Don Giovanni

by Wolfgang Mozart

“Don’t you know that for me women are more essential than food and drink, or the air I breathe?  If you’re faithful to one, you are cruel to the others!  I am a man whose heart is boundless.  I’ve love enough for all of them!”

Many consider this great work the finest opera ever written. The music is undeniably sublime; the libretto dark but humorous. How much richer the experience is in this very entertaining and stirring English performing translation.

Excerpt:

Act I, #4 Leporello: “Madamina, …“

"My dear lady, I have something to show you,
for I‘m certain that you must have wondered.
It’s a list of the women he’s plundered!
I’m afraid it confirms your worst fears.
You will see you’ve been wasting your tears!

Italians, six hundred and eleven;
then in France there were five hundred seven;
in the Rhineland just over two hundred, and...
here in Spain, he’s now up to one thousand and two!
A thousand two--including you!

Ev’ry country, ev’ry city,
he has ravaged without pity.
Be they royalty or gentry,
he will try to force an entry.
Any type or any station--
he has bedded half the nation!"

Copyright Kenneth Jakobs 2009, 2018 All rights reserved

Notes

Librettist for what are generally considered Mozart’s three greatest operas, Lorenzo da Ponte penned Don Giovanni (subtitled The Punishment of a Dissolute) in 1787.  Ostensibly a morality tale (he does end up in Hell), it is much more.

Volumes have been written about what drives Don Juan to ravish every woman he meets, and unfortunately little light is shed on this question by da Ponte’s libretto, nor consequently, by my translation.  But perhaps we may take the Don at his words, quoted at the top of the page.

Though we’ll never solve the riddle of what women see in him, most (1,002 in Spain alone) find him irresistible.   What we do get is a series of arias and ensembles which are among the finest ever written, including several with women he has romanced (or attempted to rape).  The vocal music is glorious and the plot unrelenting in its action and humor.  It can be enjoyed at its most subtle, funny and touching in my English performing translation.