

263
delivered in the contrasting colloquial voice, which may have enhanced the tension of the
scene.
To Søren Kierkegaard, Don Giovanni is not merely a character in the opera; he is
“absolutely musical”, his passion “resounds everywhere”, and in that way he is identified
with the seductive, musical force of the opera itself. If Don Giovanni is the music, as
Kierkegaard implies, then Don Giovanni the Charmer is virtually identical with Mozart the
Charmer, and even if the aesthetic premises of the philosopher‟s assertion are incompatible
with the Italian tradition, as argued above, the identification of the title role with the
composer has both a practical and an allegorical implication which may be central to the
work.
As for the practical implication, it is far from insignificant that Giovanni Battista
Cetti, the Don Juan at Copenhagen‟s Royal Theatre from 1822 to 1837 730 and the baritone
whom Kierkegaard heard in the role, had studied Don Giovanni with the tenor Giuseppe
Siboni who, himself an ardent Mozartian and a theatrical pupil of Domenico Guardasoni,
had sung Don Ottavio to Luigi Bassi‟s Don Giovanni, Felice Ponziani‟s Leporello and
Luigia Caravoglia-Sandrini‟s Donna Anna in Prague in 1802.731 Siboni remained close
friends with Bassi till the end of the singer‟s life,732 and that he taught his conception of
Don Giovanni to Cetti appears in no uncertain manner from this 1827 review of Don Juan
(the singspiel version) in Copenhagen:

Herr Cetti possesses almost everything one demands from a good Don Juan, which
is certainly not little: a beautiful voice, a good expression, grace, lightness, life and
ardour (his execution of the splendid aria “Kjølige Druer [Fin ch‟han dal vino]” is a
model in all these respects); all this Hr. Cetti has to a high degree. Nor does he
neglect the dignity and nobility which the role demands.733

Cetti clearly adhered to a tradition that went back to the original interpreter of the role, and
this seems to be one reason why Kierkegaard‟s interpretation of Don Giovanni, after all, is
closer to Mozart‟s dramatic conception than Hoffmann‟s: to Kierkegaard, Don Giovanni
was an irresistibly seductive figure who charmed even the audience, and this seems to have
been the way Bassi performed the role. It is important to stress, however, that while
Caravoglia-Sandrini, Lyser‟s Old Music Director and Kierkegaard all were charmed in this

730 Aumont & Collin 1896-1900.

731 Schepelern 1989 Vol. I: 34.
732 Two letters from Bassi to Siboni from August 1823 are preserved in Copenhagen‟s Royal Library (Collin‟s

Collection, XXIV B, No. 59-60 (Cf. Schepelern 1989 Vol. II: 521 (note)).
733 „Theatret. Don Juan‟ IN Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post No. 79, 1827.

264
way, Hoffmann was not, which tells us that the charm only exists as a potential in Mozart‟s
score and is entirely dependent on the performer and the style of performance. This
testifies once more to the symbiotic relationship between composer, role and singer
characteristic of the Italian operatic tradition, and above I have, with my attempted
reconstruction of Bassi‟s vocal behaviour as Don Giovanni, tried to approach a practical
understanding of what made his performance so irresistible.
As for the allegorical implication of identifying Don Giovanni with Mozart, this
seems to have been part of the poet‟s and the composer‟s dramaturgical conception. Don
Giovanni should charm his audiences, male and female, just as Casanova had done: fusing
words and tones into one persuasive unity, the whole theatrical performance should be one
entrancing act of seduction, which in turn would render the hero‟s horrible punishment the
more disturbing. When Don Giovanni boasts of his successful mock-seduction of Donna
Elvira in the Trio, what we hear is not just the intriguer in the drama pluming himself on
his latest trick, but a meta-operatic reference to Mozart charming the audience:

Spero che cada presto! I hope she will fall quickly!

che bel colpetto è questo! What a beautiful little coup this is!
Piú fertile talento No, a more fertile talent
del mio, no, non si dà. (853-6) than mine does not exist.

It is worth remembering that the premiere audience, as Bassi told Heinse, listened to this
number “quite coldly and somewhat astounded and open-mouthed”. Mozart must have
known that people would be taken aback by the novelties of his opera, but he jokingly
informed them that he had full confidence in his own “fertile talent” and, if not quickly,
they would at least fall eventually. The meta-operatic discourse is even clearer in the Sextet
to which the original audience reacted in exactly the same open-mouthed way. In his 1847
essay, Lyser has Bassi claim that “however serious the beginning of the grand Sextet, as
soon as Leporello is recognized, the anxious tension is over”. The opening of the number
is indeed nearly tragic, because the characters in the drama are in the act of killing
Leporello whom they take for his master, but that the end of the Sextet is comical only
becomes clear when we read the text. At the point in the action to which Lyser‟s Bassi
refers the tempo changes from a serious andante to an exultant allegro molto, all the characters
except for Leporello bursting into this quatrain, the last line of which is repeated more than
a dozen times in every musical setting imaginable:

265
 Mille torbidi pensieri A thousand obscure thoughts
mi s‟aggiran per la testa, rush about in my mind,
che giornata, o stelle, è questa! O stars, what a day is this!
che impensata novità! (1043-6) What an unforeseen idea!

Mozart‟s witty theatrical coup consisted in setting the last line, in which the characters in
the drama display their “astounded and open-mouthed” reaction to the “unforeseen” ideas
produced by Don Giovanni‟s “fertile talent”, in a dramatically nonsensical manner
designed to throw the premiere audience into a similar “astounded and open-mouthed”
state caused by the “unforeseen” ideas produced by his own “fertile talent”. Thereby, the
charmed and puzzled characters in the drama mirror the charmed and puzzled audience,
while Don Giovanni mirrors the composer both as a charmer and as an inventor of artful
novelties, in which respect they both mirrored Casanova whose sanguine temperament
made him “eager to pass from one enjoyment to another and ingenious in inventing them”.
If we read Don Giovanni allegorically as Mozart‟s operatic creed, the title hero is his
artistic alter ego, which should dispel all notions of the composer as a purveyor of truths of
any sort. Italian operas never aimed at furnishing audiences with metaphysical revelations,
at fathoming psychological depths, or even at uncovering the power structures of social
reality. To Nĕmeček, who witnessed Don Giovanni‟s world premiere, “great art and infinite
charm are happily united” in this opera, which seems to mirror the way Luigi Bassi
performed the title role. This also seems to have been what Mozart aimed at: as an opera
composer in the Italian tradition he wanted to charm and entertain, and for his friends the
connoisseurs some provocative moral questions were implied in the dramaturgy of the
piece. But the opera gives no answers.

266
 Appendices
In the following I have reprinted excerpts from the German sources quoted in the
dissertation. I have only included texts which are not quoted or reproduced in modern
publications.

APPENDIX I

‘Paris.’ IN Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Vol. 13, No. 44, 30 October 1811: Col. 729-39.
Die Vorstellung [Così fan tutte] war, was Spiel betraf, so rasch und erfreulich, und zum Theil
noch feiner und pikanter, als wir sie unter Guardasoni ehemals in Leipzig sahen, den
damals einzigen Bassi ausgenommen

APPENDIX II

‘K. K. Hoftheater nächst dem Kärntnerthor. Liebhaber und Nebenbuhler in einer Person.’ IN
Wiener Theater-Zeitung Vol. 5, No. 90, 7 November 1812: 357-8.
Diese Darstellung [as Paskal] war nicht, wie viele glauben, in der Manier der italienischen
Buffos, welche nur immer die Conturen eines Charakters anzeigen, und das nüanzierte
Spiel durch Lazzi und Grimassen ersetzen wollen; Herrn Bassi‟s Spiel war beschreibend
und dem Charakter richtig angemessen. […] Herrn Bassi‟s Mimik sprach hier den groβen
denkenden Künstler aus, und bewährte sich trefflich in hundert kleinen Schattirungen.

APPENDIX III

[Johann Peter Lyser]: ‘Leuchtkugeln. Von einem alten Musikdirector: II. Don Juan’ IN Johann Peter
Lyser (ed.): Cäcilia. Ein Taschenbuch für Freunde der Tonkunst Vol. I, Hoffmann und Campe,
Hamburg 1833: 124-30.
Was und wie viel ist nicht schon über den Don Juan geschrieben worden! Wie hat man ihn
commentirt, anatomirt, recensirt, und was weiβ ich Alles!
Seit E. T. A. Hoffmann‟s berühmten Fantasiestück ist er das Paradepferd, auf
welchem unsere jungen romantischen Schriftsteller mindestens einen Ritt versuchen. Kein
junger Elegant in irgend einer bedeutenden oder unbedeutenden Stadt, der nicht
wenigstens vierzehn Tage lang sich abmarterte: benebst der Liederlichkeit auch was
Weniges von der Charaktertiefe und dem vielbelobten innern Zerrissenseyn des Don Juan
abzubekommen!
Hab‟ ich es doch schwarz auf weiβ gedruckt gelesen: wie ein sonst geistreicher
deutscher Dichter sich selbst als einen „platonischen Don Juan“ bezeichnete, welches
ungefähr eben soviel ausdrückt, als: nasses Feuer, oder ruhiger Sturm, oder dunkler Blitz.
Und dennoch: wie wird eben diese Rolle, trotz der allgemein scheinenden
Verständlichkeit, von unsern Schauspielern mehrentheils so gänzlich vergriffen!
Ich habe nun die berühmtesten Darsteller derselben in verschiedenen Zeiträumen
gesehen; und was war das Resultat?

