It Seems the Devil is Having Fun Today Thwarting My Pursuit of Pleasure

When Mozart decided to write an opera based on Don Juan, one of the most infamous scoundrels in all of literature, he joined a long succession of authors and composers seduced by the lure of the greatest of rascals, just like his female conquests had been. Don Juan first appeared in 1630 in the Spanish play El burlador de Sevilla by Tirso de Molina. Since then, authors from Lord Byron to George Bernard Shaw had been inspired to apply their own twists to the tale.

Historical Background: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was at the height of his creative powers, in 1787, when he wrote the greatest of his operas, Don Giovanni. He was also at or near the height of his personal and financial difficulties. Mozart had been detached from the service of Archbishop Hieronymus in Munich in 1781 and had repaired to Vienna, the Austrian capital. At age twenty-five, Mozart was at last a free agent for the first time in his life. During his early years in Vienna, Mozart's prestige and fame continued to grow, but without any associated monetary compensation. On Christmas Eve of 1781, under the sponsorship of Emperor Joseph II, Mozart engaged in the famous contest with the celebrated Clementi in which the pair spontaneously improvised on a theme by Paisiello on a pair of pianos. Mozart's opera Die Entfhrüung was performed on July 16th, 1782. The Emperor famously declared that it had too many notes! In Vienna, Mozart lodged with the Weber family, consisting of the widowed and conniving mother and several daughters, including Aloysia, Josefa, and Constanze. Mozart had once been in love with the vocally talented Aloysia, writing inspired arias for her, but that was over. Mozart's affections turned to Constanze, who was something of a Cinderella in the family. Encouraged by the machinations of Madame Weber, the pair was married on August 4th, 1782.

Though Mozart benefited from the renown of his days as a child prodigy and growing fame as a mature composer, his income was insufficient for the maintenance of a household. Constanze was almost always pregnant (only two of their six children survived infancy) and the couple fell further and further into debt. Mozart was reduced to begging abjectly for money from a fellow Mason, Michael Puchberg. Despite his deepening ocean of debt, Mozart never lost his powers of concentration when it came to composing. In the opera category alone, Mozart brought out Le Nozze di Figaro on May 1st, 1786, Don Giovanni at Prague on October 29th, 1787, and Cosi fan tutte at Vienna in January of 1790. In a span of just six weeks in the summer of 1788, Mozart wrote his three supreme symphonies, 39-41, the first of which I was privileged to hear in concert last night. Since the libretto for Don Giovanni, written by Lorenzo da Ponte, was in Italian, Mozart renamed the principal character "Don Giovanni."

The Story: Act I opens outside the house of the Commendatore in Seville. Don Giovanni (Ruggero Raimondi) has entered the house to have his way with the Commendatore's daughter, Donna Anna (Edda Moser). Outside, Don Giovanni's servant, Leporello (José van Dam), attends nervously. Giovanni suddenly emerges with Anna in pursuit. Giovanni is masking his face but Anna is determined to expose her assailant. Moments later, the Commendatore (John Macurdy) rushes to his daughter's rescue, demanding that Giovanni defend himself. Giovanni fatally wounds the Commendatore and rushes off. Anna returns in the company of her suitor, Don Ottavio (Kenneth Riegel), and, finding her father dead, swears vengeance, enlisting Don Ottavio to her cause.

In a street, Giovanni ignores his servant's reproaches for his conduct. His mind is already occupied with hopes of another conquest. Giovanni catches a whiff of a beauty a short distance away, and failing to recognize her as one of his already spurned conquests, Donna Elvira (Kiri Te Kanawa), approaches her, as she sings of her cruel torment. As soon as Giovanni realizes that the jilting lover of whom Elvira sings is himself, he beats a hasty retreat. Leporello is left behind to assuage Elvira as best he can, revealing graphically to her, by the unfurling a lengthy scroll, that she is but one of some 2065 victims of his master's salacious activities.

Giovanni, meanwhile, encounters the wedding festivities of Zerlina (Teresa Berganza) and Masetto (Malcolm King), a pair of young peasants. Giovanni invites the wedding guests to revel at his home, hoping to occupy Masetto with wine and song while he seduces the bride. Masetto has no choice but to go off with the rest of the party, leaving Zerlina to the mercy of Giovanni. Zerlina is half-flattered into submitting to Giovanni, but Elvira shows up in the nick of time to denounce the caddish Giovanni. Elvira escorts Zerlina to safety and, upon returning, finds Giovanni in the company of Anna and Ottavio, who have come to ask Don Giovanni's help in finding the murderer of Anna's father, not realizing that it is Don Giovanni himself. Elvira warns the couple not to trust Giovanni but Giovanni counters by insisting that Elvira is mad. Giovanni is finally able to whisk Elvira away, but after the pair depart, Anna suddenly realizes that Giovanni's voice is the same as that of her father's murderer. Ottavio reasserts his devotion to Anna and vows again to help her achieve her revenge. When Giovanni and Leporello are once again alone, the unperturbed Giovanni continues with his plans for seducing Zerlina later than evening.

