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.
It is morning. Don Giovanni and Leporello are in the highway near
Seville. As usual, Leporello is dissatisfied with his service and
accuses the Don with being a rascal. Threats of punishment bring
back his servile manner, and Don Giovanni is about to acquaint him
of a new conquest, when a lady, Donna Elvira, comes upon the scene.
She utters woful complaints of unhappiness and resentment against
one who had won her love, then deceived and deserted her. (Air:
"Ah! chi mi dice mai.") Don Giovanni ("aflame already," as Leporello
remarks) steps forward to console her. He salutes her with soft
blandishment in his voice, but to his dismay discovers that she is
a noble lady of Burgos and one of the "thousand and three" Spanish
victims recorded in the list which Leporello mockingly reads to her
after Don Giovanni, having turned her over to his servant, for
an explanation of his conduct in leaving Burgos, has departed
unperceived. Leporello is worthy of his master in some things.
In danger he is the veriest coward, and his teeth chatter like
castanets; but confronted by a mere woman in distress he becomes
voluble and spares her nothing in a description of the number of
his master's amours, their place, the quality and station of his
victims, and his methods of beguilement. The curious and also
the emulous may be pleased to learn that the number is 2065,
geographically distributed as follows: Italy, 240; Germany, 231;
France, 100; Turkey, 91; and Spain, 1003. Among them are ladies from
the city and rustic damsels, countesses, baronesses, marchionesses,
and princesses. If blond, he praises her dainty beauty; brunette,
her constancy; pale, her sweetness. In cold weather his preferences
go toward the buxom, in summer, svelte. Even old ladies serve to
swell his list. Rich or poor, homely or beautiful, all's one to him
so long as the being is inside a petticoat. "But why go on? Lady,
you know his ways." The air, "Madamina," is a marvel of malicious
humor and musical delineation. "E la grande maestoso"--the music
rises and inflates itself most pompously; "la piccina"--it sinks in
quick iteration lower and lower just as the Italians in describing
small things lower their hands toward the ground. The final words,
"Voi sapete, quel che fa," scarcely to be interpreted for polite
readers, as given by bass singers who have preserved the Italian
traditions (with a final "hm" through the nose), go to the extreme
of allowable suggestiveness, if not a trifle beyond. The insult
throws Elvira into a rage, and she resolves to forego her love
and seek vengeance instead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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