Performance traditions in Mozart's Don Giovanni

Since it’s first performance, Don Giovanni has remained a favourite amongst operas and was constantly performed,   although substantial changes   have   appeared in it’s shape. Cristof Bitter , in his  book ‘Don Giovanni’  that depicts  the history of don Giovanni productions from 1787 to 1928[1]   beautifully summarises the  approaches to Don Giovanni stagings in its chapter titles: ‘Don Juan – a Singspiel(1789-1800)’ ;  ‘ Don Juan – a Romantic Opera (1800-1850); Don Juan – A music drama(1850-1895) followed by the new, ‘objective’ views of the early 20 century  and the return to dramma giocoso and opera buffa.[2]

 

While investigating this topic I realised that Don Giovanni maintained such a high degree of popularity to a large extent due to its ambiguous aspects (libretto especially)  that could be emphasised, minimalised, interpreted  and  reinterpreted according to elements such as  taste, trends, social  and racial  tensions  in different societies and the actual voice qualities of the lead singers. One can perhaps conclude  that observing various productions of this opera during the last 200 years or so  gives us valuable information not only about  Don Giovanni itself,  but also about general musical preferences in the theatre and cultural periods after the work was created .

 

As various sources state, Don Giovanni was  premiered in its first version, at the Gräflich Nostitzsches Nationaltheatr  in Prague on 29 of October 1787  under Mozart’s baton, and received fantastic reviews. The opera was commissioned by the Italian bass and impresario Pasquale Bondini (1737- 1789)[3]  to be performed by his small but highly regarded and very popular opera ensemble that consisted of seven soloists. He decided that an opera by Mozart   based on the myth of Don Juan would be a successful project after attending the premiere  of Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s  opera Don Giovanni Tenorio in Venice  on 5of February 1787. The  fictional character Don Juan  was not something new, his story has been told many times by various authors.[4] The first written version is  probably   Tirso de Molina’s play that was published around  1630 : El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The trickster of Seville and the stone guest)[5].  The plot takes place in 14^th century Spain  and certainly several unwritten versions of the myth have been circulating  before Tirso’s play since there is a strong resemblance inbetween Don Giovanni’s characters and  commedia dell’arte stereotypes.

 

Before  discussing in more detail the afterlife of Don Giovanni  one must bear in mind  the way opera was understood  in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Before Wagner’s  concept of Gesamkunstwek[6] the singer’s role was equal, if not  higher than the composers. The final version of the score turned out to be, to a great extent a collaboration between  composer and performer and, on top of this, it was common practice for the  singers  to ornament extensively and improvise as they often did. Roles were written and readapted for specific singers, new arias were introduced or adjusted to show a particular singers vocal  strengths: Mozart himself  wrote several  insertion arias for his own operas and operas of his predecessors and contemporaries.

 

Although alot has been written in a disapproving manner with regards to this tradition, such as Tovey’s   quote saying `great and small composers  were equally at the mercy of singers’ or Joseph Kerman’s ‘Great virtuosi knew only to well that the public paid only to hear their voices, and they were permitted to translate this confidence into an elaborate system of abuses’  I believe that  the singers contribution had positive aspects aswell  and was certainly desired by the public. Don Giovanni  was composed at a time when these ‘liberties’ were common practice and expected by the audience.

 

Mozart made his view of operatic composition as a collaboration between singers and composer clear in several letters but it probably most clear in the following quote extracted from one of Mozart’s letters to his father: ‘He like it enormously. One must treat a man like Raaf in a particular way. I chose those words on purpose, because I knew that he already had an aria on them: so of course he would sing mine with greater facility and more pleasure. I asked him to tell me candidly if he did not like it or if it did not suit his voice, adding that I would alter it if he wished or even compose another.’’God forbid!’’, he said, ‘’ the aria must remain just as it is, for nothing could be finer. But please shorten it a little, for I am not able to sustain my notes.’’ ‘’Most gladly, I replied, ‘’As much as you like. I made it a little long on purpose, for it is always easy to cut down but not so easy to lengthen.’’After he had sung the second part, he took off his spectacles and looking at me with wide open eyes, said:’’Beautiful! Beautiful! That is a charming seconda parte.’’And he sang it three times. While I took leave of him he thanked me most cordially, while I assured him that I will arrange it in such a way that it would give him pleasure to sing it. For I like an aria to fit a singer as a perfectly as a  well-made suit of clothes.’’[7]

 

Luigi Bassi  an Italian singer whose range has been described as ‘lying inbetween a tenor and a bass’ that has created the role of Don Giovanni at the age of 22  is said to have asked  Mozart to write him another aria instead of  ‘Fin ch’han dal vino’ and to have persuaded Mozart to rewrite ‘Là ci darem’ five times[8], in order to highlight his vocal and dramatic strengths. In later years  he recalls that no two performances of Don Giovanni were the same and that  Mozart had specifically wished that he should improvise as long as he pays attention to the orchestra.[9]  For the premiere of  Don Giovanni, Mozart refused to write Giuseppe Lolli’s music, the Italian bass that created the roles of Massetto and Comendatore until he head his voice, shortly before the world premiere in Prague.

