Original Portrayal of Mozart’s Don Giovanni

Magnus Tessing Schneider (Stockholm University) is a Danish theatre scholar specialising in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian opera. He has edited Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito: A Reappraisal (2018), together with Ruth Tatlow, and Felicity Baker’s essay collection Don Giovanni’s Reasons: Thoughts on a Masterpiece (2021).

This was just the book I needed when staging Don Giovanni. Magnus Tessing Schneider has done a fantastic job documenting the preparations that led to the first performance of this most controversial of operas, in Prague in 1787. Building on facts, he dares oppose the false tradition that emerged after the deaths of Mozart and Da Ponte, and which portrays the title character as simply ‘a bad man who ends up in hell’. As I read this inspiring book, I understood why Giovanni is rather like Carmen, that other rebellious spirit who is also killed and with whom we also sympathize. Might we do so because they are free in a way that we are not? Presenting us with the enigma, the book leaves it to us to find the answer.- Andrei Șerban, stage directorThis is an important book. It is important as a radical historical reinterpretation of an iconic work of art, but also as a defiant challenge to certain tendencies in today’s intellectual climate. […]Tessing Schneider’s historical examination is driven by a revisionist agenda but leans on a patient and systematic argumentation based on a large and diverse source material. It never becomes programmatic but is characterised by a combination of rigorous source criticism and inventive analytical observations. By means of this method, the author reaches a new and enthralling understanding of one of the most scrutinised works in the history of opera. He has presented us with a Don Giovanni who is even more interesting, complex, and thought-provoking than has commonly been assumed.Moreover, this study is important because of what it reveals about a certain contemporary inclination: an impulse towards simplification and unambiguity in the interpretation of fictional stories and characters, and towards the instrumentalisation of historical works of art to suit present ideological agendas."Lars Berglund, Swedish Journal of Music Research

• IntroductionRewriting the myth of Don JuanThe demonising of Don Giovanni: A historical overviewChapter 1: Luigi Bassi as Don GiovanniThe singer and his roleIntention and experience: Prescriptive and descriptive sourcesThe performer as a phenomenonGrace and gallantry: Bassi’s portrayalPerformance traditions: Italians and GermansChapter 2: The opening sceneChapter 3: Don Giovanni and the three womenDonna Elvira’s entrance ariaThe duettinoThe quartet and Donna Anna’s narrationChapter 4: The party episodeThe champagne ariaThe garden sceneThe ballroom sceneChapter 5: The disguise episodeThe first duet with LeporelloThe trioThe canzonettaThe disguise ariaChapter 6: The graveyard sceneChapter 7: The second finaleThe supperThe last encounter with Donna ElviraDon Giovanni and the stone guestThe final scenePostscript: In defence of the operatic workBibliography