Mozart's Don Giovanni - Conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler (Salzburger Festspielen 1954)

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Librettist: Lorenzo da Ponte
Premiere: 29 October 1787, Prague (Gräflich Nostitzsches Nationaltheater)
Language: ItalianShow more

Cast: Cesare Siepi, Dezső Ernster, Elisabeth Grümmer, Anton Dermota, Lisa Della Casa, Otto Edelmann, Erna Berger, Walter Berry.

The Choir of Wiener Staatsoper
Wiener Philharmoniker
Wilhelm Furtwängler

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legend about a libertine as told by playwright Tirso de Molina in his 1630 play El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra. It is a dramma giocoso blending comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements (although the composer entered it into his catalogue simply as opera buffa). It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the National Theater (of Bohemia), now called the Estates Theatre, on 29 October 1787. Don Giovanni is regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time.

Synopsis: Don Giovanni, a young, arrogant, and sexually promiscuous nobleman, abuses and outrages everyone else in the cast until he encounters something he cannot kill, beat up, dodge, or outwit.

ACT I
Leporello waits outside a house where his master, Don Giovanni, is forcing himself upon Donna Anna. She cries for help and her father, the Commendatore, runs to her assistance. In the ensuing fight Don Giovanni kills the Commendatore. Donna Anna and her betrothed, Don Ottavio, vow revenge. Donna Elvira, recently jilted by Don Giovanni, arrives in search of the Don; he makes good his escape by leaving Leporello to read out his "book of conquests", in which the names of the Don's 2065 lovers are recorded. Don Giovanni comes across a peasant wedding and promptly begins to charm the bride, Zerlina, but Elvira arrives and alerts her to the Don's intentions. Donna Anna and Don Ottavio then arrive, and as the Don takes his leave of them, Anna identifies him as the man who had tried to rape her. At a party hold by Don Giovanni, Zerlina reassures her lover Masetto of her affections, but she begins to weaken in the Don's presence. Wearing masks, Anna, Elvira and Ottavio arrive at the ball, which is interrupted by Zerlina's scream. She stumbles onto the stage, the Don attempts to blame Leporello for the attack, and Anna, Elvira and Ottavio unmask themselves to publicly denounce the Don.

ACT II
Don Giovanni exchanges his costume with Leporello and serenades Elvira's maid as soon as Elvira has left with Leporello, believing him to be the remorseful Don. Masetto arrives with a gang of men who are intent on punishing the Don. The Don, pretending to be Leporello, tells Masetto how to find the murderer, then beats Masetto half to death. The Don and his servant meet in a graveyard, where the statue of the Commendatore addresses them; Don flippantly invites him to supper. The statue duly arrives and demands the Don's repentance. Unbending, Don Giovanni is finally dragged screaming into hell. Elvira, Ottavio, Anna and Leporello address the audience with the moral: "Evildoers always come to an evil end."