Line #20 YMMV/DonGiovanni


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2	* AdaptationDisplacement: Outside of the Spanish-speaking world, the opera is better known than Tirso de Molina's Spanish 17th century play ''The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest'' that was the first written version of the Don Juan legend.
3	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: ''Everyone.'' Is Anna a dutiful daughter who cares more for the honor of her dead father than her own happiness, or does she secretly feel passion for Giovanni and then self-loathing once she realizes that he killed her father? Is Zerlina a romantic ingenue thinking Giovanni is her PrinceCharming before realizing the truth, or a coquettish girl that wants Giovanni because he promises her instant marriage (and, by virtue of that, his wealth and title)? Is Masetto a concerned fiance who feels helpless in his supposed inferiority to a nobleman in the eyes of his own fiance or a paranoid jerkass? The others as well, but these three most of all.
4	** The idea that Donna Anna is in love with Don Giovanni and was willingly seduced by him has been popular for so long that simply ''believing that she was raped/almost raped'' comes across as AlternateCharacterInterpretation (despite being closer to what we know of WordOfGod).
5	** Even the title character has received some of this over the years. While in Mozart's time as well as today, Don Giovanni is considered an AffablyEvil {{Jerkass}}, in the mid-19th century, at the height of Romanticism, Giovanni's unfettered attitude toward sex and life caused him to be interpreted as a ByronicHero. Consequently, Donna Anna was seen as a [[MoralGuardians Moral Guardian]] who was only after him because he violated the social order of the time. Never mind the fact that, you know, ''Giovanni killed her father''...
6	** Another for Don Giovanni: is he a young man with a comically over-the-top list of "conquests" that averages out to roughly one a night since he was in his teens, or is he an older man whose seductions were slow and spread over many years, and who is desperately trying to return to the excesses of his youth? Directors can make the story considerably more comic or darker simply by altering the (perceived) age of the lead singer.
7	*** Peter Sellars took this one step further by adding ''pedophilic'' subtext in his infamous 1990 modern adaptation.
8	** Leporello's characterization varies, largely depending on whether or not the production includes the finale. Most modern productions do, and so he is portrayed more sympathetically as a beleaguered manservant who takes no joy in his work, but this finale was omitted from the Vienna production and most subsequent productions until the late 20th century; these productions would typically portray him as a gleeful participant in Giovanni's schemes in order to justify him being dragged down to hell at the end along with his master. Furthermore, while his reason for staying with Giovanni is normally a combination of fear and MoneyDearBoy, many productions add further complexities to their relationship; for example, he may be an OldRetainer, there may be HoYay, or any number of other subtleties.
9	* AluminumChristmasTrees:
10	** Although the idea of aristocrats and peasants dancing at a party together seems like a flight of fancy nowadays; parties of a similar manner are depicted in not one but several paintings from the eighteenth century.
11	** The idea of people invited to a party just to see Don Giovanni eat seems fantastic and utterly absurd until you see a portrait from the eighteenth century depicting a bunch of commoners invited to watch half a dozen aristocrats eat.
12	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Mozart's wife Constanze claimed after his death that he had considered this opera his best work. That alone should tell you something.
13	* CommonKnowledge: It's sometimes assumed that the original Prague version of the opera just ended with Don Giovanni plunging into hell, and that the final sextet for the other characters was added for the later Vienna production to give it a more "moral" ending. Actually, the reverse may have been true. The final sextet was definitely part of the original Prague version, but in Vienna it may have been cut: it is included in the score of the Vienna version, but not in the separately-printed libretto, and no one alive today knows which ending was used in performance.
14	* CrackShip: Some like to imagine that Leporello and Donna Elvira found each other after the events of the opera and began a romance for real.
15	* DracoInLeatherPants:
16	** Some productions do this to the Don, inevitably. Let's put it this way: if there were fanfics about opera, Giovanni's entire persona would no doubt be hiding a vulnerable romantic trying to find his One True Love.
17	** This was also quite common in romantic-era criticisms of the opera, which saw Giovanni as a ByronicHero who was a model individualist, and often derailed Donna Anna into a [[MoralGuardians Moral Guardian]] who only hated Giovanni because she hated/was ashamed of sex (totally disregarding the fact that Don Giovanni also ''killed her father'').
