Overview

The Original Portrayal of Mozart’s Don Giovanni offers an original reading of Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s opera Don Giovanni, using as a lens the portrayal of the title role by its creator, the baritone Luigi Bassi (1766–1825). Although Bassi was coached in the role by the composer himself, his portrayal has never been studied in depth before, and this book presents a large number of new sources (first- and second-hand accounts), which allows us to reconstruct his performance scene by scene. The book confronts Bassi’s portrayal with a study of the opera’s early German reception and performance history, demonstrating how Don Giovanni as we know it today was not only created by Mozart, Da Ponte and Luigi Bassi but also by the early German adapters, translators, critics and performers who turned the title character into the arrogant and violent villain we still encounter in most of today’s stage productions. Incorporating discussion of dramaturgical thinking of the late Enlightenment and the difficult moral problems that the opera raises, this is an important study for scholars and researchers from opera studies, theatre and performance studies, music history as well as conductors, directors and singers.

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9781032158334

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Reviews

This was just the book I needed when staging Don Giovanni. Magnus Tessing Schneider has done a fantastic job documenting the preparations that led to the first performance of this most controversial of operas, in Prague in 1787. Building on facts, he dares oppose the false tradition that emerged after the deaths of Mozart and Da Ponte, and which portrays the title character as simply 'a bad man who ends up in hell'. As I read this inspiring book, I understood why Giovanni is rather like Carmen, that other rebellious spirit who is also killed and with whom we also sympathize. Might we do so because they are free in a way that we are not? Presenting us with the enigma, the book leaves it to us to find the answer. - Andrei Serban, stage director This is an important book. It is important as a radical historical reinterpretation of an iconic work of art, but also as a defiant challenge to certain tendencies in today's intellectual climate. [...] Tessing Schneider's historical examination is driven by a revisionist agenda but leans on a patient and systematic argumentation based on a large and diverse source material. It never becomes programmatic but is characterised by a combination of rigorous source criticism and inventive analytical observations. By means of this method, the author reaches a new and enthralling understanding of one of the most scrutinised works in the history of opera. He has presented us with a Don Giovanni who is even more interesting, complex, and thought-provoking than has commonly been assumed. Moreover, this study is important because of what it reveals about a certain contemporary inclination: an impulse towards simplification and unambiguity in the interpretation of fictional stories and characters, and towards the instrumentalisation of historical works of art to suit present ideological agendas. Lars Berglund, Swedish Journal of Music Research This was just the book I needed when staging Don Giovanni. Magnus Tessing Schneider has done a fantastic job documenting the preparations that led to the first performance of this most controversial of operas, in Prague in 1787. Building on facts, he dares oppose the false tradition that emerged after the deaths of Mozart and Da Ponte, and which portrays the title character as simply 'a bad man who ends up in hell'. As I read this inspiring book, I understood why Giovanni is rather like Carmen, that other rebellious spirit who is also killed and with whom we also sympathize. Might we do so because they are free in a way that we are not? Presenting us with the enigma, the book leaves it to us to find the answer. - Andrei Serban, stage director This is an important book. It is important as a radical historical reinterpretation of an iconic work of art, but also as a defiant challenge to certain tendencies in today's intellectual climate. [...] Tessing Schneider's historical examination is driven by a revisionist agenda but leans on a patient and systematic argumentation based on a large and diverse source material. It never becomes programmatic but is characterised by a combination of rigorous source criticism and inventive analytical observations. By means of this method, the author reaches a new and enthralling understanding of one of the most scrutinised works in the history of opera. He has presented us with a Don Giovanni who is even more interesting, complex, and thought-provoking than has commonly been assumed. Moreover, this study is important because of what it reveals about a certain contemporary inclination: an impulse towards simplification and unambiguity in the interpretation of fictional stories and characters, and towards the instrumentalisation of historical works of art to suit present ideological agendas. Lars Berglund, Swedish Journal of Music Research

Author Information

Magnus Tessing Schneider (Stockholm University) is a Danish theatre scholar specialising in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian opera. He has edited Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito: A Reappraisal (2018), together with Ruth Tatlow, and Felicity Baker’s essay collection Don Giovanni’s Reasons: Thoughts on a Masterpiece (2021).

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