pursues Don Juan, but he is warned against her by Carino, to whom she
has been faithless. Don Juan declares himself ready to give her up,
but Carino will have none of her. In the fourth act, Don Juan makes
declaration of love to Donna Anna, who is not unfavourably disposed
towards him, but refers him to her father for consent. He seeks,
however, with drawn sword to gain her favour on the spot; she calls for
help; her father hastens in, and is slain by Don Juan, who then escapes.
It is resolved to pursue him and to seek redress against him from the
King. In the fifth act Elisa promises to liberate him, having relatives
among the guards, if he will marry her. Isabella interposes and renews
her challenge to him to fight. Donna Anna, in mourning robes, calls
for vengeance, but Don Juan displays so much passion for her that she
relents and pardons him. Thereupon comes a letter from the King of
Naples, demanding Don Juan's punishment, and disclosing Isabella's
secret. Don Juan, seeing himself hopelessly lost, beseeches Carino to
slay him. A thunderbolt from the mausoleum of the murdered Commendatore
strikes him dead.
Goldoni asserts[101] that the public were astonished at first, and did
not know "Ce que voulait dire cet air de noblesse que l'auteur avait
donné à une ancienne bouffonnerie." But it soon became known that
the coquettish Elisa was an actual portrait of the actress, Elizabeth
Passalacqua, who played the part, and that Goldoni had chosen this way
of being revenged on her for bestowing her favours simultaneously on
him and on the actor Vitalba. This roused interest in the piece, and
convinced people "que le comique raisonné était préférable au comique
trivial." Rosimond looked at the subject from quite another point
of view in his _tragi-comédie_ "Le Festin de Pierre, ou l'Athéiste
Foudroyé," produced in 1669 at the Théätre du Marais. This theatre was
then noted for its brilliant decoration and spectacle pieces, which
often necessitated high prices of admission. Such a piece was this of
Rosimond's, and he had been careful to lay the plot in heathen times,
that his atheism might vaunt itself with impunity.[102] Again, in 1746,
"Le Grand Festin de Pierre" was given in Paris as a pantomime,[103] and
has always been popular on village and marionette stages.
{DON JUAN IN ENGLAND AND GERMANY.}
(155)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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