Meanwhile, the youthful Masetto's jealousy has been aroused and it is all Zerlina can do to pacify him. As the wedding festivities commence inside, three masked figures arrive – Anna, Elvira, and Ottavio – and are duly invited to join in the celebration. Giovanni politely welcomes the masked guests, unaware of their identities. As the party is in full swing, Zerlina seems once again prepared to surrender to Giovanni's seductive entreaties, but the peasant revelers and Masetto thwart Giovanni's efforts. Giovanni finally lures Zerlina into a private chamber, but her scream is heard outside. Masetto breaks down the door, but the resourceful Giovanni has hold of Leporello, declaring him the culprit. Anna, Elvira, and Ottavio remove their masks and denounce Giovanni, but he defiantly escapes the crowd and rushes to the safety of his home, as lightning and thunder bring Act I to a close.

Act II opens on a street outside the lodging of Donna Elvira. An unrepentant Giovanni has set his sights on a new target, Donna Elvira's maid. Giovanni needs to lure Elvira away to get at the maid, so he pretends to have returned to her and persuades her to come down from her window. He then orders Leporello to exchange cloaks and don a mask in order to spirit Elvira away so that he, Giovanni, will be free to serenade the maid. Giovanni's earnest efforts with the maid are interrupted, however, by Masetto and some friends, who are searching for Giovanni, to take revenge. Giovanni, wearing a mask, pretends to be Leporello and sends the mob chasing after his servant. Left alone with Masetto, Giovanni disarms him by a ruse and gives him a thrashing. Masetto's cries for help attract Zerlina, who offers him consolation as best she can.

Leporello, still escorting Elvira, hopes to run off in the dark, but is soon cornered by the arrival of, first, Anna and Ottavio, and, next, Zerlina and Masetto, all of whom have mistaken Leporello for Giovanni. Leporello has to reveal his true identity to avoid being pummeled. In the subsequent confusion, Leporello runs off, soon followed by the others, except for the once again betrayed Elvira, who is left to lament her battered passions.

Leporello and Giovanni meet up in a cemetery and return each other's cloaks. As Giovanni is relating his latest escapade to Leporello, he is interrupted by an unexpected voice, emanating from the statue of the slain Commendatore. Giovanni, unimpressed by this voice from the afterworld, orders Leporello to invite the statue to supper. Leporello does so and is alarmed when the statue accepts. Elsewhere, Ottavio declares the depth of his love for Donna Anna, but she responds that her grief is too great at present to entertain thoughts of marriage.

That evening, while Giovanni dines, attended by Leporello and other servants, Elvira arrives, making one last plea to Giovanni to mend his ways and alleviate her grief. He dismisses her heartlessly. The next unexpected guest – the statue – arrives amidst thunder and lightning. Though Leporello cowers in trepidation, Giovanni receives his guest calmly. The statue announces that Giovanni's time has come and demands that he repent. Giovanni grips the hand of death defiantly, refusing to repent. Giovanni then collapses into the flames of the eternal inferno.

Upon learning of Giovanni's fate from Leporello, Elvira, Anna, Octavio, Zerlina, and Masetto, in the closing sextet, rejoice that justice has befallen a scoundrel and evildoer. Anna agrees to marry Octavio, Zerlina and Masetto will tend to their new home, and Elvira declares her intent to retire to a convent.

Themes: The evident theme, here, is that evildoers will suffer eternal damnation. If only that were true! Don Giovanni callously goes about the business of seducing young women with flattery and false promises. When he's cornered, he betrays his servant by deflecting the mob's thirst for vengeance to him. Don Giovanni is just not a nice fellow! At a deeper level, however, the librettist and composer give this immortal character just enough of a hint of a heroic quality to cause the audience some pause. Giovanni may be a cad, but he's neither a hypocrite nor a coward. He's not about to back down when death comes calling or spew out a phony statement of repentance to save his soul. His belief system may be rotten but it's his and he'll own it. If there are any female demons down there in hell, Don Giovanni will likely be adding them to his list as well.

Production Values: Director Joseph Losey became an American ex-patriot after he was blacklisted in 1951 by Hollywood during the communist-baiting red scare spearheaded by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Losey spent the rest of career working in England and then France. Losey's British films included some fine ones, such as The Servant (1963), which won three BAFTA awards, Accident (1967), which shared a Special Jury Prize from the Cannes Film Festival, and The Go-Between (1971), which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Don Giovanni (1979) was filmed during Losey's French period, five years before his death in 1984. In filming Don Giovanni, Losey thankfully stuck very closely to the libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, deviating only in some matters of presentation rather than dialog. I don't consider the story for this opera among the most engrossing ones in the genre. It's like the distinction between literature and poetry. This story may be good literature, but it's not powerful poetry. There are no characters in this story that I care about in the way that I do, for example, Mimi in La Bohème. The greatest operas touch the heart as much as the mind.