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 Die Meisten stellten einen deutschen Burschen dar, wie z. B. Forti und Fischer, (welcher
Letztere zum Überfluβ noch ein kleiner, dicker, putzlicher Mann ist). Anderen einen
deutschen Zierbengel, wie z. B. der sonst ehrenwerthe Genast. Noch Andere machten einen
tollen Schlagetodt und Jungfernräuber daraus. Blume in Berlin hatte Mehreres nach
Hoffmanns Andeutungen aufgefaβt, aber es war kein Ganzes; kurz, unter mehr, denn
hundert Vorstellungen der Oper, welche ich auf den gröβten, so wie auf den
unbedeutendsten Bühnen Deutschlands hörte und sah, erschienen mir kaum zehn
Darsteller der Hauptrolle erträglich.
Nur Einer befriedigte vollkommen, und im frischesten, lebendigsten Farbenglanz
steht seine Meisterschöpfung noch vor mir, obgleich schon viele Jahre vergangen sind, seit
ich sie sah. Aber Jeder, der sie sah, wird mir darin beistimmen, daβ so etwas so leicht nicht
wieder vergiβt. Der Darsteller, welchen ich meine, war nämlich Niemand anders, als Luigi
Bassi, der Italiener, der Nämliche, für welchen Mozart 1786 [sic] in Prag die Partie schrieb.
Ich las einmal: – wo? entsinne ich mich nicht mehr – „Hoffmann habe sein
Fantasiestück nach einer Darstellung Bassi‟s entworfen.“ Das scheint mir hôchst
unwahrscheinlich, wenn ich nicht annehmen soll: Hoffmanns neckender Teufel habe ihm
da wieder einmal einen bôsen Streich gespielt, denn himmelweit ist Hoffmann‟s Auffassung
des Charakters von der des Bassi verschieden.
Hoffmann‟s Don Juan hat mehr vom nordischen Faust, es ist ein düstres
Nachtstück, das unsichtbar Dämonische in jeglichem Leben tritt uns hier sichtbar, oft zur
entsetzlichen Fratze verzerrt, entgegen (man sehe nur, wie er den Leporello schildert,
diesen gutmüthigen, genusssüchtigen und genussfähigen Schalks-Tropf.)
Bassi dagegen, obgleich ebenfalls der Grundidee nach hochtragisch, war voll von
südlicher Gluth, südlicher Laune, südlichem Anstand. – Eine mit Worten nicht zu
beschreibende Anmuth und Leichtigkeit charakterisirte jeden Blick, jede Bewegung, jeden
Ton. Ohne bei der berühmten Champagnerarie wie eine Bachstelze hin und her zu hüpfen,
war Alles Duft und Champagner734. Und nun wieder welche Kraft! Nie hörte ich später ein
solches Durchgreifen, wie von Bassi im ersten Finale bei den Worten „ma non manca, in
me corraggio [sic]!“ und das letzte langgehaltene Nñ in Geisterscene, Posaunentône und
Paukendonner überhallend, erfüllte alle Hörer mit Entsetzen.
Dagegen welch ein reizendes Tragen und Hinhauchen der Melodie in dem herrlichen
A-Dur Terzett im 2. Act. Sein Spiel war hier ebenfalls unübertrefflich, graziös-nachlässig
auf den Leporello hingelehnt, ihn mit einem Arm umschlungen haltend, lieβ er ihn mit der
andern Hand nur dann und wann eine Bewegung machen, welche zu seinen (des Don
Juan) Worten vollkommen passend die hochkomische Kraft der Situation erhöhte, ohne im
mindesten den Effect des herrlichen Tonstücks zu zerstören, wie das bei der gewöhnlichen
plumpen Ausführung leider nur zu oft der Fall ist.
Dagegen lieβ er seiner Laune in der Arie: „Metà di voi quà vadano“ etc. den vollsten
Zügel schieβen! Auf die ergötzlichste Weise wuβte er hier das Spiel und den Gesang des
Leporello zu parodiren, die Täuschung stieg wirklich auf‟s Hôchste.
Die Krone seiner Darstellung war aber unstreitig die letzte, so schwierige Scene mit
der Elvira. Deutsche Sänger scheinen sich etwas darauf zu Gute zu thun, die arme Donna
recht per Hund zu behandeln, so zwar, daβ manchen gebildeten Mann die Lust anwandeln

734Bassi veränderte während der Arie seine Stelle nur wenig; dem Original-Text gemäβ waren seine Worte
gröβtentheils an den Leporello gerichtet; nur bei dem: „Ah la mia lista“ etc. jubelte er für sich auf. Wer aber je
Gelegenheit hatte, die Lebendigkeit des Händespiels und der Augensprache der Italiener im gewöhnlichen
Leben, vorzüglich in Neapel, zu beobachten, der wird sich einen Begriff machen kônnen, welch‟ eines
unendlich reichen und reizenden Ausdrucks ein Meister, wie Bassi fähig war. – Aber man muβte es sehen und
hören, um wirklich daran zu glauben.

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könnte, ohne Weiteres auf die Bühne zu steigen und den brutalen Grobian da oben recht
tüchtig abzuprügeln.
Bassi vergaβ keinen Augenblick, den „Galantuomo“ wie Leporello ihn in der ersten
Scene selbst im höchsten Unmuth bezeichnet – Er kehrte der Elvira nicht den Rücken zu,
fletschte nicht hohn[129]lachend die Zähne, kniete nicht nieder u. degl. m. Fein und
gewandt wuβte er sich aus der Sache zu ziehn, als halte er Donna Elvira für viel zu schön
und zu klug, um im Ernste daran zu denken, einen Don Juan bekehren zu wollen. In
diesem Sinne aufgefaβt, konnte selbst das freche „Vivan le femine, viva il buon vino! so
stegno [sic] e gloria d‟umanità![“] noch für eine Schmeichelei gelten. Die sentimentalmalitiöse
Frivolität trat hier auf das Unzweideutigste als Grundzug des ganzen Charakters hervor 735 –
„Teufel! Schlange!“ hätte man ausrufen môgen – aber es wäre einem unmöglich gewesen,
dem schönen Teufel, der glänzenden Schlange gram zu werden. – Ja, der Bassi verstand
seinen Mozart, und so dachte sich der groβe Meister seinen Don Juan. –
Mozart! – Bassi! Friede eurer Asche,
Eure Namen werden leben!

APPENDIX IV

Fritz Friedrich [Johann Peter Lyser]: ‚Davidsbündlerbriefe. Dresden. März. (Don Giovanni.)’ IN
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Leipzig, Spring 1836, Vol. 4, No. 26: 111-2.
[…] Nachdem Mozarts Don Juan hier vierzig Jahre lang deutsch und italiänisch, oft in
einzelnen Theilen recht gelungen, im Ganzen jedoch nie in seiner ursprünglichen Gestalt
gegeben war, nachdem diese Oper in letzter Zeit fast zwei Jahre lang nicht auf der Bühne
erschienen, unternahm es unser trefflichen Capellmeister Morlacchi, das Werk neu
einzustudiren, und zwar ganz so, wie es Mozart es geschrieben. […]
Die Ouverture begann; schon das Andante zeugte von neuer Auffassung: es wurde
durchgehends so angehalten genommen, wie alte Musiker mir in Prag erzählten, daβ es
Mozart selbst ausführen lieβ, jede Sechszehntheil-Note, jeder Punct scharf markirt, dennoch
alles ungezwungen und aus einem Gusse; das Allegro feurig, herausfordernd, gesteigert bis
zum letzten trotzigen […] und dann in sich zusammensinkend – ganz wie es sich Mozart
gedacht. […] So ging nun diese Oper unter steigendem Beifall bis zur Geisterscene – Don
Giovanni ruft sein No!! – der Geist versinkt, und ich war schon im Begriff, davon zu
laufen, weil mir der Feuerregenspectakel in dieser Oper von jeher ein Gräuel war, – aber
keine Rakete fängt an zu speien, der nach dem letzten No! zu Boden gesunkene Don
Giovanni taumelt auf, Todesangst in den Zügen, wahnsinnig um sich starrend beginnt er:
„Da qual tremore insolito sento assalir gli spiriti! dove d‟escono quei vorlici [sic] di fuoco
pien d‟orror?“
Aber keine alberne Teufel, wie man sie gewöhnlich auf dem Theater sieht, erschienen
dem Auge des Zuschauers, unsichtbar fällt der unterirdische Chor ein: „Tutto a tue colpe è
poco! Vieni c‟e un mal peggior.“ So geht[‟]s fort, bis sich die Erde unter Don Juan ôffnet
und er unter Donner und Blitz versinkt. Leporello liegt ohnmächtig am Boden; – Ottavio,
Elvira, Anna, Masetto, Zerline und der Chor erscheinen – kurz die Oper endet jetzt, wie es

735 Diesen Grundzug des Charakters hat der treffliche Friedrich Rochlitz in seiner Bearbeitung des Textes
ebenfalls gar hübsch hervorgehoben, aber seltsam genug an einem ganz anderen Orte, nämlich in dem
Selbstgespräch des Don Juan auf dem Kirchhofe. – Im Original findet sich der Art nichts, sondern Don Juan
erzählt seinem Diener: wie er fast ein Mädchen, welches ihn für den Leporello gehalten, verführt habe.
„Aber,“ fragt Leporello, „wenn diese meine Frau gewesen wäre?“ Das wäre gôttlich! Ruft Don Juan und lacht
laut; worauf der steinerne Mann seine erste Warnung hören läβt.