 

Another aspect that I found surprising – although I must admit that nothing in my readings for this essay has surprised me as much as Mozart’s attitude  towards his singers  is that the leading female character was probably intended to  be Zerlina. The role was created by Caterina Bondini, the wife of Paquale Bondini and sister of Teresa Saporiti, the first Donna Anna. The salary list  of the later Vienna premiere, where Zerlina received the highest pay together with the fact that a singer such as Maria Malibran who is regarded as on of the greatest singers of the 19^th century has chosen to sing, and was famous for her interpretation of  this part, reinforce the fact  that Zerlina was considered the prima donna, and  the prima donna,  probably until early 19^th century does not have the loudest voice, as she later on, due to the increasing size of  opera houses and orchestras has to have.

 

Despite current speculations on what kind of  voices Mozart intended for each one of these roles (fachs- as they would latter on be pigeon-holed) I believe that  this was of  a smaller importance that one might assume today. Mozart’s choices in term of vocal tessitura  for each one of these characters  and even  for orchestration was rooted in practicalities.[10] Pasquale  Bondini’s  company   had seven singers:  three ‘sopranos’ , one ‘tenor’ and three ‘ basses[11]’, most of them known to Mozart from his Figaro premiere in Prague in 1786 . Being well aware of these aspects da Ponte had to develop a libretto suitable  for this number of performers and excluded several characters from the original play. As far as the orchestration goes, the orchestra in Prague was sparse in its string department[12]: three first violins, four second, two each of violas, cellos and bases  but had a  famous woodwind section that Mozart made extensive use of in the second act supper scene, placing an octet on the stage.

 

The Vienese premiere of Don Giovanni was on 7 May 1788 and once again Mozart conducted. For this production, he wrote two new arias with corresponding recitatives: Don Ottavio's aria Dalla sua pace ( composed on April 24 for the tenor Francesco Morella), Elvira's In quali eccessi ... Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata (composed on April 30 for the soprano Caterina Cavalieri and the duet between Leporello and Zerlina Per queste tue manine (composed on April 28). The final  sextet was cut in this performance, as it was on most occasions until mid 20^th century, although it is known that Mozart chose to include it in the last Don Giovanni he conducted in 1791.

 

Don Giovanni  received its London premiere to great acclaim  on 12 of April 1817  at Her Majesty’s Theater . In the custom of the age several small theatres paid homage tot his success with a series of burlesques. A famous singer and actress of this time named Lucy Vestris performed the title role of Don Giovanni as a trouser role, in a `comic extravaganza`[13]. In this same production,  the Latin rake is eventually reformed into a respectable English husband.

 

The American premiere was  on 23 of May 1826 at the Park Theatre New York.[14] The all star cast included renown spanish singers such as  Manuel Gracia (tenor) as Don Giovanni , Manuel Garcia jr. (baritone, famous teacher, inventor of the laryngoscope) as Leoporello, Madame Garcia as Donna Elvira and Maria Malibran (daughter of Manuel Garcia and  according to scholar writing probably the possessor a light, beautiful and agile  mezzo voice) as Zerlina.

 

In the following years Don Giovanni was performed all over Europe in various translations. Radical alterations have been made:  several numbers were excluded, much of Mozart’s music was cut out and replaced with pieces by other composers,[15] characters  were both added  to and removed from the opera . For a 1834 production in Paris (city renown for such  extensively ‘distorted’ productions)  Berlioz  states in one of his reviews[16]  that a ballet was introduced into the first act finale, because at the Paris Opera there always had to be a ballet scene.[17]

 

The only character that was considered  dramatically equal to Don Giovanni in this period was Donna Anna . She is now considered the most difficult role in the entire opera, the  leading female part and after being the  noble ingénue of the opera   now becomes a passionate woman. In the 1834 production Donna Anna  was performed by Cornelie Falcon, a dramatic soprano, possessor of a dark and heavy instrument.[18] Once again, Don Giovanni is interpreted by a tenor, Adolphe Nourrit, who continues the tradition of tenors such as Manuel Garcia, Franz Wild (Vienna 1826) and Mario di Candia (who performed both Don Ottavio and Don Giovanni at different stages during his career) in a title role that is now seen as a baritone part.

