Ravinia 2022, Issue 4

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART (DRAWING); KYLE FLUBACKER (MEACHEM) I I ; Lucas Meachem starred as Don Giovanni at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2019 and reprises the title character at Ravinia on August 11 and 13. Opposite page: Alexandre Évariste Fragonard’s drawing Don Juan and the Commander’s Statue (Last Scene of Mozart’s Don Giovanni) , ca.1825–30 T HE STORY OF Don Juan has been around at least since the early 17th century, and his legend has grown to the point that each century has had its say on the subject. Our own, not yet barely passed two decades, is still busy with it. Like the chameleon its eponymous antagonist is, it has been wrapped in many different philosoph- ical and literary garments. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte conferred on the subject a seriousness and universality that has insured its permanence in our culture. This article purports to do very little but to bear witness to that phenomenon. Like The Marriage of Figaro, its predecessor in the Mozart– da Ponte trilogy, its plot is located at the nexus of sexual and class politics. It portrays burning social issues that our contemporary society is grappling with: the victimization through sexual abuse of women, and the suppression of the rights of the unprivileged at the hands of a more powerful social class. But of the many implications of this extremely complex narrative, there is an overwhelming presence that, at the beginning and the end, orients the listener. And it is accomplished with- out a word of text, nor preamble, nor explanation. The terrifying power of the key of D minor, in the hands of the transcendent genius of Mozart, tells us that this is a cautionary tale, illustrat- ing the fate of those who transgress without repentance. The composer, so generous in his own clemency, pardons almost every character in his operas, but here has made a stunning and powerful exception. In an era when portrayal of death on the stage was relatively rare and unfashionable, Mozart presents us the protagonist’s damnation in full view. Mozart dared the unthinkable: to render the rigorous application of religious law in the theater. He depicts the terror of eternal punishment in such an arresting manner that his association of death with the key D minor reigned well into the 20th century. Few composers have scaled those heights. Mozart’s model seems unsurpassable. Mozart’s moral position con- cerning the protagonist is clear, and despite much of the literary musing of subsequent centuries, remains unmistakable. The moral decay, the cruelty, and the malignant antisocial narcissism of the man we know as Don Giovanni merited a powerful and definitive punishment. The music alone is unmistakable in delivering that castigation. The final scene is awe-inspiring, such that neither believer nor nonbeliever can remain indifferent to its terrors. T HE STORY SEEMS to have originated with a play attribut- ed to the Spanish monk Tirso de Molina, entitled El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest). Don Juan , as it came to be known, would have many new settings—by certain counts, over 1,700 in the centuries following its creation—many in France in the 17th century and most notably by Molière. Da Ponte knew and borrowed from an operatic version called Don Juan Tenorio —referred to as a dramma giocoso (jocular or playful drama), the curious appellation retained by Mo- zart and Da Ponte. Was it a drama or comedy? By the end of the 18th cen- tury, the subject of Don Juan seemed to be exhausting itself when Mozart and Da Ponte alighted on it. Had it not been for them, the story might have disappeared altogether. But they produced a work of transcendent genius, transformed the story of Don Juan and, whether intentionally or not, gave birth to Don Giovanni, a modern myth. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 81