269
recht ist, mit dem fugirten Schluβchor. Die Wirkung auf die Zuschau-Hörer war
ungeheuer.

APPENDIX V

Johann Peter Lyser: ‘Don Juan’ IN Neue Kunst-Novellen Vol. II, Verlag von Johann David
Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main 1837: 19-54.
Das Libretto.

[…] Mozart rieb sich vergnügt die Hände und sprach zu seiner Frau: Siehst du, ich hab‟
dir‟s wohl gesagt: meine wackern Prager würden mir den Wiener Ärger schon vertreiben,
aber schon recht! – dafür will ich ihnen eine Oper schreiben, wie man sie nicht alle Tage
aus dem Sack schüttet. – Ich habe ein tüchtiges Libretto, Bassi! ein keckes, tolles Ding, aber
voll Geist und Feuer! der du Ponte hat mir‟s gedichtet; – er sagte, er hätt‟ es für keinen
Andern gemacht; denn die hätten keine Courage zu so was. – O! mir war‟s eben recht! die
Musik dazu ging mir schon lange im Kopfe herum, ich wuβte nur nicht, wozu ich sie
brauchen sollte, denn kein anderes Gedicht wollte dazu passen! Im Idomeneo und Figaro
findest du Anklänge, aber es war immer nicht das rechte, – kurz: es war mir zu Muth, als ob
der Frühling kommen sollte und auch gern wollte, aber noch nicht könnte! Auf allen
Büschen, auf allen Bäumen sitzen Millionen Knospen – aber sie sind verschlossen; da
kommt ein Gewitter, der Donner ruft: „Blüten heraus!“ ein warmer Mairegen strômt herab,
und plötzlich blüht und prangt Alles in unerhörter Pracht! – Ich will des Teufels sein, wenn
mir nicht so zu Muth war, als der kleine Abbate mir das Libretto brachte! Du bekommst
die Hauptrolle, und der Teufel holt dich wirklich.“ […]

Fin chan dal vino!

[…] In dieser Stimmung war denn Mozart gegen den ungestümen Frager Bassi nicht so
verschlossen, als am Morgen, und lieβ sich sogar bewegen, ihm den Entwurf seiner Parthie
zu zeigen, wovon die drei Arien schon vollendet vorlagen. „Ganz gut, Maestro Amadeo!“
sagte Bassi – „aber diese Arien sind doch wohl ein wenig unbedeutend für mich –“
„Wie?“ fragte Mozart, und blickte ihn mit lachenden Augen an. –
„Ich meine,“ versetzte Bassi, „es sind sogar keine Schwierigkeiten drin, es ist Alles zu
leicht.“
„Meinst du? –“
„Ja, und so kurz und gut! – nicht wahr, Maestro? Sie schreiben mir noch eine recht
groβe, schwierige Arie, oder geben mir eine, welche Sie schon fertig haben, nicht wahr? das
thun Sie!“
„Nein!“ versetzte Mozart mit einem eignen Lächeln, „nein, mein guter Bassi! das thu‟
ich nicht. – Bassi‟s Gesicht verlängerte sich merklich, Mozart aber fuhr gutmüthig fort:
„Sieh‟, Schatz! daβ die Arien nicht lang sind, ist die Wahrheit, sie sind aber grade so lang, wie
sie sein müssen, und keine zu viel noch zu wenig. – Was aber die groβe – allzu groβe
Leichtigkeit betrifft, worüber du klagst, so hat es damit nichts zu bedeuten! ich bin gewiβ,
daβ du vollauf zu thun hast, wenn du sie so singen, wie sie gesungen werden müssen.
„So?“ – dehnte Bassi.
„Zum Exempel – singe einmal diese Arie: Fin chan dal vino!“ –
Er trat ans Clavier, etwas ärgerlich folgte ihm Bassi; kaum auf die Noten blickend,
begann er eilig und mit nicht eben allzu zartem Vortrage.

270
 „Sachte, sachte!“ rief Mozart lachend, schon nach den ersten Tacten das Spiel
unterbrechend; „nicht so con furio über Stock und Stein! kannst du‟s etwa nicht erwarten,
mit meiner Musik zu Ende zu kommen? – Wenn ich Presto geschrieben habe, muβt du da
Prestissimo singen, und dich den Henker um Forte und Piano kümmern? He! wer singt
denn da? ein schon vollgesoffner Hausmeister oder ein lüsterner spanischer Cavalier, der
mehr an ein feines Liebchen, als an den Wein denkt, der ihn nur dazu verhelfen soll, seins
Liebchen zu gewinnen? der, um den Genuβ zu verdoppeln, mit üppiger Phantasie ihn vorher
sich ausmalt? – Ich bitt‟ dich: trink‟ ein Glas Champagner! denk‟ an dein Liebchen, und nun
merk‟ auf: wie‟s dir in den Ohren zu summen anfängt, im leichtesten, lustigsten Tempo,
piano-piano! – crescendo-forte-piano! bis endlich Alles im tollsten lautesten Jubel
zusammenklingt – so meint‟ ich‟s.“
Und Bassi, hingerissen von der Darstellung des groβen Meisters, sprang auf, stürzte
ein Glas Champagner hinunter, stahl der herrlichen Saporitti einen Kuβ und begann die
Arie auf‟s Neue, und zwar jetzt mit einer solchen Vollendung, daβ die ganze Gesellschaft
dadurch electrisirt wurde und jubelnd die Wiederholung des Tonstücks verlangte.
„Nun!“ rief Mozart lächelnd, nachdem Bassi dreimal die Arie probirt hatte, – „nun?
sagt‟ ich‟s nicht, lieβ sich‟s nicht ganz artig anhôren?“ Eh‟ er es verhindern konnte, hatte
Bassi seine Hand ergriffen, sie geküβt und sprach nun bescheiden: „Ich werde mein
Möglichstes thun, daβ Sie mit mir zufrieden sind.“ […]

Die Besetzung.

[…] „Im Vertrauten!“ bemerkte Guardasoni mit schlauem Lächeln – „von der Saporitti
erwarte ich noch die meiste Nachgiebigkeit; denn so stolz sie thut, sie ist Ihnen nicht nur
sehr gut, sondern wohl noch etwas mehr, als gut. –“
„Ei das wäre!“ rief Mozart und rieb sich vergnügt die Hände, denn wie sehr er seine
Frau verehrte und liebte, so war er ihr doch zu Zeiten nicht so ganz treu.
Guardasoni aber sprach arglos weiter: „Wie ich Ihnen sage, denn letzthin sagte sie
mir selber: „[…]in den Signor Amadeo kônnt‟ ich mich verlieben, denn er ist ein groβer
Mann, und da laβ ich mich nicht durch seine unansehnliche Gestalt irre machen.““
Weg war Mozart‟s Freude! Er ärgerte sich gewaltig, daβ die schöne Saporitti seiner
kleinen unansehnlichen Gestalt Erwähnung gethan, und zwar gegen einen solchen langen
Mann, wie Guardasoni einer war.
„Schick sie mir nur alle mit einander, Signor Guardasoni!“ rief er, feuerroth vor
Zorn, „ich will ihnen den Text lesen, daβ sie schon singen sollen.“
Guardasoni empfahl sich, und am andern Tage versammelte er seine Sänger und
Sängerinnen in dem Conversationszimmer des Theaters.
Mozart trat unter sie, im reichen Zobelpelz, einen goldenen Treffenhut martialisch
auf den Kopf, den Kapellmeisterstab in der Hand.
So gerüstet bestieg er eine kleine Erhöhung und begann, anfangs ernst und förmlich,
nach und nach aber gutmüthig, launig, wie er denn nie seinen harmlosen Charakter
verläugnen konnte.

Mozart’s Rede.

[…] Wo fände ich wieder ein Don Giovanni, wie mein junger Freund Bassi? seine herrliche
Gestalt, sein wundervolles Organ, sein Anstand, seine Laune, so wie sein ungeheucheltes
Feuer, wo es gilt: der Schönheit seine Huldigung darzubringen, qualificiren ihn durchaus
zum Helden meiner Oper. Von der Ruchlosigkeit wird er wohl eben so viel besitzen, als

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vonnöthen, um für einen Weiberverführer zu gelten und in der Selbstvertheidigung einen
alten tollkühnen Papa niederstoβen – das ist genug! denn mein Held ist kein roher Schlächter
noch ein gemeiner tückischer Bösewicht, sondern ein leidenschaftlicher feuriger Jüngling.
[…] Signor Giuseppo Lolli hat, aus Freundschaft für mich, zu dem ohnehin schon
angreifenden Part des Comthurs auch noch den Massetto übernommen, weil er will, daβ alle
Rollen gut gegeben werden sollen! – Ich hab‟ ihm schon privatim für seine Lieb‟ und
Aufmerksamkeit gedankt und thu‟s hiemit nochmals. […]

Die Probe.

