PROGRAM NOTES SPONSORED BY THOMAS WARD

As a child protégé, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) traveled across the continent on several occasions, dazzling everyone from German princes to Italian impresarios and French royals. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Mozart’s life will always be connected to two cities: Salzburg, his birthplace and home through age 25; and Vienna, the glittering metropolis where he lived out the final decade of his life. Lost in that summary, however, is Prague. The Bohemian city suffered dramatically during the 17th century (the Thirty Years War proved disastrous for the city’s fortunes), but later nobles took great pride in gradually rebuilding cultural resources to a position of high esteem.

A highlight of Prague’s revival – one relevant to Mozart – was the opening of the new “Bohemian Estates Theatre” in 1783. The sumptuous classical venue would host the premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni four years later. For this opera, Mozart collaborated with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. The pair produced three of the finest classical operas in existence, including Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Così fan tutte (1790), and the powerful blend of drama and comedy that is Don Giovanni (1787). Figaro was produced first in Vienna in May 1786 and staged just six months later in Prague. Although Mozart was not present for the latter performances, news of Figaro’s triumphant reception helped motivate his own journey to Prague two months later.

Mozart made his first trip to the Bohemian capital in January 1787, staying for a month and enjoying almost immediate success with his so-called Prague Symphony No. 38 and other works. In fact, the easy acclaim he enjoyed was something Mozart appreciated. Multiple people commented how Prague audiences warmed to the young composer much more quickly than their reserved Viennese counterparts. One scholar believes the strong tradition of musical education in Prague explains this aspect, whereas less deeply-educated listeners in other cities often found Mozart’s works difficult to fully comprehend. Whatever the cause, Prague opened its arms to Mozart on at least four later occasions, including the premiere of Don Giovanni in October 1787.

Treating the perennial tale of the seducer who finally gets his just deserts, the plot centers on Giovanni’s libidinous machinations – aided by the buffa servant Leporello – involving both aristocratic (Donna Anna, Donna Elvira) and peasant women (Zerlina, who is engaged to Masetto). Don Giovanni premiered to rapturous acclaim and has remained a staple in the repertoire ever since. The opera’s philosophical and supernatural elements have made it significant in the history of aesthetics, while the masterful blend of intense drama with buffa caricatures and ribald subject matter have extended its impact to all levels of culture.

The overture seeks to capture both sides of the anti-hero, Giovanni. On one hand he is charismatic, virile, and filled with an irrepressible joy for life. On the other hand he flaunts conventional morality and treats other people as objects merely for servitude or conquest. Mozart begins the overture with Giovanni’s darker side in two powerful D-minor chordal outbursts. These signature chords recur at the opera’s climactic scene, when the ghostly Commendatore confronts our hero for his sins. These gestures are answered by a variation on the Baroque lament bass progression, in which the harmonic foundation falls chromatically by step from tonic down to the dominant. A third idea emerges in the striking augmented 2nds in first violin with an evocative, needling sixteenth-note figure in second violin. Mozart carefully controls the pacing and use of ascending and descending lines. For instance, note how the wavelike scales in the flute and first violin mark an overall ascending progression from D to A, with each chromatic step filled in along the way.

All this material functions as a slow introduction to the sonata-form main body in D major. The brilliant major-mood main theme could just as easily have stepped off the pages of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Below the sunny surface, one finds subtle details that betray the master’s hand: his use of contrasting rhythms between upper and lower strings; broad gestures answered by rapid, staccato ones; a crystal-clear tonal structure that allows us to follow the exposition, development, and recapitulation – all within a taut, six-minute overture.

Following the overture, Giovanni’s servant Leporello appears on stage complaining of his station in life: always serving, never tasting. Even now he is merely playing lookout while his master is inside courting Donna Anna. Soon Giovanni and Anna emerge from her house. He is still half disguised, and she refuses to let him go until she can discover who has attempted to seduce her. Enter next her father, the Commendatore, who will die here but return to play a major role at the end of the opera. Run through by Giovanni’s sword, the old man falls. Scene 1 concludes with Anna and her fiancé, Don Ottavio, swearing vengeance on the unknown assailant.

Scene 2 features another of Giovanni’s amorous intrigues. Unfortunately for our “hero,” this time he tries to seduce a woman he had already loved and cast aside. Neither Donna Elvira nor Giovanni recognize each other. She begins the scene singing about her rage in “Ah! chi mi dice mai.” Dwelling on her shameful abandonment, the vocal writing is suitably repetitious but also vehement and powerful, including a high BL. Elvira provides a strong female role, one that is badly needed as a counterweight to Giovanni’s hyperactive machismo. He flees the scene once recognition dawns, and Leporello is left trying to appease Elvira. Instead, his mollifying words turn into a shocking catalogue aria regaling his master’s numerous European conquests (“Madamina!”). This buffa aria provides a numbers report that centers on the “mille e tre” (1,003) women in Spain alone that have succumbed to the Don. In the contrasting B section, Leporello shows how well he himself has observed women. This brief touch adds depth to his character, reminding us that Leporello is not just a foolish order-taker.

