Mozart's Don Giovanni: Form and History - Report Example

Mozart's Don Giovanni: Form and History

Introduction

Mozart's Don Giovanni centers on Don Juan, a legend well-known in Europe. Act I of Don Giovanni begins with Don Giovani challenging the Commendatore to a fight ending with Anna’s father getting killed and Don escaping with his servant, Leporello. Anna asks Don Ottavio, her lover, to avenge the father’s death. The encounter ensues with Giovanni meeting Donna Elvira dismayed by his betrayal. A lot happens when the peasants are celebrating Masetto and Zerlina’s marriage, especially Don’s seductive moves on Elvira and Zerlina while Anna, unknowingly, asks him to help with the hunt for her father’s murderer (Pack and Lelash 2). It is at the marriage ceremony where Anna suddenly recognizes Giovani’s voice which he ignores and refutes Elvira (since she warns Anna against Giovanni) as mad. Act II begins with Leporello and Giovani exchanging clothes. Unknown to Masetto who comes with masked men, Don sends them off to different directions and exploits the chance to beat and bruise Masetto. Giovanni still manages to maneuver through his hidden identity. The scene twists to Giovanni and Leporello meeting the Commendatore’s statue that promises to end his happiness the following morning. Scene II ends with Elivira trying to persuade Giovani to change his ways, the Commendatore’s figure asking him for repentance, but Giovani’s refusal is the beginning of his demise as he is consumed by flames.

Don Giovanni’s work, both as opera buffa and giocoso, still catches the attention and gains positive reviews from the contemporary audience. The current debate by most opera lovers is whether the work is buffa or giocoso. Those supporting the work as buffa cite how the opera’s theme is portrayed through comedy and only sees one side of life where everything seems ridiculous and funny. However, for those perceiving the opera as giocoso, they perceive the piece as a tragedy told from a comic viewpoint; when morals are added to funny events, they mirror the serious aspect of life (). Best to say, the contexts, styles, experiences for the work have made the two opera forms (buffa and giocoso) loved by people as delightful, comedic (entertaining) and educative (through tragedy).

Biography

Wolfgang Mozart is one of the prolific artists who composed and created different concertos, operas, sonatas, and symphonies which profoundly defined the classical music genre (Music 122). He was born in Salzburg Austria, January 27, 1756, and remained in the musical history as one of the musicians with the ability to play multiple instruments by pioneering his performance in public places at around six years of age (Biography.com Editors). He advanced his career by aligning and getting accustomed with the various categories or varieties of European patrons and venues. From this experience, Mozart composed different classical musical genres including chamber music, masses, symphonies, concertos and operas, all defined by sophisticated textures and vivid emotions (Advameg, Inc.).

Mozart’s musical life is much attributed to his family history or background. At the onset of his musical career, Mozart was the only remaining son to Leopold and Maria Pertl Mozart (Advameg, Inc). The father, Leopold, similarly had a successful musical career as a violinist, composer and acted as an assistance concertmaster at the Salzburg court where he later took Mozart to begin his musical career at six years old (Biography.com Editors). For the mother, Anna Maria Pertl hailed from a middle class family, but there was only one sister, Maria Anna. The encouragement and committed efforts from Leopold would see his siblings through a successful musical endeavor. Wolfgang would begin his musical and instrumental play by mimicking the young sister and soon, exhibited signs of strong understanding of tempo, tonality and chords (Advameg, Inc).

Mozart gained fame at the mere age of ten, spending three years, 1766-1769, writing and composing instrumental music works for school dramas in Latin and German (Biography.com Editors). It was not until 1768 that he produced the first real opera named the German Singspiel, Bastian und Bastienne (Advameg, Inc). To get more career openings, Mozart moved to Italy through his father’s support. While in Milan Italy, he was commissioned for an opera, in Rome, the Pope made him a member of the honorary knight, further awarded by Accademia in Filarmonica in Bologna (Biography.com Editors). Mozart then moved to Paris which proved as an instrumental theatre for exploring his talents. However, the Paris stay was not satisfactory since there were no opportunities for composing operas forcing Mozart’s relocation to Vienna. From age twenty-five until he died, the period in Vienna marked profound developments in Mozart’s career. His style exhibited complex ideas and methodologies which others found difficult to follow; as such, Mozart remains as one of the most challenging composers (Advameg, Inc).