[…] Die Probe begann. Mozart war überall! bald im Orchester, bald auf der Bühne,
wechselweis‟ dirigirend und die scenische Anordnung leitend oder verbessernd. In der
Ballscene des ersten Acts, wo Bassi ihm nicht zu Dank tanzte, trat er selber in die Reihen
und tanzte die Menuett mit Zerlina Bondini mit so vielem Anstande und so vieler Grazie,
daβ er seinem Meister Noverre alle Ehre machte. […]
Hier nämlich [in Act Two] hatte er in der Kirchhofs-Scene, um die schauerliche
Wirkung der beiden Adagios, welche der steinerne Mann zu singen hat, zu verstärken, die
drei Posaunisten hinter das Grabmal postirt. […]
Den Furien-Chor zuletzt lieβ er unter der Scene singen und duldete es nicht, daβ dem
Zuschauer sichtbare Larven den Don Juan in den Abgrund zerrten: „Der ist Manns genug,
um den Teufel nicht vergebens rufen zu lassen,“ bemerkte er lachend. […]

APPENDIX VI

Friedrich Heinse: ‘2. Über die Vorstellungen der K. S. italienischen Operngesellschaft auf dem
Stadttheater zu Leipzig: Don Giovanni, von Mozart (Dargestellt am 10. und 12. Juni)’ IN Reise-
und Lebens-Skizzen nebst dramaturgischen Blättern Vol. I, Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1837:
205-12.
[…] Die zweite Bemerkung môge die geniale Rhapsodie des excentrischen Hoffmann
betreffen, inwiefern diese, wie es bei einem sofort auf ein excentrisches Fragment aus dem
Leben eines Enthusiasten abgesehenen Spiele des Geistes nicht anders seyn kann, den
Standpunkt zur Beurtheilung des Kunstwerkes bei denen nothwendig etwas hat verrücken
müssen, welche eben den Standpunkt des Schwärmers mit dem des ruhigen Beschauers im
Zusammenhange verwechseln. In jenem genialen Aufsatze wird auf die eminente
Naturgabe des Frevlers, auf das Zerrissene seines Wesens ein Accent gelegt, und diese mit
Recht in der Intention des Tondichters über die Platte Unterlage des italienischen
Textbuches erhoben; aber es scheint mir nur zu wenig auf das andere Moment gesehen,
welches dem musikalisch charakterisirenden Don Juan offenbar eben so gut zum Grunde
liegt, nämlich des reizenden feinen einschmeichelnden Verführers, welches in dem
bekannten Duette und in dem Ständchen vorzugsweise hervortritt. Wenn Hoffmann in
dem Presto des „Finch‟ han dal vino“ den Hohn des Frevlers über das von ihm verachtete
gemeine Treiben der Menschen erkennt, so sieht er wohl weiter, als Mozart wollte, der hier
nur an einen leichtsinnig-fröhlichen Ausruf dachte.
Drittens vergönnen Sie mir aus meiner Bekanntschaft mit dem ersten Darsteller des
Don Giovanni, dem 1825 als Regisseur der italienischen Oper in Dresden verstorbenen
Bassi, einige kurze Bemerkungen, diese herrliche Oper betreffend, beizufügen, welche zum
Theil als Supplementa anecdota zu v. Nissen‟s Relation dienen dürfen.

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 Bassi war damals, als Mozart von Guardasoni eingeladen, nach Prag kam (1787), um
da Ponte‟s Bearbeitung des schon lange vorher zuerst durch Tirso de Molina […] auf die
spanische, dann durch Molière und Thomas Corneille auf die französische, später durch
Goldoni auf die italienische Bühne gebrachten Stoffes des „Convidado de piedra“ zu
componiren, wenig über 20 Jahre alt. Da hat nun Mozart gemeint, für seine Idee des
Charakters sei der Darsteller zu jung und Bassi werde wohl selbst an sich die Erfahrung
machen, daβ er erst späterhin zu genügender Darstellung desselben reif geworden sei.
Damit sollte wohl gesagt seyn, dass indem die musikalische Charakteristik des Don Juan
sich über die oberflächliche Schilderung eines genuβsüchtigen Lebemannes erhebe, und,
wie wir oben andeuteten, auf der einen Seite alle Künste des reizenden und erfahrenen
Verführers auf der andern die herausfordernde Kraft des in der Macht des vollen
männlichen Alters trotzenden Frevlers darzustellen habe, die noch geringe Welterfahrung
des jungen Mimen nicht ganz ausreichen werde. – Und Mozart hat nach Bassi‟s eignem
Geständnisse vollkommen Recht gehabt.
Nach Mozart‟s ursprünglicher Idee entfliehen die bei Don Juan‟s Fest versammelten
Landleute, sobald sie merken, dass es zwischen den beiden Cavalieren zu ernstem Streite
kommt, und nur die Hauptpersonen tragen die bewegte Stretta des ersten Finale‟s vor. Erst
später hat man in Wien die Bauernchöre auch diese Stretta begleiten lassen. Auch bei
diesem theatralischen Momente dürfte also der Enthusiast, den Hoffmann sprechen lässt,
zu viel gesehen haben.
Bei der ersten Production des Don Juan hat das bekanntlich von Mozart selbst
wegen seiner Empfänglichkeit und auf Einsicht gegründeten Liebe für Musik geachtete
Prager Publicum zwar das Duett des Don Juan und der Zerlina, die Arie: „Finch‟ han dal
vino,“ das herrliche Finale in seiner Pracht und im zweiten Acte das Ständchen mit
enthusiastischer Wärme aufgenommen, und die Wiederholung der kleinern Piecen
stürmisch verlangt, das Quartett aber, so wie das Terzett und das groβe Sextett im zweiten
Acte, ganz kalt und gleichsam mit Staunen und offenem Munde angehôrt, ein Beweis, daβ
Mozart‟s Genius in diesen trefflichen Conceptionen seiner Zeit vorangeeilt war, wie denn
eben dies das wahre Merkzeichen des Genies ist.
Wie wenig auch die Künstler der damaligen Guardasonischen Gesellschaft sich über
das Herkômmliche haben erheben kônnen, das beweist wohl am besten der Umstand, daβ
Bassi selbst, als Mozart ihm das nachher so berühmte „Finch‟ han dal vino“ vorlegte, diese
Bagatelle, wie er es nannte, gegen eine in allen Regeln ausgeführte Arie, auf die er sich
gespitzt hatte, vertauscht wünschte. Mozart aber erklärte ihm den dramatischen
Zusammenhang, und bat ihn, nur ganz getrost den Erfolg dieser Bagatelle am ersten
Abend der öffentlichen Darstellung abzuwarten. Dieser Erfolg war das oben erwähnte
„Ancora“ des begeisterten Publicums. Bei dieser Gelegenheit muβ ich beifügen, daβ Bassi
allemal lachte, wenn er einen Darsteller des Don Juan (und leider thun dies ja alle) dieses
Frohsinns Lied mit aller Nachahmung des Tanzes, von dem en passant die Rede ist,
vortragen hôrt‟ und sah. Es ist ja, dem Urtexte nach und auch nach der Behandlung des
Componisten, eine leichtsinnige Instruction für den mephistophelischen Diener Leporello,
welcher dabei beständig angeredet wird. Bassi hat es daher stets ruhig stehend und leicht
auf die Schulter Leporello‟s gelehnt, gesungen; wer hier springt und hüpft, verliert auch in
der Regel den Athem, den er äuβerst nothwendig braucht. – Überhaupt gab Bassi über alle
Don Juans, welche ich mit ihm habe spielen sehen, das Urtheil, daβ sie in ihrer prätentiôsen
Darstellung wohl eher Madrider Fleischergesellen, als spanische Cavaliere lieferten. –
Besonders miβfiel ihm auch immer die Art, mit welcher sich die Sänger und Darsteller
dieser Partie im zweiten Finale beim Eintritt des Geistes benehmen. In der Regel nämlich
stürzen sie gleich ganz betroffen und erschüttert vor der geöffneten Thüre zurück, und

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benehmen sich dadurch selbst jedes Mittel einer angemessenen Steigerung. Don Juan (so
hat es Bassi mit Mozart‟s eigner Billigung aufgefaβt) hält diese seltsame Erscheinung für die
Vermummung eines irdischen Rächers, er hält ihr daher beim Eintritt das Schwert
entgegen und umkreist dieselbe später mit aller Vorsicht; erst allmählich wird er ein wenig
befangener; die wahre Bestimmung tritt aber erst – und nun mit voller Wirkung – ein, als er
die kalte Hand des steinernen Gastes faβt. –
Ich schlieβe diese kurzen Rhapsodien mit der Anekdote, daβ die liebliche, sich so
glatt und schelmisch einschmeichelnde Ariette der Zerlina im ersten Acte in dem Meister
bei einem fröhlichen Mahle im Hause des Impresar Bondini – dessen Frau die Zerlina
darzustellen bestimmt war – gleichsam im Fluge eingefallenes Impromptu ist, welches er
dann aber sofort zu Papier gebracht hat. Vielleicht ist die Sängerin ihm eben so glatt um
den Bart herumgegangen, damit sie „una bell aparte“ erhalten môchte, als Zerlina ihrem
Masetto, um sich zu versöhnen. –
Die diesmalige Darstellung des Meisterwerkes betreffend, so muβ ich für‟s Erste
dankend und lobend der Direction Morlacchi‟s erwähnen, welche durchaus feurig und
energisch war. Ich wenigstens habe dasselbe früher unter Spontini‟s Leitung in Berlin, und
unter Weber‟s Direction in Dresden mit weit geringerem Erfolge gehört. Letzterer hatte
darüber eine eigenthümliche Ansicht; da, sagte er, diese Musik schon so alt und allgemein
bekannt ist, so nehme ich die Tempi mancher Sätze langsamer, als gewöhnlich, damit die
feine Kunst der harmonischen Verwebung und der sinnigen Instrumentation mehr
hervortrete. Dieser Grund möchte gelten, wenn von einer Probe-Aufführung, etwa in
einem Conservatorio zur Belehrung der Schüler, die Rede wäre; der theatralische Effect
aber muβ dabei zu Grunde gehen. – Übrigens hätte Weber, der mit Bassi in dem nämlichen
Amtsverhältnisse sich begegnete, wie Morlacchi, denselben als einen gewissermaβen
authentischen Interpreten, füglich zu Rathe ziehen können, wenn hier nicht eine
miβverstandene Nationalantipathie, welche überhaupt die musikalischen Verhältnisse in
Dresden oft und leicht verwirrt hat, störend dazwischen getreten wäre.
Über die Leistungen der Sänger wenige Worte in Folgendem:
Don Giovanni: Zezi. Ausgezeichnet im Gesange, besonders durch Anmuth, mit
welcher er seine schöne Stimme in dem Duette mit Zerlinen und in dem Ständchen frei
und herrlich sich bewegen lieβ; in den Ensemble-Stücken fest, sicher und genau. Im Spiel
zu solid, nicht frivol, nicht gewandt und einschmeichelnd genug. Dieser Mangel aber
gereicht dem jungen Manne auf der andern Seite zur Ehre, indem die Prätension der
gewöhnlichen arroganten Darsteller des Don Juan noch ekeliger ist. […]