18	*** A strange Romantic blending of AllWomenAreLustful and AllWomenArePrudes (an attitude shift at the time) which amounts to It's Not Rape If It Wasn't Difficult Enough...
19	* FoeYayShipping: As noted in AlternateCharacterInterpretation, quite a few fans suspect that Donna Anna, although engaged to the virtuous Don Ottavio, [[BettyAndVeronica is secretly attracted to the lady-killer of a scoundrel Don Giovanni]].
20	* HilariousInHindsight: To those with more contemporary inclinations: if you just picture the titular character as [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} Zapp Brannigan]], the play becomes much funnier.
21	** Don Giovanni literally has binders full of women.
22	* HoYay: At times, Leporello seems just a little ''too'' devoted to Don Giovanni.
23	** And then (depending on the translation) there's the line where Leporello says that Don Giovanni "took his innocence." He then turns to Elvira and says "You know what it's like." It doesn't take a lot of imagination to imagine what that could mean. Considering this is [[TheCasanova Don Giovanni]], taking it [[DepravedBisexual up further]] isn't too hard.
24	** There's at least one production (Macerata Opera Festival, 2009) where they ''are'' lovers.
25	** In the Act I finale, Leporello also [[ForcedDancePartner forces Masetto to dance with him]] to distract him from the Don's advances on Zerlina.
26	* MemeticBadass: Don Giovanni is definitely this, if not an outright MagnificentBastard, particularly when he [[DefiantToTheEnd defies the statue of the Commendatore even in the face of]] [[DraggedOffToHell eternal damnation]].
27	* NightmareFuel: The climactic scene: the Don is DraggedOffToHell by a LivingStatue, to the accompaniment of a chanting chorus of devils, as he and Leporello each let out a terrified scream. Granted, the Don [[KarmicDeath did deserve it]], but it's quite chilling to dwell on, and Mozart's music ensures you'll dwell on it.
28	* TheScrappy: Don Ottavio due to the fact that he is little more than a SatelliteLoveInterest. Was even included in a recent ''BBC Music'' magazine list of operatic Scrappys.
29	* {{Squick}}: Don Ottavio's consolation of Donna Anna after her father's murder goes like "You'll have a husband and a father in me". Some might find it not a bit unsettling.
30	* ValuesDissonance:
31	** "Batti, batti" can come off as crass to modern listeners, with how it seems to make light of and even condone domestic violence. These days, it's usually played as though Zerlina is seducing Masetto. Sellars's 1990 modern production went the opposite direction, making it even more serious, as a commentary on how abuse victims often have no choice but to stay with abusers.
32	** These days, Donna Elvira's one wild night of passion with Giovanni wouldn't ruin her chances at marriage.
33	** Mozart and Da Ponte's more moralistic intentions for the opera (as in the subtitle, ''Il dissolute punito'' - ''The Rake Punished'') were this for 19th-centry critics, hence the [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Alternate Character Interpretations]]. These days, it's reversed: those interpretations come off as misogynistic and miss the point about Donna Anna, while the original intentions fit more with contemporary feminist understandings of the time period and what Giovanni's actions would do to these women. In fact...
34	* ValuesResonance: It was really difficult for a 19th-century audience to understand just how much of a scoundrel Don Giovanni really is. But according to modern feminist historians, a 17th-century woman who had a one-night stand with a man like him would have had much difficulty in marrying or finding another way to support herself (and the possible child, as there is nothing that suggests Don Giovanni uses contraception). He is "[[DefiledForever ruining]]" these women to satisfy his own libido.
35	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: In the Act 1 finale, Mozart takes a single line from Da Ponte's libretto, "Viva la libertà!" (roughly, "Hooray for freedom!") and has all the characters repeat it multiple times for about a minute, rising to a huge climax before the story is allowed to continue. Since Mozart was writing only two years before UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution, this moment has created a ''lot'' of speculation on whether it's supposed to mean something more than just Giovanni's idea of the freedom to do whatever he wants, as he was just the type of callous aristocrat that would be deposed by the revolutionaries.

Context YMMV / DonGiovanni