History of Mozart’s Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni remains a remarkable figure in the history of classical music as a two-act drama opera accompanied with music from Mozart and Lerenzo da Ponte. The first performance of the opera was at the Nosttitz Theatre, the modern Estates Theatre on October of 1787, Prague (Advameg, Inc). Mozart was the principal conductor of the opera which portrayed the significant themes of life and death of a seducer. From critics and many opera lovers, Don Giovanni is one of the main, if not so, best operas ever composed (Schönbaumsfeld 1028). Mozart got the commission to write the opera in 1787 while staying in Prague.

In terms of the work’s classification, Mozart had called the Don Giovanni opera buffa (comic opera) but it was billed as opera giocoso as an indication that the piece has both elements of drama and comedy (Kriesel 415). In both scenes, comedy-drama is intertwined with the misfortunes of death and fights or tragedy drama. The drama or buffa aspect of the opera is excellently played by Don and his servant, Leoporello when they exchange clothes and hide their identities but the two deaths in the opera makes the opera a giocoso (tragedy).

The comedy-drama or feature of the opera is quite apparent when Don plays with the minds of the three women, confuses Anna by disguising himself living Anna to keep asking searching for her father's murderer. Another aspect of comedy-drama is how he sends Mosatto's masked men to the wrong directions, a scene that also ends up in tragic drama because he beats and bruises him. However, the sad element of the drama is how death lingers amidst the comic events. In the first scene, Don kills the Commendatore, proceeds to beat Mosatto and surprisingly, the Commendatore consumes him with fire. All these tragic events confirm the opera as a tragi-comic.

Form of Don Giovanni

The Don Giovanni opera resonates with the dramatic, complex and challenging life of Mozart. The emotions, and morality in theme clearly reflects how he when through down and lows in life. Besides, the success in achieving audience reception shows his many years of dedication to music to produce intricate and unique melodies, learned from tender years. Don Giovanni is a direct portrayal of Europe during Mozart’s era faced by serious social and economic challenges. By focusing the theme of the opera on love, the work reflects Mozart’s life, especially his love life with Constanze whom he went through profound challenges, even going against the father’s discontent to marry her (Advameg, Inc). The complexity the work also reflects the musical background in his family, of which the excellent work is attributed to the support he got from the father.

From Don Giovanni, the difference between opera and musical is evident because the piece is expressively not a musical dialogue spoken then characters bursting into a song. However, an opera is defined by unending singing or music, with every element being sung. Nonetheless, the difference, as outlined in Don Giovanni, rests on the themes chosen for the musicals and for operas. An opera has more sweeping and engaging theme in comparison to musical (Kriesel 418). The central theme of life, although comically presented, is interlaced with death tragedies (Don Giovanni and Commendatore), a type of representation that contributes to an engaging and sweeping thematic representation in operas which is unlikely in musicals. Moreover, the difference that defines opera and musical, as seen from Don Giovanni, is that the human drama is intense and more passionate (Sininger 223). There is drama with Don seducing the three women and how he hides his identity as the murderer which adds intensity due to the resulting confusion.

In conclusion, the above analysis has outlined Mozart’s opera work, the Don Giovani with a summary and importance of the opera to the audience described. The exposition has detailed the history of Don Giovani, first premiered in 1787 in Prague. A biographic exploration of this career shows how Mozart’s support from his father (as a musician) led him to master the practice of playing multiple instruments from a tender age, at six years old, and from this, learned the mastery of mixing comedy and tragedy drama(buffa and) which equally resonates with his life. The form of the opera, as the discussion finds out, is both buffa (drama-comedy) owing to the comic elements in the work as well as drama-tragedy (giocoso) as defined by the tragic deaths of Anna’s father and Don’s demise through fire. Hence, two forms of opera exist in the work; buffa and giocoso thereby indicating how the opera is a mixture of two forms.