APPENDIX VII

Johann Peter Lyser: ‘Mozart’s eigene Verdeutschung des Textes „Don Giovanni“, nebst zwei Proben
daraus’ IN Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Leipzig, Vol. 22, No. 32, 19 April 1945: 133-4; No. 34,
26 April 1945: 141-2; No. 37, 7 May 1845: 153-5.
[…] Was nun die Anmerkungen betrifft, so verdienen sie die vollste Beherzigung aller
Theaterdirectoren und Opernregisseure, welche den Don Juan würdig in Scene setzen
wollen! So z. B. wird gleich zu Anfang des Stücks der Effect ein ungleich grôβerer sein,
wenn das Haus des Gouverneurs (anstatt wie jetzt gewöhnlich zur Seite) im Hintergrunde
(wie Mozart vorschreibt) steht, so, dass Don Juan aus der Mitte der Bühne hervorstürzt,
ihm nach Donna Anna, und beide die ersten Worte noch im Hintergrunde singen. Ferner:
Don Juan zieht erst nach den Worten „Misero! attendi!“ seinen Degen, während unsere
Don-Juanspieler sogleich, wenn der Gouverneur heraustritt, vom Leder ziehen! – kurz man

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lese die Anmerkungen mit Bedacht, und man wird finden, wie scharf und richtig Mozart zu
bestimmen wusste.
Über die Übersetzung sag‟ ich nichts mehr! Einige veraltete Wendungen abgerechnet,
die zudem noch mehr in der Schreibart als in den Worten selbst sich bemerklich machen,
ist sie frei, kühn, sangbar und oft (man lese den Schluβ der Introduction!) genialer und
poetischer, als das italienische Original. So ist es wohl, um nur Eines zu erwähnen, nicht
möglich, in Worten treuer den ganzen Charakter des Don Juan zu zeichnen, als es Mozart
in den vier Zeilen seiner Übersetzung am Schlusse der Introduction gethan! Don Juan
erscheint hier nicht als kalter, fühlloser Mörder, der aus brutaler Lust am Morden mordet!
Er hat sich vertheidigt, die beiden ersten Zeilen verrathen Mitleid, Reue, aber schnell ist
diese gute Stimmung untergegangen in seinem grenzenlosen Leichtsinn und er scherzt und
spottet. Freilich geschieht aber der Musik auch nur bei einer solchen Wiedergabe des
Textes ihr volles Recht – wie sehr ist deshalb eine würdige Herstellung des deutschen
Textes zum Don Giovanni zu wünschen. […]

APPENDIX VIII

Johann Peter Lyser: ‘Bescheidene Berichtigung’ IN Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Theater, Literatur
und Mode Vol. 30, No. 138, 1845: 550.
[…] Übrigens ist diese Tafelscene (vom Schluβ der Fanfare an, mit welcher Don Juan
eintritt, bis zum Eintreten der Elvira) wie Bassi (der erste Don Juan Darsteller) mir erzählte,
ein improvisirter Scherz Mozarts, auf der Hauptprobe vor der ersten Vorstellung in Prag
entstanden. Ursprünglich – (wie auch da Pontes Originaltext nachweiset) trat gleich nach
Don Juans „Gia la mensa è preparata!“ und nachdem er sich zur Tafel gesetzt hatte, Elvira
ein, da aber Mozart bei der Hauptprobe fand: daβ das Finale im Vergleich zum ersten all zu
kurz sei, so improvisirte er diesen musikalischen Spaβ als Intermezzo.
Als improvisirtes Intermezzo wurde nach Bassis Versicherung von ihm und Pozziani
(Leporello) diese Rolle auch immer genommen, und fast bei jeder Vorstellung machten sie
neue Späβe und banden sich keineswegs strenge an Mozarts Vorschrift, sondern hielten nur
Tact und Melodie fest; Mozart hatte es ausdrücklich so von ihnen verlangt. […]

APPENDIX IX

Johann Peter Lyser: ‘Der alte Bassi. Aus den Erinnerungen eines wandernden Enthusiasten’ IN
Siegmund Engländer (ed.): Salon, 1847, No. 3: 94-8.
[…] Zugleich genüge ich der Aufforderung hochgeachteter älterer Musiker, noch dasjenige
über Mozart mitzutheilen, was ich durch den alten Bassi über ihn erfuhr, und womit ich bis
jetzt öffentlich zurückhielt, da ich für meine ersten Veröffentlichungen so schlechten Dank
erhielt.
Luigi Bassi, wie da Ponta, Mozart‟s Freund und Verehrer, starb im hohen Greisenalter
in den Zwanzigerjahren als Regisseur der italienischen Oper. Er war der erste Darsteller des
Don Giovanni gewesen – und wie alle, die ihn noch in diese Partie gesehen und gehört
haben, versichern, unter alle der Vorzüglichste – Mozart selber hatte dem damals (1787)
zwanzigjährigen jungen Manne die Rolle einstudiert, und Bassi, dessen Bekanntschaft ich
1811 machte, versicherte mir ein späteren Jahren, er habe sich immer bemüht die Rolle
ganz so zu singen und zu spielen, wie Mozart es gewollt, und der „gran Maestro“ sei sehr
zufrieden mit ihm gewesen. Im Jahre 1812 kam Callot-Hoffmann nach Dresden, und man

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kann sich denken, daβ dieser nicht versäumte den damals noch ganz stattlichen Bassi – (ich
selber sah ihn noch als Axur in Salieri‟s gleichnamiger Oper, welchen er
bewunderungswürdig darstellte) aufzusuchen. – Als ich einige Jahre später auf kurze Zeit
nach Dresden zurückkehrte, besuchte ich auch Bassi, und las ihm bei dieser Gelegenheit
Hoffmann‟s Fantasiestück „Don Juan“ vor. Bassi, der sehr gut deutsch verstand, war von der
Dichtung selber entzückt, äuβerte dann aber: daβ der Held Hoffmann‟s ein ganz anderer sei
als der Mozart‟sche; ich lachte und meinte: das habe ich auch schon gedacht, es wird aber
dem Don Giovanni ergehen wie dem Hamlet, man wird nie damit zu Ende kommen, ihn
zu kommentiren und zu ergänzen. „Don Giovanni ist fertig, vollkommen,“ sagte Bassi mit
Nachdruck. „Mozart hat in ihm geschildert einen feurigen, spanischen, jungen Edelmann,
der über Alles die Weiber vergöttert und es eigentlich für keine Sünde hält, so viele zu
verführen als sich verführen lassen wollen. Er hat das Glück und fühlt sich glücklich, wie
sollte er nicht? – Er ahnet nicht den Teufel unter den Blumen und würde sich vor dem
Teufel nicht fürchten, dafür holt ihn dieser endlich ab. Das ist Alles, es ist aber nicht leicht
eben dieses so wieder zu geben, wie Mozart es wollte, und leichter, viel leichter, wäre der
Hoffmann‟sche Don Juan darzustellen, wäre aber unrecht, denn Don Giovanni ist eine
komische Oper.“
„Mit tragischen Momenten Meister Bassi!“
„Welche aber nie erhalten dürfen die Oberhand über unbändige Lust des Helden:
kommt nicht immer gleich nach einer tragischen Nummer eine heitere, ja zwei, drei? –
Introduktion beginnt komisch, wird dann tragisch, gleich darauf folgt komisches Terzett,
Leporello‟s Register-Arie – lustiger Hochzeits-Chor736 – nach dem halb sentimentalen Duo
– „La ci darem la mano.“ Das Quartett als Übergang zur groβe Szene der Donna Anna –
groβartig, prächtig, doch nicht mehr so tragisch wie das Recitativ bei der Leiche des Vaters
– aber kaum dieses verklungen, welche Lust und Freudigkeit in Don Giovannis Arie? – es
folgt jetzt Zerlinens schalkhafte Arie, das Finale, bis auf eine Stelle der drei Masken,
überschäumend von Lust, Scherz und Kühnheit, damit schlieβend, daβ Don Giovanni und
sein Diener glücklich entkommen. Der ganze zweite Akt enthält kein tragisches Moment,
das nicht sogleich in Lust wieder sich auflöset – denn wie ernst das groβe Sextett beginnt,
sobald Leporello erkannt wird, ist die ängstliche Spannung vorüber, wohl erschüttern die
beiden Chorale des steinernen Mannes, aber Don Giovannis frevelnde, kühne Ladung
übertönt sie. Im letzten Finale – nachdem Don Giovanni seinen verdienten Lohn erhalten
– halten die komischen Personen Leporello, Zerline, Massetto, den drei Traurigen das
Gegenwicht, und wer in der Presto-Schluβfuge etwas anderes suchen wollte, als die
gewöhnliche Moral, welche die spanischen Komödienschreiber selbst den lustigsten
Stücken anhängen, der müβte sehr erpicht sein auf eine Melancholie, von der im Don
Giovanni unseres groβen Mozart sich keine Spur findet. – Wie ich sage, Don Giovanni ist
und bleibt eine komische Oper, die herrlichste, welche je erschaffen wurde, aber Mozart hat
es verschmäht, anstatt komisch, läppisch zu werden, er hat getändelt und erschüttert am
rechten Ort und hat immer beobachtet die Noblesse und Würde seiner Personen, welche
edle Spanier vorstellen und darum wurde seine Oper missverstanden so sehr oft, und wollten
die Wiener sie für keine gute komische Oper gelten lassen.
Über die erste Aufführung des Don Giovanni, welche am 28. Oktober 1787 statt
fand, erfuhr ich von Bassi folgendes: Der Darsteller des Comthur hatte zugleich den Part
des Masetto übernommen. Die Blasinstrumente waren nicht verstärkt, sondern alle nur
einfach (2 Flöten, 2 Hörner ec.), besetzt. – Der ganze Bauern-Chor bestand aus sechs
männlichen und eben so viel weiblichen Individuen. Von Dekorazions- und