The production qualities for this film are a distinctly mixed bag of strengths and weaknesses. Since I'm ranking this film among the dozen best opera adaptation, I clearly find the strengths greater than the deficits, but I certainly don't rank this film among the top half-dozen opera films. For filmed versions of operas, sound is a greater consideration relative to images than would be the case for other films, so let's start there. One overriding strength for this film is the vocal quality of the cast, in every role. Ruggero Raimondi, in the title role, has a warm and full baritone voice with a lot of strength in the upper part of his range. Kiri Te Kanawa, cast as Elvira, is among my favorite sopranos and in top form for this recording. Edda Moser and Teresa Berganza are also superlative in the other lead female roles. José van Dam, whose role of Leporello is actually more musically crucial to the opera than is Giovanni's, has a strong baritone voice and Kenneth Riegel is more than adequate in the major tenor role, Don Ottavio. Unfortunately, the vocal magnificence of this cast is partly negated by a poor quality soundtrack, rendered in Dolby 2.0 rather than up-to-date 5.1. Since the sound was post-dubbed from a studio recording, the singing lacks spatial dynamics as the characters move about the sets. That would be tolerable if the soundtrack were luxurious, but it is remote throughout the film and sometimes even tinny sounding, from an excess of reverberation. I listened to the film on high quality headphones, so I not inclined to believe the problem specific to my playback equipment.

The film was shot at Palladio's Villa Rotonda, which is a gorgeous site. Many of the scenes are framed or complemented by arches, columns, sumptuous wall paintings, or courtyards. The costumes are very attractive as well. Certainly this is a good-looking film, with strong clarity and color.

Losey incorporated some "artsy" touches here and there, but many of them strike me as unsuccessful. Act II, for example, opens with a dialog between Giovanni and Leporello in the former's bedchamber. Losey has the two men sitting on opposite sides of the bed with a naked woman sleeping on the bed between them. Now, I enjoy a well-turned derriere as much as the next guy, but its presence in this scene is just plain ridiculous. Losey decided to frame the film with water motifs, opening with the sound of waves breaking on a shoreline. There's simply no connection made, however, between that motif and the film. Then he compounds that misjudgment by adding a pointless reference to a quotation from an Italian Marxist named Grimasci. If neither the librettist nor the composer saw the use of any such significance-conferring device, why does Losey suppose to introduce such a gratuitous opening. Worse is the addition of a mysterious, non-speaking character – a valet in black – apparently intended to add weight and/or mystery to the final scene of damnation. It's a pointless distraction from a musical masterpiece, especially since none of the reviews I read expressed any clear understanding of what the valet signifies. The special effects for the damnation scene are rather primitive. Another problem (which occurs in many cinematic opera adaptations) is the noticeable imperfections in the lip-syncing.

On the other hand, Losey succeeds with a few of his innovations, such as one scene set in a gondola, wending its way down a weed-lined water channel. The scene in which the scrolled listing of Giovanni's conquests is unfurled also works pretty well. Losey does a good job moving his camera about fluidly, giving us a sense of the spaces and providing a variety of looks.

The biggest problem with this film is that some of the principal cast members are less than adequate actors. For Raimondi's title role, acting is actually more important to the success of the film than his voice. Raimondi is so lacking in charm, passion, or facial expressiveness, it is very difficult to picture the man as a successful seducer. What any woman in Europe would see in him is beyond me. Raimondi's fierce eyes and stoic expression work well only in the finale of Act II, but add nothing to the earlier scenes. José van Dam is a good deal more interesting as an actor than Raimondi. Kiri Te Kanawa is a beautiful woman and a treat to watch, but could have given us a bit more intensity in her performance as Elvira. Edda Moser is excellent as the steely Donna Anna but her partner, Kenneth Riegel, is inept and tedious as an actor, though a fine singer. Teresa Berganza gives a coquettish performance as the ambivalent Zerlina, though she's a bit heavy to be the object of so much intrigue of the part of Don Giovanni. Malcolm King, as Masetto, is perhaps the most impassioned actor of the group. Taken collectively, the performances in this film are just mediocre.

Bottom-Line: This is the tenth in my on-going series of reviews of cinematic renditions of operas. I recommend this film for established opera lovers, but it's not an opera film likely to win new converts. It's a highly ambitious rendering and a mostly effective one, highlighted by sublime music, great voices, and beautiful settings, but marred by mediocre acting and poor audio quality.


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You may also enjoy my other opera reviews:

The Barber of Seville
La Bohème
Boris Godunov
Carmen
Carmen (Dance Version)
Lucia di Lammermoor
The Magic Flute
I Pagliacci
Rigoletto
La Traviata (Strada)
La Traviata (Moffo)
Il Trovatore
Turandot



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You can easily access my other opera reviews using the following lists:

Top-Twelve Film Versions of Operas
Metalluk's Twenty Best Pre-Romantic (Baroque & Classicism) Operas, on DVD
Metalluk's Twenty-five Best Italian Romantic Period Operas, on DVD
Metalluk's Twenty Best Non-Italian Romantic Period Operas, on DVD
Metalluk's Thirty Best Operas of the 20th-Century, on DVD
Metalluk's Best Opera from Each Decade of the 20th-Century, on DVD