ABSTRACT
Chapter 2, ‘The opening scene’, analyses the introduction of Don Giovanni. In 1787, spectators might have compared the opera’s treatment of certain traditional scenes to their treatment in earlier Stone Guest plays. And in the plays by Tirso de Molina (1617), Carlo Goldoni (1736) and Karl von Marinelli (1783), the scene before Donna Anna’s house was used to display the seducer’s violent cruelty: after trying to rape the Commander’s daughter, he kills her father who comes to her assistance, without any hint of compassion or remorse. In Da Ponte’s critical rewriting, however, the spectators must figure out for themselves whether Don Giovanni has tried to rape Donna Anna, or whether he has tried to seduce her, perhaps with success. And in Bassi’s performance, Don Giovanni entered the duel with the Commendatore reluctantly and later showed compassion for his dying adversary. These deviations from the traditional story were erased in Friedrich Rochlitz’s singing translation, however, which enhanced Don Giovanni’s arrogance and violence while depicting Donna Anna and the Commendatore as hapless victims. Traditional scenic and musical performance practice, which continues to influence stage productions, recordings, film versions and critical commentaries, was established on the basis of this translation.
