Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Don Giovanni [antikvár]

The history of opera is really the history of seeking optimum equilibrium between the thcatre of drama and the musical component. where the balance inclines to one or the other side. to the superiority of the drama or the hegemony of the music. History knows but few examples in which both elements arc so perfectly fused as in Mozart's Don Giovanni. At the beginning of 1787, Mozart received a commission to write an opera for a Prague theatre. Prague, where from the 1740s opera had been intensively cultivated, had, as of 1783, a new, and sumptnous building - the Nostic Theatre. Its seating capacity of nearly 1 000 made it one of the largest in Central Europe. From 1783, Pasquale Bondini was the impressario of the theatre and he was the one who requested Mozart to write the opera. Mozart had spent a few weeks in Prague in January and February of 1787, had given a concert, and conducted a performance of The Marriage of Figaro, a work included in the Prague repertoire from 1786 and unusually successful. Mozart, of course, had been known to the Prague public since 1783 when a Prague theatre presented his Seraglio. Interest in the composer personally and in his work continued to grow in Prague and at the beginning of 1787, when Mozart visited the town for the first time, he was surrounded by a cirele of friends and enthusiastic admirers. including apart from Frantisek Xavér Dusek and his wife, the singer Josefina Dusková, composers Vincenc Masek, Jan Kftitel Kuchaf and quite a few of the aristocracy headed by Counts Thun and Pachta. These few weeks spent in Prague, together with a second visit when Don Giovanni was performed, were unquestionably among the happiest in the composer's life. As to the genesis of this supreme Mozart musical dramatic work. unfortunately, we know very littie - nothing precisely is known about Bondini's commission. about the genesis of the librettó, about Mozart's customary changes in the text, or about the time the composition was wrilten. The memoirs of Don Giovarmi's fibrettist, Lorenzo da Ponté, mention ihat he was the one who suggested this subject to Mozart and the composer received the suggestion warmly. In this instance, da Ponté was exceptionally fortunate with the text. The theme had been used since the 17th century in many versions of the Románcé languages. In the 18th century it was set to music many times, especially in the 1770s. Da Ponté was unmistakably inspired by the librettó of Giovanni Bertati for Giuseppe Gazzaniga's opera on this theme. presented with great success in.January 1787 in Venice and shortly afterwards in \'ienna. It is more than likely that Mozart knew this opera. One cannot deny the fact that da Ponté wrotc an excellent librettó with a number of musically rewarding situations and with a feeling for the specific nature of Mozart's talent. This can be seen particularly in the many ensembles and the structure of the two finálés.