 

In the 1880s the conditions of opera production have changed beyond recognition. The major operatic capitals that have been able to seat a maximum of a few hundreds are now able to seat thousands. Wagner’s  influence  has led to a rather ‘heavy’ reading of Don Giovanni and the choruses and orchestras have grew into armies[19]. Singers had to sing more slowly and heavily and  act with large, exaggerated gestures. The darker, seria aspects of Don Giovanni are emphasized at the expense of the comic. By the time of the opera’s centennial, productions were weighted down with Christian or Wagnerian imagery. Donna Anna sang ‘’Non mi dir’’ kneeling in prayer. Don Giovanni  died with his house collapsing around him like Valhalla.[20]

 

 By the 1930s  Don Giovanni could be heard as a complete opera on records and the Metropolitan Opera has started  radio broadcasting many of its productions.

 

After being performed for so long by tenors or baritones like Victor Maurel[21] Don Giovanni becomes the possession of Italian basses such as Ezio Pinza and later on Cesare Siepi and Ruggero Raimondi. The approach towards the female characters undergoes even more drastic changes.  The passionate and heroic Donna Anna  is now seen as ‘cold’, somehow evoking the dull seria characters of the pre-Mozart era. Donna Elvira becomes the leading lady. To Hermann Albert she was, off all the women in the opera the one who in her  whole being is closest to Don Giovanni[22]  and  Edward Dent describes her as by far the most interesting of characters after Don Giovanni himself.[23]

Today all the numbers presented in the Vienna premiere plus the final sextet are performed.  The only part regularly cut  from 21^st century performances is the  Zerlina/ Leoporello duet Per te queste manine.[24]  Although its music is not spectacular compared to the rest of Don Giovanni, as it is a comic number it might serve for a better chiaroscuro equilibrium as the addition of  Dalla sua pace  and  In quail eccesi..Mi tradi  has led to an accentuation of  the seria aspects.

 

Present casting choices vary extensively in terms of voices used. Most often Don Giovanni is performed by lyric baritones such as Dmitri Hvorostovsky and  Simon Keenlyside or  bass-baritones such as Erwin Schrott or Bryn Terfel.   Zerlina  is  considered a minor role, and is frequently  given to young, less experienced  singers. Donna Anna now belongs to  lyric sopranos such as Anna Netrebko or Renee Fleming, both of whom sang Zerlina at the beginning of their careers. Donna Anna is  Donna Elvira’s rival  for the prima donna title  and the outcome varies from production to production..  She  is performed by extremely different voices, raging from lyric, spinto and dramatic sopranos to mezzos. One of my favourite Donna Elviras  is  Italian mezzo Cecilia Bartoli. She is sort of a Glen Gould in the world of singers and bravely challenges stereotypes with her vivacious and highly temperamental interpretations.

 

For the past few decades,  productions  have been experimenting with Don Giovanni’s chameleonic aspects and adapting performances to contemporary tastes. A strong emphasis is placed on physical suitability for the character performed and use of text. Don Giovanni is sung almost always in Italian with a translation provided via subtitles in most major houses. The old saying It is not over until the fat lady sings is out and acting is said to have become more realistic.

 

On the other side, several attempts have been made towards finding Don Giovanni’s ‘authentic’ feel, towards  restoring musical and theatrical performance practices.  Productions in smaller spaces, on ‘period instruments’ are frequent and musicians are constantly researching how instruments were played and singers sang in terms of  sound quality, phrase articulation, ornaments and more recently  even in terms of stage movement.

 

Although such productions often have a privileged status  in recent days and are considered more ‘authentic’   in the sense that they use  instruments and settings that resemble those  of Don Giovanni’s  first productions, one must admit that those first productions   had their own limitations and imperfections just as consequent productions did  and that  perhaps later ones can illuminate corners that might have not been explored initially. Performances  that try to  ‘reproduce the original’ certainly  have the merit of eliminating several ‘distortions’ that have accumulated over the last two hundred years or so  but one must  be aware that many of these period instruments and practices belong neither to Mozart nor to us.

 

Perhaps the focus should be shifted towards   simply  breathing life  into the characters  and   this implies, instead of making infinite assumptions with regards to what was originally intended and  taking each score marking as a word of law,  understanding Mozart’s language and using it to  the best of our  ability as performers to  enhance character, words and drama.

