Opera Background
The Don Juan Character
The character of Don Juan, on whom Mozart's Don Giovanni is based, was introduced to the world in El Burlador de Sevilla (1630), a play by Spanish monk and playwright Tirso de Molina. There was nothing particularly special about Molina's play; it was a cautionary tale about the dangers of atheism. It was well-written, but was never considered important during Molina's lifetime. The character of Don Juan, however, was to fascinate Europe for centuries, appearing in thousands of plays, stories, epic poems, operas, ballets, and philosophical treatises under various aliases-among them Don Juan, Don John, and Don Giovanni.
Artists inspired by the Don Juan theme have included Molière, Goldoni, Corneille, E.T.A Hoffman, Pushkin, George Bernard Shaw, Mozart, Gluck, and Richard Strauss. Every version of the story introduces new characters, episodes, and subtexts-and in each new incarnation the Don's personality and motivation change. A detailed history of Don Juan's evolution throughout the ages would read like a philosophical, religious, and artistic history of Europe.
Between the first performance of El Burlador de Sevilla and the premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni, the Don Juan story had already undergone several transformations. Tirso de Molina's Don Juan was a baroque hero, rebellious and excessive, impulsive, driven by the desire for action. As Don Juan's story spread to other countries, he lost some of these characteristics. In Italy the story was embraced by the Commedia dell'arte, a type of improvised street theater featuring masks, physical comedy, and lots of dirty jokes. Commedia dell'arte troupes celebrated the Don's sexual prowess, made his valet into an Italian trickster, and added new commedia-style characters and gags. The Italian Don Juan became an unbelievably selfish man, controlled by his monstrous appetites and relentless in the pursuit of sexual pleasures.
It was probably the Italian Don Juan that Molière used as a model for his brilliant (though convoluted) version of the story, Don Juan, ou le festin de pierre (1665). Molière's subversive play, written during Louis XIV's reign, portrays Don Juan as an inactive noble who has been spoiled by his lavish lifestyle. Lazy, obsessed with beauty, and valuing nothing but his own pleasure, Don Juan would have been right at home in the King Louis' court. He has reasoned God out of his life, and mocks any religious sentiment. His obsession with women stems from his social position and life philosophy.
In England Don Juan took a particularly brutal turn in Shadwell's The Libertine (1676). Don John, Shadwell's hero, was the first in a long line of Don Juan characters to directly explain the philosophy behind his actions. Don John argues that all desires stem from nature, and since anything natural cannot be bad, desire justifies the most horrible crimes. Don John lives by his philosophy; before the play begins he has already committed about thirty murders-including that of his own father. He is essentially violent rather than passionate-but defends his crimes with deadly logic.
Da Ponte (1787), Mozart's librettist for Don Giovanni, borrowed freely from all the Don Juan stories that had preceded his libretto, from Molina and Molière to commedia dell'arte. He also added some new features to the story, notably the character of Donna Anna, whose strength and determination have captured the imagination of many writers since. Romanticists were particularly drawn to Donna Anna; E.T.A Hoffman declared that she would have been Don Juan's true love, had she not come into his life too late to save him from his own desires. Richard Wagner himself was convinced that when the opera begins, Don Juan has already had his way with a willing Donna Anna.
After Don Giovanni the story of the libertine seducer continued to evolve. E.T.A. Hoffman wrote about Don Juan as a romantic idealist, eternally frustrated by his search for the perfect woman. The Don's quest is fueled by his conviction that only true love will bring him transcendence. Later, in the 20th century, George Bernard Shaw used Don Juan as a mouthpiece for his own complicated philosophies in the third act of Man and Superman, a play-within-a-play entitled Don Juan in Hell. Others have described Don Juan as the world's greatest lover or even as irresistible to women-both views that would have surprised Tirso de Molina.
But to most people, Mozart and Da Ponte's opera remains the ultimate version of the Don Juan story, presenting the myth in all its emotional range and levels of meaning-and the character of Don Giovanni in all his complexity.
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