736Ich bemerke hier ausdrücklich, daβ Bassi hier nur jene Umstände anführte, aus denen die Originalpartitur
ursprünglich besteht, daβ er, wie Mozart selber, gegen alle späteren Einlagen mit Heftigkeit protestirte.

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Kostümenprunk war keine Rede,737 Furien erschienen nicht auf der Bühne, der Chor
derselben ertönte aus der Versenkung in welche Don Giovanni hinabstürzte. Die 3
Posaunen, 2 Contrabässe und Fagotts, welche die Begleitung der beiden Chorale des
steinernen Mannes bilden, waren auf der Bühne hinter den Postamenten postirt; Mozarts
Freund Dussek dirigirte diese beiden Sätze, der Effekt soll fürchterlich schön gewesen sein.
Sein Ständchen begleitete sich Bassi selber auf der Mandoline, (in Wien übernahm
Mozart, abwechselnd mit dem Dichter die Begleitung, da der dortige Don Giovanni-Sänger
das Instrument nicht spielte.) In der Ballszene tanzte Bassi mit Zerline vor, Mozart selber,
der ein vortrefflicher Tänzer sein soll, hat ihm und dem Chore die Menuette eingeübt. – Es
befanden sich, wie jetzt noch in Dresden, zwei wirklich spielende Orchester auf der Bühne,
so wie auch die Blasharmonie bei der Tafelszene auf der Bühne ausgeführt wurde. Die
Menuet nahm Mozart fast um noch einmal so rasch als sie jetzt genommen wird, dagegen
lieβ er weder beim Champagnerliede noch zu Anfang des zweiten Finales jagen, wie es jetzt
geschieht. In dem Duett aus E-dur mit Leporello, behandelte Bassi nach Mozarts
ausdrücklichem Willen seinen Part als Don Giovanni fast parlando, bis zur Stelle, wo er
durch Leporellos Erzählung aufmerksam gemacht, keck, aber nicht ohne geheimen Schauer
zur Statue hintritt um selbst seine Ladung vorzubringen. Bei dieser Stelle: „Venete a cena,“
lieβ Bassi seine Stimme lang und voll austônen, es wirkte damit in Prag so, daβ bei der
ersten Vorstellung ein donnernde Applaus ihn hier unterbrach und man die Antwort des
Steinbildes nur aus dem Kopfneigen desselben errathen konnte. Wo Bassi dem Geist
entgegen ging, ergriff er später regelmäβig, anstatt des Leuchters das gefüllte
Champagnerglas; bei der ersten Vorstellung hatte er es überrascht und verwirrt von dem
Moment, unbewuβt gethan, Mozart am Dirigirpulte bemerkte es, rief dem Abgehenden ein
lautes „Bravo!“ zu und sagte ihm nach der Vorstellung, er solle dabei bleiben, es habe sich
gut gemacht. Mit dem Niederschreiben des Ouvertüre in einer Nacht hat es seine
vollkommene Richtigkeit, es ist jene Ouvertüre, die wir noch besitzen und sie wurde von
Dussek unter dreien, die Mozart ihm vorspielte gewählt – die beiden andern hat Mozart gar
nicht niedergeschrieben, eine in C-Moll soll mit einer Fuge (die Schluβfuge der Oper?)
geendet haben und Bassi meinte, es sei vielleicht die schönste unter den dreien gewesen, aber
zu lang.
Ich muβ die Angabe widersprechen, als habe Hoffmann sein Fantasiestück Don Juan
begeistert durch eine Darstellung Bassis geschrieben. Hoffmann schrieb sein Fantasiestück
ein Jahr vor seiner persönlichen Bekanntschaft mit Bassi in Bamberg, ich vermuthe, daβ
ihm dabei der Schauspieler Paulmann, (er starb in Hannover), zum Urbilde gedient haben
mag; ich lernte Paulmann um das Jahr 1817 in Aachen kennen; mit seiner Stimme war es
damals nicht viel mehr, aber im Spiel hat er mich unter allen Don Juans, die ich sah, am
meisten befriedigt und ich fand, daβ es ganz mit Hoffmanns Ansicht übereinstimmte. Ich bin
aber auch der Meinung Bassis, daβ man in den Charakter des Don Juan, nichts legen soll,
was nicht darin ist; er kann dadurch nicht zerrinnen, verliert aber dadurch an Grazie und
„nobler Verruchtheit“, wie Friedrich Kind es nannte, der den Bassi noch als Don Giovanni
gesehen hatte und keinen Andern nach ihm gelten lassen wollte. Den Verehrern Mozarts
dürfte es übrigens interessant sein, zu wissen, wie Luigi Bassi aussah; alle die ihn in seiner
Jugend gekannt haben, schilderten ihn mir als einen höchst graziösen, feingebauten Mann mit
feurigen Augen, kleinen Händen und Füβen, nobel in seinem ganzen Wesen und
Benehmen. So war er denn auch noch in den Fünfzigen und später als Greis, sein Gesicht
aber war nicht eigentlich schön, es war scharf geschnitten und seine schon an sich groβe
Nase trat noch merkbarer durch seine groβe Magerkeit hervor, woran er schon in seiner

737Zu Anfang des zweiten Aktes zum Beispiel, erschien Leporello in einer gewöhnlichen, langen Bedienten-
Requaller, welche Don Giovanni später anzog.

277
Jugend laborirte; auf den Wangen und der Stirn hatte er überdies noch einige tüchtige
Warzen. Doch muβte ich mir, als einem alten Praktiker sagen, daβ Bassi in seiner Jugend zu
jenen Gestalten gehört haben möge, die gut kostümirt und geschminkt eben als die
schönsten erscheinen, indes viele im gewöhnlichen Leben wirklich schöne Männer auf der
Bühne sich durchaus nicht gut auszeichnen; woran daβ liegt, weiβ ich nicht anzugeben,
doch daβ es so sei, dafür spricht die tägliche Erfahrung. […]

APPENDIX X

Capellmeister G. Wahrlieb [Johann Peter Lyser]: ‘Wiener Opern-Berichte. Don Juan. 29. April 1849’
IN Wiener Theater-Telegraph No. 16, 5 May 1849: 66-7
[…] In Berlin ist immer viel Feuer- und Pulvergestank, wenn die Höle losgeht, in Dresden
sieht man von all diesem Firlefanz nichts. Wenn der Geist versinkt, lagert sich dichte
Finsterniβ über den Saal, der unsichtbare Chor tônt aus der Erde heraus, ein Flammengrab
öffnet sich, Don Juan stürzt hinein, das Grab schlieβt sich wieder, und die Bühne bleibt
einige Augenblicke leer, bis Ottavio, Anna, Elvira, Masseto und Zerline in Begleitung der
Diener des heiligen Gerichtes mit Fackeln hereinstürzen.
Dann sind in Dresden im ersten Finale drei Orchester auf der Bühne postirt, von
welchen die Tanzmusik ausgeführt wird.
Ebenso ist die Tafelmusik im letzten Finale auf dem Theater, und die Posaunen,
Fagotte und die sechs Contrabässe, welche die beiden Choräle des steinernen Mannes
begleiten, sind in der Versenkung hinter dem Pferde placirt, was eine schauderliche
Wirkung macht […]