 

 

Keefe, Simon P.      Mozart Studies       Cambridge University Press 2006

Mann, William       The Operas of Mozart     CASSEL LTD  1986

Dent, Edward       Mozart’s Operas: A critical study Oxford Univerity Press 1947

Rushton, Julian      W. A. Mozart: Don Giovanni   Cambridge University Press 1981

Bitter, Christof    Wandlungen in der Inszenirungsformen des    Regensburg 1961

Kerman, Joseph     Opera as drama              University of California Press 1956

Heartz, Daniel         Mozart’s Operas       University of California Press  1990

Hunter, Mary K.        Mozart’s Operas         Yale University Press   2008  

Steptoe, Andrew    The Mozart da Ponte Operas   Oxford University Press 1990

Goehr, Lydia & Herwitz, Daniel  The Don Giovanni Moment Columbia University press 2006

Barbara Kendall-Davies       The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Giovanni

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Juan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Giovanni_discography

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2007/12/mozart_don_giov.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commedia_dell%27arte

http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa110800b.htm

http://opera-stars.suite101.com/article.cfm/mozarts_divas_of_his_day

http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/kbn013v1

http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/11/4/31?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=mozart&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://www.musicwithease.com/don-giovanni-synopsis.html

http://www.divasofmozartsday.com/the_divas/

http://www.themozartcafe.net/story7.html

http://www.jstor.org/pss/854740

http://www.jstor.org/pss/746812

http://www.aproposmozart.com/Stafford,Mozart%20&%20women%20250209.pdf

http://www.jstor.org/pss/763570

http://other9.tripod.com/scr/dj.html

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13755-3/the-don-giovanni-moment/excerpt

http://em.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/XIX/4/580

http://fs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/XV/3/241.pdf

http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/21/4/752

http://opera.stanford.edu/Mozart/creators.html

http://books.google.ro/books?id=pvq65z0MTz8C&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=don+giovanni+1826&source=bl&ots=EXbkaJmM0h&sig=CvVtkj84DUidPjIkxH3HgLn6Ww8&hl=ro&ei=1UCvS_yTDNSrsAanzrDVDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBoQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=don%20giovanni%201826&f=false

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=9A05E1DE163DE533A2575BC1A9649D94609FD7CF

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Don_Giovanni

 

[1] Cristof Bitter  Wandlungen in den Inszenirungformen de ‘’Don Giovanni’ von 1787 bis 1928    Regensburg 1961

[2] I wonder what would be his tag for the last 15 years or so - probably `Don Juan –  Opera, sex  and death` J

[3] http://arts.jrank.org/pages/7637/Pasquale-Bondini.html

[4] http://www.museum.com/jb/overview_all?id=22&lang=en&show=4

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commedia_dell%27arte

[5]  Interesting point:  BURLADOR =  1^st meaning  trickster, jester, mocker ; 2^nd meaning libertine,seducer

[6] The term was first used by the German writer and philosopher Eusebius Trahndorff in an essay in 1827. The German opera composer Richard Wagner first used the term in his 1849 essay "Art and Revolution". It is unclear whether Wagner knew Trahndorff's essay.

[7] Mozart’s letter on 28 February 1778  extracted from ‘The letters of Mozart an his family’ trans Emily Anderson 3^rd ed    Norton New York 1989 pg 497

[8] http://arts.jrank.org/pages/7574/Luigi-Bassi.html

[9] http://arts.jrank.org/pages/7574/Luigi-Bassi.html

[10]  I do not feel the same about his choice of keys, as in this opera Mozart obviously uses tonality extensively to articulate character and this  is a fundamental element in mantaining the balance between the chiaro/scuro aspects. It both distinguishes the buffo, seria and mixed characters and  unifies them in numbers such as ‘La ci darem’  when Don Giovanni enters Zerlina’s world in his attempt to seduce her , a fact that is harmonicaly emphasised  by him performing in on of the ‘pastoral’ keys: in A major.

[11]  Mozart’s bass singers all derive from the Italian basso buffo tradition and no clear distinctions was made between  bass and baritone voices.

[12] See The Operas of Mozart by Mann pg 457

[13] See ‘ The Don Giovanni Moment’  by Lydia Goehr and Daniel Herwitz pg .81

[14] A New York Times article dated 18 of December 1881 http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=9A05E1DE163DE533A2575BC1A9649D94609FD7CF

[15] See Rushton  pg 68-75  for more details about these productions

[16] Berlioz’s review translated in Rushton pg 131-136

[17] 27March 1844 Lola Montez performed a ‘Spanish dance’ in the first act finale. See ‘ The Romantic Ballet in Paris’ by Ivor Guest (Middletown 1996) pg 229

[18]   She was the pupil of Adolphe Nourrit, ‘Falcon’  later on became the name of a  vocal fach.

[19] See Bitter pg 34-36

[20] See Bitter 112-113

[21]  French baritone famous for his Verdi performances.Among the roles he created were Verdi's Iago (Otello, 1887) and Falstaff (1893) and Leoncavallo's Tonio (Pagliacci, 1892). Outstanding for his breath control and acting skill, he also appeared on the dramatic stageand wrote books  on singing and opera staging

[22] Hermann Albert ‘ Mozart’s Don Giovanni  pg 70

[23] Edward Dent, ‘Mozart’s Operas: A Critical Study’ pg 158

[24]  see http://italian-opera.suite101.com/article.cfm/per_queste_tue_manine_for_your_little_hands