In Act 1, Scene 3 we move to the countryside where Zerlina and Masetto are celebrating their nuptials. “Giovinette, che fate all’amore” is a vigorous chorus in G major and 6/8 meter – two musical elements with a long history of pastoral associations. Ever the gallant and ever the scoundrel, Giovanni strides onto the scene and offers to host their wedding feast at his estate. With Masetto temporarily out of the picture, Giovanni draws Zerlina into the famous duet “Là ci darem la mano.” Note how Mozart begins the melody immediately without any prelude as if Giovanni’s lust can brook no further delay. Gradually the pair begin to finish each other’s phrases; Zerlina’s resistance is quickly fading. The duet culminates with a turn to 6/8 as they share the text “Andiam, mio bene” (Let’s go, my dear). Giovanni’s efforts here come to nought as Elvira, Anna, and Ottavio all catch up with him. Anna then realizes that Giovanni is, indeed, the masked man who slew her father, and she demands a pledge of revenge from Ottavio. Ottavio doubts that such a noble man could be the murderer, but he promises to monitor the situation for her sake.

Even after failing to capture Zerlina, Giovanni remains undaunted. In his so-called “champagne aria,” the breathless “Fin ch’han dal vino,” he instructs Leporello to plan the wedding party and invite any pretty girl he sees. As the act winds down, Giovanni again tries to corner Zerlina. Poor Masetto is beginning to doubt her true fidelity, which prompts an outpouring of slavish devotion from his bride (“Batti, batti”). On its surface, “Batti, batti” makes for delightful music, though its message is hardly a redeeming moment in women’s liberation. During the massive ensemble finale to Act 1, Giovanni is again caught in the act, and once again he offers up Leporello as the sacrificial lamb while himself escaping to woo another day.

Much of the opera’s darker moments are limited to Act 2. In that act we witness how Giovanni’s sexual addiction includes chauvinism and gross condescension. As soon as the game is won, entreaties turn to laughter. For example, he scoffs at Elvira’s renewed affections. This sinister behavior frames the opera’s “Cyrano” moment. The off-stage Giovanni serenades Elvira at her window, while hapless Leporello stands in for his master in the latter’s cloak. As the impostor heads off with Elvira, the true libertine steps from the shadows to serenade her maid with “Deh vieni alla finestra.” Against a simple, mincing accompaniment making use of mandolin, Giovanni sings a paean to love and his maiden of the moment.

Meanwhile Leporello has led Elvira away only to abandon her. He still appears in his master’s clothes when confrtoned by the angry mob. During a lengthy sextet, Leporello sheds his disguise, begs for mercy while blaming Giovanni for his own misdeeds, and quietly slips away when the moment is right. Don Ottavio is now firmly convinced that Giovanni killed his beloved’s father and swears revenge in a sweeping tenor aria (“Il mio tesoro”). After various encounters, Elvira – torn between anger and desire – laments her conflicting emotions in “Mi tradì quell’alma ingrate,” the concluding part of Scene 2 and one of Mozart’s finest arias.

The Don and his servant reunite in a graveyard, where they first encounter the stone statue that will reappear at the opera’s grand climax. After taunting poor Leporello, Don Giovanni is warned by the statue to mend his ways. Instead, Giovanni can only muster laughter at such a threat and decides to invite this “Stone Guest” to dinner that evening. The depiction of that meal is handled masterfully by Mozart, inserting famous melodies from contemporary arias – including his own Figaro – to draw his audiences into the revelry. Elvira turns up to assert that she is no longer in love with Giovanni, but the Don coldly turns his back on her words to deliver a callous homage to wine, women, and song.

Moments after her exit, Elvira’s offstage scream ushers in the final action. For all his obvious misdeeds, it falls to supernatural forces to finally bring Giovanni to justice. The slain Commendatore returns in stone form, his statue come to life and come to drag Giovanni to hell. With the return of the D-minor Overture music, furies claim their victim. Various threads are knotted back together in a final, moralizing sextet: “Such is the horrific end for all who sin so boldly.” Surely no one sins so boldly as Don Giovanni. Surely no one else so consistently subverts societal laws to satisfy his personal desires. And surely no one portrayed the rise and fall of this character-type so well as Mozart.

Jason Stell, © 2026