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In writing his
Don Giovanni
libretto, Da Ponte
built upon the centuries-old theatrical tradition
surrounding Don Juan. He also drew character
material from his conversations with the notori-
ous, real-life Giacomo Casanova, whom he had
known in Venice and who now lived outside
Prague. Mozart arrived in Prague on October
,
— days before the scheduled premiere—
with an incomplete score in hand. Da Ponte
reached the Bohemian capital three days later
to oversee the staging. e National eater was
not ready in time for the announced opening
date, and performances were postponed twice.
Don Giovanni
eventually reached the stage on
October .
In Act One, the audience encounters the libid-
inous Don Giovanni, who bounds from one
amorous conquest to the next. Donna Elvira en-
ters, bemoaning her abandonment by a rogue.
Don Giovanni consoles Donna Elvira—neither
recognizing the other at rst—as Leporello
comments sarcastically on his master’s special
type of comfort. When the Don kisses Donna
Elvira’s hand, she realizes he is the o ender. Don
Giovanni ees, leaving Leporello to outline a
long history of seductions (“Madamina, il cat-
alogo è questa”). Having done nothing to cheer
up Donna Elvira, Leporello departs.
Leporello and Don Giovanni stagger into a
wooded square outside Donna Elvira’s abode
at the beginning of Act Two. Leporello again
expresses his desire to leave Giovanni’s service,
an issue soon silenced by a bag of coins and a
failed attempt to reform his master’s lecherous
ways (“Eh via bu one”). Incensed, Don Giovan-
ni spouts that remaining faithful to one woman
would make so many others unhappy. He con-
vinces Leporello to exchange cloaks and stand in
the open square while Don Giovanni sings a ser-
enade to Donna Elvira. e music soothes, and
Donna Elvira descends from her room when the
suitor threatens suicide. Making like a robber,
Giovanni frightens the cloaked Leporello and
Donna Elvira away. Giovanni picks up the man-
dolin and serenades Elvira’s maid (“Deh, vieni
alla nestra, o mio tesoro”).
RUGGERO LEONCAVALLO (1857–1919)
Intermezzo from
Pagliacci
e Neapolitan composer and librettist Ruggero
Leoncavallo enjoyed a privileged upbringing as
the son of a wealthy judge. A er studies at the
Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella,
which the composer Paolo Tosti had attended
a decade earlier, Leoncavallo embarked on a
performing and teaching career while compos-
ing Italian operas and songs on the side. Cap-
italizing on the political in uence of his uncle
Giuseppe, who served in the Foreign Ministry,
Leoncavallo became pianist and piano teacher
to the brother of the Khedive Twe k Pasha in
Egypt, remaining until the uprising of
.
Initially, Leoncavallo ed to Paris to circulate
among late-Romantic artists, writers, and mu-
sicians. He returned to Italy early in the next
decade, taking up residence in Milan.
e tri-
umphant
premiere of Pietro Mascagni’s
verismo opera
Cavalleria rusticana
in Rome
changed the course of Leoncavallo’s composi-
tional style. Within two years, he produced his
own masterpiece of verismo opera,
Pagliacci
(
Clowns
), which premiered at Milan’s Teatro Dal
Verme on May ,
.
Leoncavallo wrote his own libretto, basing the
story on a haunting childhood episode.
e
brothers Luigi and Giovanni D’Alessandro killed
a family friend and young Ruggero’s sometime
babysitter, the -year-old Gaetano Scavello, in
. Jealousy over Gaetano’s alleged romance
with a woman who also was involved with Lu-
igi D’Alessandro prompted the murder by knife.
e judge who convicted the brothers was Leon-
cavallo’s father, Vincenzo. In
Pagliacci
, Leonca-
vallo sensationalized this case through an op-
eratic love triangle involving Canio, the leader
of a traveling troupe of actors/clowns, his wife
Nedda, and her alleged lover, the hunchback ac-
tor Tonio.
JULES MASSENET (1842–1912)
“Vision fugitive” from
Hérodiade
Massenet triumphed in the world of grand op-
era with his four-act realization of the biblical
story of John the Baptist, the young maiden Sa-
lome, the tetrarch Herod, and his wife Herodi-
as—
Hérodiade
( ). e opera’s literary source
was Gustave Flaubert’s “Hérodias, le conte de
Salomé” found in the collection
Trois Contes
( ree Tales;
). Like in Oscar Wilde’s infa-
mous play
Salome
nearly two decades later (it-
self heavily indebted to Flaubert; also the basis
of Richard Strauss’s opera of the same name),
Flaubert weaves an intriguing tale of lust and
power, loyalty and betrayal.
Hérodiade
opened
on December
,
, at the éâtre de la Mon-
naie in Brussels.
Like Flaubert’s story, the libretto by Paul Milliet
and Henri Grémont (pseudonym for Georges
Hartmann) treats the biblical tale rather loosely.
Salome—orphaned and unaware of her parent-
age—has become an ardent disciple of John the
Baptist, who rescued her as a child (“Il est doux,
il est bon”). Herod becomes obsessed with the
beautiful Salome.
ough a troupe of graceful
women dance in his chamber, he prefers the
potion-induced apparition of Salome (“Vision
fugitive”). Consulting the Chaldean astrologer
Phanuel, Herodias discovers that Salome is the
child she abandoned in order to marry Herod.
Salome remains faithful to John, despite Herod’s
lecherous advances. e Baptist receives a death
sentence, and Salome stands ready to die with
him. She dances before Herod, begging mercy
for John. However, the executioner arrives with
a sword stained in John the Baptist’s blood. A
distraught Salome grabs a dagger and attacks
Herodias, who exclaims, “I am your mother!”
Salome turns the blade on herself.
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Lorenzo Da Ponte
Jules Massenet
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