which is to deliver Don Giovanni into the power of the internal spirits comes as a long-expected catastrophe. The spirits themselves Mozart has wisely kept in the background. Invisible in the darkness, they summon their victim in few, monotonous, but appalling notes. This allows of a more animated expression to the torture of despair which seizes Don Giovanni, and to the terror of Leporello; while the orchestra depicts the tumult of all the powers of nature. This scene can only attain to its full effect when theatrical managers can make up their minds to allow the music to work on the imagination and feeling of the audience, unimpeded by a display of fireworks and demoniac masks.[187] This finale, after all that has preceded it, does not certainly produce a calming effect, but it relieves the suspense, and virtually brings the plot to an end. The entrance of the other characters to learn the fate of Don Giovanni from Leporello, and to satisfy the audience as to their own fate, is chiefly a concession to the custom of assembling all the chief persons on the stage at the close of the opera, which in this case seems justified by the necessity of concluding with a composing and moral impression. It is not, however, the true close of the plot, and the audience have already been quite sufficiently informed as to the fate of the characters. Regarded from a musical point of view, Leporello's narrative--interrupted by exclamations of astonishment from the others--is very fresh and spirited, and the surprise well and delicately expressed; the movement would be most effective in another place, but here it falls decidedly flat. The larghetto in which the duet between Don Ottavio and Donna Anna, with the short remarks of the others, is brought to a close is lovely, but not so weighty in substance as the situation demands. The closing movement is very fine, and Mozart has imparted such a clear and tender radiance to the church-music sort of form in which he has embodied the moral maxims, that a flush like that of dawn seems to rise {THE SECOND FINALE.} (213)