A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their MusicKrehbiel, Henry Edward
History
A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music
Krehbiel, Henry Edward
Operas -- Stories, plots, etc.
in the last scene of the opera. They were an afterthought of the
composer's. They did not appear in the original score of the scene,
as the autograph shows, but were written in after the music had once
been completed. They are crowded into the staves in tiny notes which
sometimes extend from one measure into the next. This circumstance
and the other, that they are all fairly written out in the autograph
of the overture, indicate that they were conceived either at one of
the rehearsals or while Mozart was writing the overture. They could
not have been suggested at the first performance, as Jahn seems to
imply. {3} The introduction is only thirty measures long, and the
Allegro which follows is made up of new material. I quote again
from Gounod: "But suddenly, and with feverish audacity, the Allegro
breaks out in the major key, an Allegro full of passion and
delirium, deaf to the warnings of Heaven, regardless of remorse,
enraptured of pleasure, madly inconstant and daring, rapid and
impetuous as a torrent, flashing and swift as a sword, overleaping
all obstacles, scaling balconies, and bewildering the alguazils." {4}
From the tragic introduction through the impetuous main section we
are led to a peaceful night scene in the garden before the house
of Donna Anna. There Leporello, the servant of Don Giovanni, is
awaiting in discontented mood for the return of his master, who has
entered the house in quest of amatory adventure. Leporello is weary
of the service in which he is engaged, and contrasts his state with
that of the Don. (Air: "Notte e giorno faticar.") He will throw off
the yoke and be a gentleman himself. He has just inflated himself
with pride at the thought, when he hears footsteps, and the poltroon
in his nature asserts itself. He hides behind the shrubbery. Don
Giovanni hurries from the house, concealing his features with his
cloak and impeded by Donna Anna, who clings to him, trying to get a
look into his face and calling for help. Don Giovanni commands
silence and threatens. The Commandant, Donna Anna's father, appears
with drawn sword and challenges the intruder. Don Giovanni hesitates
to draw against so old a man, but the Commandant will not parley.
They fight. At first the attacks and defences are deliberate (the
music depicts it all with wonderful vividness), but at the last it
is thrust and parry, thrust and parry, swiftly, mercilessly. The
Commandant is no match for his powerful young opponent, and falls,
dying. A few broken ejaculations, and all is ended. The orchestra
sings a slow descending chromatic phrase "as if exhausted by the
blood which oozes from the wound," says Gounod. How simple the means
of expression! But let the modern composer, with all his apparatus
of new harmonies and his multitude of instruments, point out a scene
to match it in the entire domain of the lyric drama! Don Giovanni
and his lumpish servant, who, with all his coward instincts, cannot
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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