APPENDIX XI

Castil-Blaze: Molière musicien. Notes sur les œuvres de cet illustre maître, et sur les drames
de Corneille, Racine, Quinault, Regnard, Montluc, Mailly, Hauteroche, Saint-Évremond,
Du Fresny, Palaprat, Dancourt, Lesage, Destouches, J.-J. Rousseau, Beaumarchais, etc.; ou
se mêlent des considérations sur l‟harmonie de la langue française Vol. I, Castil-Blaze, Rue
Buffault 9, Paris 1852: 318-9.
[…] Touchant à peine à sa vingt-deuxième année, Bassi créa le rôle immense de don
Giovanni. Chanteur parfait, comédien excellent, possédant un organe plein d‟énergie, ce
virtuose était encore un home de haute musique, un de ces artistes dont le coup d‟œil, just
comme leur voix, sait lire dans l‟avenir d‟une composition, et juger de l‟effet qu‟ele produira
sur le public. Bassi désespérait Mozart au sujet du gentil et suave duo Là ci darem la mano. Le
maître avait écrit déjà quatre fois ce duo, sans pouvoir satisfaire son acteur favori. – C‟est
très bien, lui disait Bassi; j‟en conviens, c‟est de la belle et bonne musique, mais beaucoup
trop modulée. Songe que je dois séduire une jeune fille innocente et naïve; je ne ferai rien
qui vaille, si je suis obligé de chercher, de saisir, d‟assurer mes intonations. Vois l‟effet que
je produis toujours dans ce duo si simple, je pourrais dire si bête, de la Cosa Rara, Pace, mio
caro sposo. Je suis désolé de repousser tes quatre éditions du même duo, mais, il le faut
absolument: aucune d‟elles ne me convient.”
Mozart se remet à l‟œuvre, jette avec humeur la cinquième sur le papier, la porte à
Bassi, qui l‟examine, pendant que l‟auteur irrité lui dit: – Je viens d‟improviser une drogue,
don‟t tu feras ce que tu voudras. C‟est la dernière fois que je touche à ce duo maudit,
endiablé, sois-en persuade, convaincu. Prends ma drogue ou laisse-la, peu m‟importe. Si tu

278
refuses, le duo va se noyer dans les ta ra ta ta du récitatif; il n‟en restera pas vestige sur ma
partition. Qu‟en dis-tu, baryton de malheur?
– Ce que j‟en dis! ce que j‟en dis!... c‟est que ta drogue me plait, me ravit; ta drogue
est charmante, merveilleuse, sublime. C‟est un bouquet de roses printanières, un diamante,
une perle, un chef-d‟œuvre de grace et du suavité. Voilà ce qu‟il me fallait, ce qu‟il te fallait.
Avec une telle mélodie, je séduirais, non pas une villageoise, mais la pucelle d‟Orléans,
l‟abbesse de Lichtenthal, que dis-je? l‟impératrice Marie-Thérèse. Evviva il gran maestro! […]

APPENDIX XII A

Johann Peter Lyser: ‘Mozartiana: V. Don Giovanni’ IN Johann Friedrich Kayser (ed.): Mozart-
Album. Festgabe zu Mozart‟s hundertjährigem Geburts-Tage, am 17. Januar 1856, J. F.
Kayser’s Buch- und Noten-Druckerei, Hamburg 1856: Section I, 22-8.
II.

[…] Mozart blickte auf die Gasse und gewahrte einen noch sehr jungen schlanken Mann
[Bassi] mit einem schönen ausdrucksvollen Gesichte und einer Haltung eines Fürsten
würdig. […]

III.

[…] „O! – rief Mozart nach und nach immer mehr in Feuer gerathend, – O! dieses Libretto
ist für mich unschätzbar! Als mir der da Ponte es zuerst vorschlug, wollte mir‟s gar nicht
recht gefallen, denn ich dachte nur an das alte Puppen- und Pantomimenspiel und weil
selbst die Musik des groβen Gluck die Geschichte nicht sonderlich gehoben, so hatte ich
wirklich Furcht, dass es mir nicht besser damit ergehen [24] würde, so nahm ich das
Libretto zur Hand und ging es für mich durch. […] – So – schloβ Mozart – so war mir‟s
ungefähr zu Muthe, als ich da Ponte‟s Libretto zu Ende gelesen hatte, wenn ich mir auch
zugleich sagte: daβ wohl sehr viele ernste, grundgescheidte Leute ganz anders darüber
urtheilen werden und Anathema über mich schreien, daβ ich ein so tolles, abenteuerliches,
ja ungeheuerliches Libretto „ohne gesunden Menschenverstand“ zur Composition gewählt.
O! dieser leidige gesunde Menschenverstand, ich meine das, was so viele ernste,
grundgelehrte und im gewöhnlichen Leben grundgescheidte Leute darunter verstehen! –
Dieser „gesunde Menschenverstand“ hat schon mehr als einen talentvollen Kunstjünger
zum grämlichen Philister, anstatt zum Meister seiner Kunst werden lassen!“
„Beim Himmel!“ rief Bassi, „ich bin begierig auf Ihre Oper und auf meinen Part! Ist
eine groβe Arie für mich darin?“
Mozart lächelte auf eigene Weise, wie man sie sonst ganz und gar nie an ihm
wahrnahm und entgegnete langsam und gedehnt im fast singenden Tone: „Nein, mein
theurer Signor Bassi, eine sogenannte groβe Arie ist in meiner Oper nicht vorhanden, weil
eine solche, vielbelobte groβe Arie dem Charakter des Helden durchaus widerspräche!
Aber Sie haben Solostücke, die Ihnen – mein Wort darauf – genug zu schaffen machen
werden, denn sie wollen nicht nur gesungen, sondern auch gespielt sein und zwar jedes auf
ganz andere Weise als das Andere.“
„Wenn Sie mir den Part selber einstudiren“, versetzte Bassi, „so glaub‟ ich, daβ Sie
mit mir zufrieden sein werden.“

279
 „Das glaube ich auch!“ – lachte Mozart, wieder in seinen natürlich gemüthlichen Ton
fallend, – und ich werde mir mit dem Einstudiren so viele Mühe geben, wie Signor Luigi,
um seine Sache gut zu machen.“ […]

VIII.

Man hat sehr viel über die Entstehung der Ouverture zum „Don Giovanni“ gefabelt. Daβ
er sie in die Nacht vor der ersten Aufführung erst niederschrieb und dazu im Ganzen nur
vier bis fünf Stunden Zeit bedurfte, ist wahr und es verhält sich damit ganz so, wie
Mozart‟s Wittwe es später erzählte und wie es in allen bisher erschienenen Biographien zu
lesen ist. Hoffmann betritt zwar schon das Componirt-haben dieses wunderbaren
Tonstücks in seinen Fantasiestücken in Callots-Manier und Oulibicheff berichtigt
nachträglich das früher auf Treu und Glauben nach erzählte Mährchen, indem er angiebt,
die Ouverture sei schon mehrere Tage vor der ersten Aufführung fertig geschrieben
gewesen, aber auch diese Angabe ist unrichtig. Der wahre Sachverhalt, wie Duscheck und
Bassi ihn erzählen, ist folgender. Die Oper war bis auf die Ouverture fertig, da trat eines
Tages, als eben Bassi anwesend war, Mozart in Duscheck‟s Zimmer, indem er sprach:
„Kinder! Ihr müβt judiciren, mir gehen zum „Don Giovanni“ drei Ouverturen im Kopfe
herum, aber ich bin nicht mit mir einig, welche ich wählen soll! Ich will sie Euch der Reihe
nach vorspielen.“
Und jetzt spielte Mozart drei Ouverturen, die Erste ging aus Es-dur, die Zweite aus
C-moll, die Dritte begann mit einem Andante in D-moll und ging dann in ein Allegro in D-
dur über. Jene Ouverture in C-moll soll eine freie Fuge, wie später jene zur „Zauberflôte“,
allein im Charakter durchaus von der Letzteren verschieden gewesen sein. Alle drei
Ouverturen werden ihrem inneren Werth nach als gleich köstlich von Duscheck und Bassi
bezeichnet, doch für den „Don Giovanni“ erklärten Beide jene aus D-dur mit dem
einleitenden D-moll-Andante für die passendste, und diese war es denn, welche Mozart in
vier Stunden niederschrieb. Die beiden andern Ouverturen ebenfalls niederzuschreiben,
war er nie zu bewegen, ganz im Gegensatz zu Beethoven, der zu seinem „Fidelio“
bekanntlich vier verschiedene Ouverturen uns hinterlieβ. […]

IX.

[…] „Don Giovanni“ machte Furore in des Wortes hôchster Bedeutung. Luigi Bassi
erzählte als hochbetagter Greis in Dresden dem damals noch sehr jugendlichen Verfasser
dieser Skizzen oft und mit Begeisterung von jener ersten Aufführung der Oper aller Opern
und schloβ seine Mittheilungen gewôhnlich mit den Worten: „Der „Figaro“ hatte das
Prager Publikum und uns Sänger elektrisirt, entzückt, aber der „Don Giovanni“ riβ hin, –
entzückte, begeisterte; ganz Prag jubelte: „Eh viva, Mozart! Eh viva, da Ponte! Eh viva il
Don Giovanni!“ – In kurzen Zwischenräumen wurde die Oper gegen zwanzig Mal
wiederholt, bis die Sänger es nicht mehr aushielten und bei jeder Vorstellung steigerte sich
der Jubel des Publikums. […]

280
 APPENDIX XII B

Johann Peter Lyser: ‘Mozartiana: XVI. Mozarts Stationen in und um Wien etc.’ IN Ibid.: Section I,
82-88.
4.

[…] Mit der hübschen Madame Bondini, der ersten und, wie Don Juan Bassi mir oft
versicherte, später unerreichten Zerline und Susanne, scheint Mozarts Verhältniβ von
besonderer Dauer gewesen zu sein; jene Sängerin aber, für welche er seine Donna Anna
schrieb, hätte es beinahe ganz mit ihm verdorben, als sie sich nach der Aufführung des
Don Juan die Äuβerung erlaubte: „Dieser Herr Mozart ist wahrlich en groβer Mann, trotz
seiner kleinen unansehnlichen Gestalt.“ Zerline-Bondini, welche vielleicht in der Donna
Anna eine gefährliche Nebenbuhlerin witterte, hatte nichts Eiligeres zu thun, als diese
Worte der Saporiti Mozart zu hinterbringen, und dieser gerieth auβer sich, denn er hielt sich
für hübsch, war besonders stolz auf sein in der That schön geformtes Bein und seine
kleinen zierlichen Hände und Füβe. […]

6.

