Unfortunately we have no hints as to the details of the music, which consists for the most part of short and unelaborated dance melodies:—
In the first division, Don Juan serenades his mistress, Donna Anna, and is admitted by her; surprised by her uncle, he escapes into the street, and slays his pursuer. In the second division, Don Juan is giving a feast, at which Donna Anna is present, and dances, a pas de deux with him; the appearance of the statue scares away the guests. After a short stay, the Commendatore invites Don Juan, who accepts, and conducts him to the door. In the meantime the guests reassemble, but seized with fresh terror, rush from the house; Don Juan prepares to seek the Commendatore alone, his servant, spite of threats and persuasions, refusing to accompany him. The third part takes place in the mausoleum; the Commendatore tries vainly to bring Don Juan to repentance, and finally plunges him into the abyss. In the last division, Don Juan is tormented by demons in the lower world; he strives in vain to escape or to resist, and at last, in despair, he resigns himself and is devoured by the flames.[ 117 ]
Ten years before Mozart's "Don Giovanni," a dramma tragicomico, entitled "ü Convitato di Pietra, ossia il Dissoluto," was performed both at Vienna (first on August 21,1777) and at Prague; the composer was Vine. Righini.[ 118 ] The plot is briefly as follows:[ 119 ]—
The fisher maiden Elisa, and her lover Ombrino, save Don Giovanni and his servant Arlechino from the waves. Don Giovanni, who has betrayed Isabella, daughter of the Duca d'Altamonte, in Naples, and is a fugitive in consequence, readily wins the love of the too-confiding Elisa. The Commendatore di Loioa, returning from victorious war, is greeted by Don Alfonso in the name of the King of Castile, who has erected a statue to his honour, and promises to wed his daughter Donna Anna to the Duca Ottavio. Donna Anna, in defiance of her father's threats, refuses the honour. Don Giovanni, whose crime and flight have been made known to Don Alfonso, enters with Arlechino the house of the Commendatore, where Donna Anna, having dismissed her maid Lisette, is preparing to retire to rest. He offers her violence, which she resists, and recognises him; thereupon enters the Commendatore and falls in DON GIOVANNI. combat with Don Giovanni. Donna Anna vows vengeance on the murderer. In the second act Don Giovanni determines to flee, and orders Arlechino to be ready in the tavern, and to order a meal. Isabella, who has pursued Don Giovanni, extorts from Don Alfonso a promise of reparation. Don Giovanni, seized with remorse, takes refuge in the mausoleum, and falls asleep near the statue of the Commendatore. There he is found by the sorrowing Anna, whose love and pity he seeks in vain to kindle. Arlechino summons him to the tavern, where all is prepared; he invites the statue to be his guest, and is sorely perplexed by the answer given. Arlechino in the tavern makes love to the hostess Corallina. Donna Anna receives from Don Alfonso the assurance of the speedy pursuit and punishment of Don Giovanni. The latter sups with Arlechino, waited upon by Corallina and Tiburzio; he toasts the approving audience, Arlechino and the pretty maids, in German verse! The statue appears, but does not eat, invites Don Giovanni and disappears; the meal is continued with the utmost composure. In the third act, Don Giovanni is the guest of the Commendatore in the mausoleum; he refuses to repent, and is cast into the abyss. Don Alfonso and Donna Anna are acquainted by Arlechino of this consummation. Don Giovanni is seen tormented by demons.
The libretto differs neither in design nor execution from that of an ordinary opera buffa.
In 1787 "Il Convitato di Pietra," by Gius. Gazzaniga, was given in Venice at the Teatro di S. Mosè, and was received with much applause. The opera was given in Ferrara, Bergamo,[ 120 ] and Rome, "every evening for a month, till no one was satisfied who had not seen Don Juan roasting in hell, and the late lamented Commandant rising to heaven as a disembodied spirit";[ 121 ] it was played in Milan, 1789; in Paris, 1791, where, however, in spite of the brilliant concluding scene, it was only moderately successful,[ 122 ] and in London (notwithstanding Da Ponte's contradiction) in 1794.[ 123 ] The libretto is lost, but fragments of a score which Sonnleithner discovered in Vienna[ 124 ] show that Da Ponte GAZZANIGA's "CONVITATO DI PIETRA." must have made liberal use of this libretto,[ 125 ] if, indeed, the two have not a common source:—.
