[Sidenote: DON GIOVANNI.] As Salieri's _Assur_ completely eclipsed _Don Giovanni_, so, previously, did Martini's _Cosa Rara_, the _Nozze di Figaro_. Both these phenomena manifested themselves at Vienna, and the reader has already been reminded that the fate of the _Nozze di Figaro_ is alluded to in _Don Giovanni_. All the airs played by the hero's musicians in the supper scene are taken from the operas which were most in vogue when Mozart produced his great work; such as _La Cosa Rara_, _Frà due Litiganti terzo gode_, and _I Pretendenti Burlati_. Leporello calls attention to the melodies as the orchestra on the stage plays them, and when, to terminate the series, the clarionets strike up _Non piu andrai_, he exclaims _Questo lo conosco pur troppo!_ "I know this one only too well!" With the exception of _Non piu andrai_, which the Viennese could not tolerate the first time they heard it, none of the airs introduced in the _Don Giovanni_ supper scene would be known in the present day, but for _Don Giovanni_. * * * * * _Don Giovanni_, composed by Mozart to _Da Ponte's_ libretto (which is founded on Molière's _Festin de Pierre_, which is imitated from Tirso di Molina's _El Burlador di Siviglia_, which seems to have had its origin in a very ancient legend[76]), was produced at Prague, on the 4th of November, 1787. The subject had already been treated in a ballet, in four acts, for which Gluck wrote the music (produced at Parma in 1758; and long before the production of Mozart's _Don Giovanni_, it had been dramatised in some shape or other in almost every country in Europe, and especially in Spain, Italy, and France, where several versions of the Italian _Il Convitato di Pietra_ were being played, when Molière first brought out his so-called _Festin de Pierre_. The original cast of _Don Giovanni_ at Prague was as follows:-- _Donna Anna_, Teresa Saporiti. _Elvira_, Catarina Micelli. _Zerlina_, Madame Bondini (Catarina Saporiti). _Don Giovanni_, Bassi (Luigi). _Ottavio_, Baglioni (Antonio). _Leporello_, Ponziani (Felice). _Don Pedro_, Lolli (Guiseppe). _Masetto_, the same. Righini, of Bologna, had produced his opera of _Don Giovanni, ossia il Convitato di Pietra_, at Prague, only eight years before, for which reason the title of _Il Dissoluto Punito_ was given to Mozart's work. It was not until some years afterwards that it received the name by which it is now universally known. [Sidenote: DON GIOVANNI.]