[…] 7) Aria: Ah fuggi il traditor.738 […]

Der Zahl nach war das Orchester eben nicht groβ739, aber die Zusammenstellung
musterhaft. Er zählte: 4 erste und 4 zweite Violinen, 2 Bratschen, 1 Violoncello, 2
Contrabässe, 2 Flöten, 2 Oboen, 2 Clarinetten, 2 Fagotts, 2 Hörner, 2 Trompeten, 3
Posaunen und Pauken.
Bassi erzählte mir, daβ Mozart bei den ersten Vorstellung des „Don Giovanni“ selber
die Begleitung der Canzonette auf der Mandoline spielte, weil Bassi, der geborne Italiener,
das Instrument damals noch nicht zu behandeln wuβte; später erlernte er es bei Mozart
und begleitete sich von da an immer selbst. – Mozart hatte die Mandoline in Neapel erlernt
und soll sie, wie auch die Guitarre, meisterhaft gespielt haben. […]
Wie Bassi mir erzählte, rührt die ergôtzliche Tafelscene im zweiten Finale des „Don
Giovanni“ bis zum Eintritt Elvira‟s durchaus von Mozart her; denn der Vorschrift da Ponte‟s
gemäβ hätte Elvira gleich nachdem Don Juan sein „Già la mensa embandita“ beendigt und
im Begriff sich zu Tisch zu setzen, eintreten sollen. Allein Mozart wollte uns den Schwelger
noch einmal wirklich schwelgend vorführen und sich nebenbei über zwei damals beliebte
Operncomponisten lustig machen, so erfand er denn das kôstliche Intermezzo. Leider daβ
es heutzutage nicht mehr in Mozarts Sinne ausgeführt wird, denn unsere heutigen Don
Giovanni‟s und Leporello‟s sind eben keine Bassi‟s und Lolli‟s. Diese behandelten die Scene
bei jeder neuen Vorstellung auf neue Weise, indem sie ein ununterbrochenes Kreuzfeuer

738 Über diese Arie [Ah fuggi il traditor] ist viel geschrieben worden und Musiker und Musikgelehrte haben
sich den Kopf darüber zerbrochen, weshalb Mozart doch dieses Tonstück in einem von den übrigen
Nummern der Oper so durchaus abweichenden Styl geschrieben. Die Veranlassung ist folgende: Madame
Duscheck, Mozarts Freundin, war eifersüchtig auf die Sängerin der Elvira, von der Mozart, weil sie eben so
brav als bescheiden war, sehr viel hielt. Die Duscheck, eine Deutsche und groβe Coloratursängerin,
besonders im italienischen Styl, hatte beständig an der Italienerin und ihrem Gesange etwas zu tadeln. Mozart,
der die schwache Seite der Duscheck wohl kannte, versicherte ihr lachend: er wolle für die Italienerin eine
Arie im deutschen Styl schreiben, welche sie – die Deutsche, der Welschen nicht nachsingen könne. So entstand
die Arie ganz in Händels Manier, die Italienerin sang sie ausgezeichnet und Madame Duscheck schämte sich
tüchtig. (Aus Luigi Bassi‟s Mittheilungen.)
739 Nemlich nach unsern heutigen Begriffen; damals konnte es schon als ein groβes Orchester bezeichnet

werden.

281
von improvisirten Witzworten, drolligen Einfällen und Lazzi‟s unterhielten, so dass das
Publikum in dieselbe heitere Stimmung versetzt wurde, in welche, Mozart‟s Absicht nach,
Herr und Diener auf der Bühne erscheinen sollen. Dazu gehört freilich das ganze Geschick
älterer Operabuffa-Sänger; die italienischen Sänger von heut können es so wenig mehr, als
es die Deutschen je konnten. […]

APPENDIX XII C

Johann Peter Lyser: ‘Charakterzüge aus Mozart’s Leben’ IN Ibid.: Section III, 109-20.
[…] Gazzaniga‟s Partitur [Don Giovanni] dürfte wohl gar nicht mehr aufzufinden sein; Bassi,
der sie kannte, äuβerte: es sei eine Opera buffa im gewôhnlichen damaligen Geschmack
gewesen, mit einer Höllenfahrts-Musik a la Wenzel Müller am Schlusse. […]

APPENDIX XIII

Marie Börner-Sandrini: Erinnerungen einer alten Dresdnerin Vol. I, Warnatz & Lehmann,
Dresden 1876, quoted from Otto Schmid: ‘Luigi Bassi. Erinnerungen an den ersten Darsteller des Don
Giovanni’ IN Dresdner Geschichtsblätter Vol. 34, No. 1, 1926: 128-31.
Von tadelloser, ritterlicher Eleganz und verführerischer Liebenswürdigkeit den Frauen
gegenüber, nannte ihn meine Mutter stets den unerreichten Vertreter dieser Partie, und es
wurden von ihr einige besondere Nuancen häufig hervorgehoben, die sie niemals bei
späteren Inhabern dieser Rolle wahrgenommen hat.
Beispielsweise die Szene des ersten Aktes, wo Don Juan bei der Begegnung mit
Ottavio und Anna dieser seine Dienste anbietet, wobei er eine Galanterie entwickelte, die
sich beim Abschied durch einen feurigen Handkuβ bei Donna Anna zu einer
Leidenschaftlichkeit steigerte, die den Wüstling über den klugen Weltmann siegen machte
und seinen Worten ‚bellissima Donn Anna‟ einen fast schmerzlich vorwurfsvollen
Ausdruck gekränkter Liebe verlieh.
Diese geniale Wendung bot nun der dramatischen Begabung der Caravoglia als
Donna Anna um so mehr Gelegenheit, bei dem Erkennen des Verbrechens ihrem Abscheu
mit den Worten: ‚Don Ottavio, son morta!‟ jenen Ausdruck zu verleihen, der, sich während
der darauf folgenden Erzählung des Attentats fortwährend steigernd, bis zu deren
Abschluβ: ‚Compia il misfatto suo, con dargli morte!‟ (häuft sine Missetaten, raubt ihm das
Leben) den Höhepunkt erreichte, um einen endlosen Beifallssturm hervorzurufen.
Eine zweite Nuance brachte Bassi im ersten Finale vor Beginn des Menuetts an,
woselbst er, seiner Pflicht als Hausherr genügend, zuvor Donna Anna und Donna Elvira
mit respektvoller Galanterie zum Tanzen auffordert, von beiden abgelehnt – mit einer
unbeschreiblichen Gebärde von Gleichgültigkeit – sich nun erst zu Zerlinen wendet, mit
ihr das Menuett nach allen Regeln mit grôβter Noblesse tanzte und erst bei der Tour, wo
die Paare sich bei den Händen fassen, Zerline beiseite führte.
[…] Bekanntlich entfernt sich Don Juan, um die Tür zu ôffnen, mit dem
Armleuchter und einer Serviette versehen; mit letzterer pflegen sich in der Regel die Don
Juans der neueren Zeit hinter der Szene die Schminke wegzuwischen, stürzen mit dem
Zeichen höchsten Entsetzens halb rücklings vor dem Geiste auf die Bühne, wanken zum
Speisetisch, schenken sich wiederholt Champagner ein, um sich damit Courage zu trinken,
wischen sich den Angstschweiβ von der Stirne, wanken von Zeit zu Zeit dem Geiste näher,

282
um schauernd wieder zurückzutreten, kurz – dokumentieren eine Furcht, die dem
Atheisten, dem Gottesleugner Don Juan vollständig fernliegt. Wie anders Bassi!
Er hatte beim Hinausgehen auβer dem Armleuchter seinen entblôβten Degen zur
Hand genommen – trat vorsichtig, stets diesen festhaltend und das Licht in der anderen
Hand, die Gestalt des Gouverneurs nicht aus den Augen lassend, ruhig zum Eβtisch, setzte
Leuchter und Degen weg, blieb mit verschränkten Armen hier stehen, um Leporello seine
Befehle wegen neuer Bedienung zu erteilen, kurz, benahm sich wie ein vollständig ruhiger,
furchtloser, gelassener Kavalier, der indessen, einen bösen Anschlag auf seine Person oder
mindestens einen schlechten Spaβ mutmaβend, von diesem Auftritt hôchst unangenehm
berührt ist.
Bassi verstand diese Stimmung durch ein anhaltendes, drohendes Stirnenrunzeln und
eine bedenkliche Verdüsterung seiner edlen Gesichtszüge vortrefflich zu bezeichnen – so
blieb er gelassen bis zum Moment, wo er in frecher Tollkühnheit dem Geiste die Hand
zum Pfande reicht, hier – und dies war der Triumph von Bassis dramatischem Talente,
konnte nun die groβartige Steigerung der Situation einsetzen (die bei der gewôhnlichen
Auffassung unmöglich wird). Hier kam Verzweiflung an den kühnen Verbrecher, seine
Haare sträubten sich – seine Züge und Gebärden drückten Entsetzen aus, er wand sich
unter dem Händedruck des Geistes krümmend hin und her, um nach unsäglicher
Anstrengung sich loszureiβen und in Todesangst, von den Furien seines Gewissens
gepeinigt, zur Erde stürzend zu versinken. Von einem Höllenrachen und mit
Spiritusfackeln herumjagenden Dämonen, nebst obligatem Pulvergestank war damals keine
Rede. Guardasoni hätte solchen Unfug nimmermehr geduldet. […]

283
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