Pasquariello is reluctantly keeping watch before the house of the Commandant, when Don Giovanni rushes out, and strives to free himself from Donna Anna, who snatches the mask from his face and calls her father to help; he appears and falls in combat, a terzet for the men closing the introduction [there is no overture]. After some little talk, Don Giovanni flies with Pasquariello. Donna Anna hastens in with her betrothed Duca Ottavio, and finds to her horror the corpse of her father [accompanied recitative]; more composedly she acquaints him with Don Giovanni's villany, and declares her intention of retiring to a nunnery until Ottavio shall have discovered and punished the murderer [air],[ 126 ] to which he consents sorrowfully [air]. Don Giovanni, waiting for Donna Eximena in a casino, converses with Pasquariello, when Donna Elvira enters in travelling guise; she has been deceived and deserted by Don Giovanni in Burgos, and has followed him hither [air]. They recognise each other, Don Giovanni refers her to Pasquariello for the motives of his departure, and goes out. Pasquariello gives her the list of his master's mistresses [air]; she vows to gain justice or be avenged. Don Giovanni enters in loving converse with Eximena, and satisfies her jealous doubts of his fidelity [air]. A peasant couple, Biagio and Maturina, are celebrating their wedding [chorus and tarantella]. Pasquariello pays court to the bride, but on the entrance of Don Giovanni retires; and Don Giovanni treats the bridegroom so rudely that he finally goes off in dudgeon [air]. Don Giovanni befools Maturina by flattery and a promise of marriage. Two scenes are wanting here (14 and 15). Biagio enters in jealous mood, but is appeased by Maturina [scena and rondo]. Eximena questions Pasquariello concerning his master, and rejoices to learn that he is constant to her [air]. Don Giovanni is besieged with questions by Donna Elvira, Eximena, and Maturina all at once, and satisfies each in turn by assuring her that love for him has turned the brains of the other two.[ 127 ] Duca Ottavio is discovered in the mausoleum adding the inscription to the statue which the Commandant had erected to himself in his lifetime. Don Giovanni enters with Pasquariello to view the monument, and obliges the latter to invite the statue [duet]. The cook Lanterna attends Don Giovanni; Elvira comes and meets him returning with Pasquariello; she exhorts him earnestly to repent, but he scornfully refuses, whereupon she leaves him DON GIOVANNI. and retires to a nunnery. Don Giovanni proceeds to sup merrily [concertino]; Pasquariello eats with him, and Lanterna wait upon them; they toast the town of Venice and its lovely women.[ 128 ] A knock is heard, and, to the horror of the two servants, the Commandant appears. Don Giovanni bids him welcome, and orders Pasquariello to serve him; he accepts the Commandant's invitation, giving him his hand on it, but rejects his exhortation to repentance, and is delivered over to the demons.[ 129 ]
A "Convitato di Pietra," by Tritto, is known to me only through Fétis, who places it in the year 1783.[ 130 ]
A wealth of material, which made the task of selection difficult, left Da Ponte no necessity to task his invention for his libretto.[ 131 ] We have no means of ascertaining how deep or how extensive were his previous studies,[ 132 ] but even compared with Gazzaniga's libretto, which he closely followed for the greater part of the first act and the second finale, we cannot fail to recognise his superiority in the arrangement of the plot, in the delineation of character, and in the grouping of situations for musical treatment, especially in the ensembles. His discrimination in the selection of material was also very just. He saw clearly that if the spectral apparition was to have its due effect it must be set in vivid contrast with the representation of actual life, with all its impulses of passion, of love, hate, or despair, of humour and merriment. He cannot be said to have cast the magic of true poetry over his work, nor has it the knightly tone of the Spanish original, but he has endowed DA PONTE'S LIBRETTO. his characters with the easy pleasure-loving spirit of the time; and the sensual frivolity of life at Venice or Vienna is mirrored in every page of his "Don Giovanni." The language displays a versatility almost amounting to gracefulness; and, remembering to what a low level of vulgarity the treatment of the subject had been brought, we shall be the more ready to recognise the effort to raise the dialogue to a more sensible and refined standard. Da Ponte was right in placing the main points on which the action turns upon the stage, and in furnishing the composer with a number of musically effective situations, in which the elements of tragedy and comedy, of horror and merriment, meet and mingle together. This curious intermixture of ground-tones, which seldom allows; expression to any one pure and unalloyed mood, is the special characteristic of the opera. Mozart grasped the unity of these contrasts lying deep in human nature, and expressed them so harmoniously as to open a new province to his art, for the development of which its mightiest forces were henceforward to be concentrated. Great as has been the progress of music in the expression of this inner life of man since Mozart's time, he has not yet been surpassed in his power of creating living forms instinct with artistic beauty, and endowed with perfect dramatic truth. When Goethe declared that Mozart would have been the man to compose his "Faust,"[ 133 ] he was thinking of "Don Giovanni"; but it could scarcely have been the merely external manipulation of the plot, however skilful, which directed his opinion. With the instinctive certainty of genius he felt the universality of Mozart's conception and representation of humanity, and acknowledged him as his equal on what was, in his judgment, a far more extensive field than this.
