L. Bassi (1766-1825), who is described as an excellent and well-trained singer, and as a man of fine exterior and pleasing manners,[158] was, we are told, very much annoyed that, as the chief personage of the opera, he had no grand air to sing; this was probably felt by others as a blemish in the work. If the nature of Don Giovanni had at all resembled that of Faust, he could not have failed to give some expression to the mental conflict between sensuality and misanthropy on the one hand, and the impulses of his higher moral nature on the other; and such a conflict would have lent itself readily to musical representation. But Don Giovanni has no scruples of the kind; the gratification of his desires is his sole object, and to this he devotes himself in all the consciousness of his own strength. Danger entices him as calling forth his powers; he delights in jests which demonstrate his superiority to his victim, and sensual enjoyment is his only real object in life. He pursues it neither with the lust of a fiend nor with the passion of a strongly moved nature, but with a reckless abandonment to sensual impulses taking absolute possession of all his faculties, and so coming into momentary contact with the nobler capabilities which exist in every soul. Imposing strength, external refinement, a jovial and even humorous manner are, indeed, far from ennobling or dignifying such a character; but they render it less despicable, and reflect line for line the manners of the age which produced Tirso's "Don Juan" and Da Ponte's "Don Giovanni." Music, which in its very nature gives preference and expression to the emotional element of the human mind, {DON GIOVANNI.} (184) was the only fitting exponent of such a creation in the world of art.[159] A nature such as that of Don Giovanni does not express itself in monologue, but in action, and we learn to know him almost exclusively in his relations to others. It is only when he is directing Leporello to prepare a costly banquet, and abandoning himself to the anticipation of the enjoyment it will afford him, that he gives musical expression to his excitement in an air, or rather in a _Lied_ (Act I., 11). His mind is engrossed with the idea of the ball, and he predicts the situation which actually occurs in the finale; even the three different dances are mentioned by name:-- Senza alcun ordine La danza sia Chi l' minuetto Chi la follia Chi 1' alemanna Farai ballar.