The first performance of "Don Giovanni" in America took place in the Park Theatre, New York, on Tuesday evening, May 23, 1826. I have verified the date in the file of the New York Evening Post. "This evening for the first time in America, the semi-serious opera of 'Il Don Giovanni,'" reads the advertisement of that date. Then follows the cast. Manuel Garcia played the title rôle; Manuel Garcia, Jr., afterwards inventor of the laryngoscope, who reached the age of 101, dying in London in 1906, was Leporello; Mme. Barbieri, Donna Anna; Mme. Garcia, Donna Elvira; Signorina Maria Garcia (afterwards famous under her married name of Malibran), Zerlina; Milon, whom Mr. Krehbiel identifies as a violoncellist later with the Philharmonic Society, Don Ottavio; and Carlo Angrisani, Masetto, a rôle he had sung at the first London performance of the work.
Da Ponte, the librettist of the work, who had become Professor of Italian at Columbia College, had induced Garcia to put on the opera. At the first performance during the finale of the first act everything went at sixes and sevens, in spite of the efforts of Garcia, in the title rôle, to keep things together. Finally, sword in hand, he stepped to the front of the stage, ordered the performance stopped, and, exhorting the singers not to commit the crime of ruining a masterwork, started the finale over again, which now went all right.
It is related by da Ponte that "my 'Don Giovanni,'" as he called it, made such a success that a friend of his who always fell asleep at operatic performances, not only remained awake during the whole of "Don Giovanni," but told him he couldn't sleep a wink the rest of the night for excitement.
Pauline Viardot-Garcia, sister of Signorina Garcia (afterwards Mme. Malibran), the Zerlina of the first New York performance, owned the original autograph score of "Don Giovanni." She bequeathed it to the Paris Conservatoire.
The opera has engaged the services of famous artists. Faure and Maurel were great Don Giovannis, Jean de Reszke sang the rôle, while he was still a baritone; Scotti made his début at the Metropolitan Opera House, December 27, 1899, in the rôle, with Nordica as Donna Anna, Suzanne Adams, as Donna Elvira, Sembrich as Zerlina, and Édouard de Reszke as Leporello. Renaud appeared as Don Giovanni at the Manhattan Opera House. Lablache was accounted the greatest of Leporellos. The rôle of Don Ottavio has been sung by Rubini and Mario. At the Mozart Festival, Salzburg, 1914, the opera was given with Lilli Lehmann, Farrar, and McCormack in the cast.
A curious aside in the history of the work was an "adaptation," produced by Kalkbrenner in Paris, 1805. How greatly this differed from the original may be judged from the fact that the trio of the masks was sung, not by Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Don Ottavio, but by three policemen!
THE MAGIC FLUTE
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE
Opera in two acts by Mozart; words by Emanuel Schikaneder and Gieseke. Produced, September 30, 1791, in Vienna, in the Theatre auf der Wieden; Paris, 1801, as "Les Mystères d'Isis"; London, King's Theatre, June 6, 1811 (Italian); Covent Garden, May 27, 1833 (German); Drury Lane, March 10, 1838 (English); New York, Park Theatre, April 17, 1833 (English). The rôle of Astrofiammante, Queen of the Night, has been sung here by Carlotta Patti, Ilma di Murska, Gerster, Sembrich, and Hempel.
Characters