As the story goes, Mozart wrote the Overture to Don Giovanni the night before the opera’s Prague premiere on October 29, 1787.
“Don’t worry, it’s all up here,” the composer insisted, pointing to his head. Mozart’s wife, Constanze, provided punch and kept him company while he worked through the night. The manuscript was finished at 7:00 AM, and was rushed to copyists. With the ink barely dry, the musicians of the orchestra reportedly sight-read the Overture in the opening performance without rehearsal.
In the music of his mature operas, Mozart delved deeply into the complex human psychology of his characters. Don Giovanni is a comic opera in the “Opera Buffa” tradition, but it also includes spine-chilling moments of supernatural melodrama. At the time, typically opera overtures were mere curtain-raisers, with music unrelated to the ensuing story. In contrast, Mozart’s Don Giovanni Overture plunges us headlong into the drama.
It begins with a terrifying D minor chord. With an ominous sense of foreshadowing, we are confronted with music that will return at the climax of Act II when the Commendatore’s ghost drags the unrepentant Don Giovanni off to hell. The bass line suggests a sinister, unrelenting knock on the door amid wrenching dissonances and slithering lines in the strings. The trombones are present, with their connotations of the supernatural.
Then, suddenly, the nightmare evaporates and the music shifts to D major. It is an Allegro section which overflows with the brash self-confidence of the pleasure-seeking seducer, Don Giovanni. Although Mozart composed a concert ending for the Overture, in the opera the music leads directly into the first act without pause.
Riccardo Muti led this live 1999 performance at the Vienna State Opera:
John Eliot Gardiner’s 1995 recording with the English Baroque Soloists is performed on period instruments.
Recordings
- Mozart: Don Giovanni, Riccardo Muti, Vienna State Opera Amazon
- Mozart: Don Giovanni, John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists Amazon
Featured Image: “Don Juan and the statue of the Commander” (1830-35), Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard