Theatre / Don Giovanni

There we will entwine our hands / There our "yes" we shall share / Not far away my home stands / Come, dearest, let us go there.

"A greater talent than mine is not in this world!"

Don Giovanni, or the Rake Punish'd is one of the most famous versions of the Don Juan legend and the second joint venture of the composer-librettist team of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte. As a dramma giocoso (a Genre-Busting mix of comedy and drama), the opera tells the story of the titular Don Giovanni, a nobleman whose singular goal in life is seducing as many women as possible.

The story begins in Seville at night, with Don Giovanni attempting to seduce Donna Anna, the daughter of his neighbor The Commander, which fails when she realises it isn't her fiancé who came to see her. This is followed by our hero killing the father who comes to defend Anna's honor within the first ten minutes of the story, which is enough for Giovanni's beleaguered manservant Leporello to try and quit on the spot. After they flee, Anna makes her fiance Don Ottavio swear revenge on the mysterious assassin.

For most, this would count as a really bad start to the day, but Giovanni isn't worried. That is, until a mysterious lady from Burgos lamenting the treachery of her previous lover appears. Giovanni tries to seduce her, but is quickly repulsed when she reveals herself as Donna Elvira, a past conquest he abandoned who's come looking for him. Giovanni tasks Leporello with "telling her everything", while he runs away. The servant consoles the crying lady that she isn't the first or the last to have been bedded and abandoned by his master. In fact, he keeps a lengthy list of all his master's conquests (640 in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, and 1,003 in Spain). Elvira, horrified, swears revenge.

Giovanni quickly finds a new potential conquest in bride-to-be Zerlina, drawing her away from her jealous groom Masetto and their wedding party. However, Elvira intervenes, taking Zerlina away just as Anna and Ottavio come seeking help in their plight from their good friend Giovanni. Once Elvira returns to expose him again, Giovanni quickly attempts to convince Anna and Ottavio that she's crazy and not to be trusted. However, after he departs, Anna recognises Giovanni's voice as the same as her attacker. Recounting the full story to Ottavio, she reiterates the need to take revenge. Despite doubts that a nobleman could act so dishonorably, Ottavio wants to do whatever it takes to help Anna.

Zerlina manages to convince Masetto that she's been faithful to him at the lavish party Giovanni throws for them. Three masked strangers appear outside - Anna, Elvira, and Ottavio in disguise - and are invited to join the festivities. They come in just in time to hear Zerlina scream for help. Giovanni tries to blame Leporello for assaulting her, but Ottavio calls him out and pulls out a gun. All the characters unite against Giovanni, swearing revenge.

That's Act I. Act II details many shenanigans of how Giovanni keeps getting out of attempts to bring him to justice... until he arrogantly invites a statue of Anna's father, the Commander, to dinner with him... and the statue accepts. When the statue arrives, it offers him one final chance at redemption, which Giovanni rejects, and is promptly dragged to Hell for his sins as a result in one of the most epic finales in all of opera.

A good way to tell when the plot is going to get dramatic is to watch for whenever Ottavio, Anna or the Commander appear; the other supporting characters are mostly comical.

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Don Giovanni contains examples of:

• Actor Allusion: During the dinner scene, Giovanni's musicians play the melody of Non piu andrai, Figaro's most enduring tune. Leporello remarks "I know this one all too well". The actor playing Leporello when the opera debuted in Prague had also played Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro (which had been well-received in Prague). (The parts have a similar vocal range, and so many singers have played both Leporello and Figaro.)
• An Aesop: The final chorus, "Such is the end of the evildoer: the death of a sinner always reflects his life."
  • Enforced Trope: see Happily Ever After.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: After the duel, Leporello asks Don Giovanni, "Who died, you or the old man?" The Don replies, "What a stupid question!"
• Attempted Rape: Played straight or subverted, depending on the interpretation. Though Giovanni himself makes a point of saying that there's no talent beyond his (charming women), Anna is quite adamant that he covered her mouth and tried to embrace her by force and that she fought him off. Of course, she also says that she thought it was Ottavio, who, considering the respect he always shows her, would hardly have come into her bedroom in the middle of a night in a mask and cape. On the other hand, Giovanni never denies trying to rape Anna, and later attempts to take advantage of Leporello's girlfriend offstage; this sort of thing certainly isn't beneath him; what we do know is that Anna is all but bodily throwing him out of her room in scene one, and there's no reason for her to believe anyone's watching.
  • Again possibly subverted with Zerlina, whose jealous fiance was onto the scheme by that point and she could hardly have progressed even if she wanted to.
• Author Appeal: Mozart loved to write parts for baritones and basses. It shows up in all of his operas, but is most apparent in this one, which features only one tenor in the main cast, that being Don Ottavio. Leporello and Giovanni are both singable by a bass or bass-baritone (though Giovanni is more flexible, and can even be sung by a low tenor), and the Commendatore and Masetto are both basses.
  • Not really Author Appeal so much as Enforced Method Writing. At the time, tenors were a weak voice type, leading them to be written as comic foil characters. The modern tenor technique of blending the various ranges into a strong whole wasn't developed until the 1820s or 30s in Rossini's troupe. The tenor in question thought he'd ruined everything forever and committed suicide.
  • Also, let's not forget how much Mozart loved sopranos. All three of the female parts are written as sopranos, though Donna Elvira is sometimes cast as a mezzo-soprano.
    • During the time period especially in Germany the performance practice was that first a nobleman would decide he wanted to see a new opera. Then he'd get an underling (the impresario) to see to that. The impresario would commission the composer, the librettist, and the singers. The composer and librettist would then set to writing around the specific talents of the commissioned singers. So it wasn't so much that Mozart loved sopranos as whoever commissioned the work loved sopranos. Also they're all different types of sopranos: Donna Elvira is a lyric soprano or mezzo (like the countess, she's assumed to require a slightly older actress than the other two), Zerlina is a soubrette, and Donna Anna is a coloratura soprano.
• Bed Trick: To seduce Elvira's maid, Giovanni switches clothes with Leporello. Partly to make sure the already-seduced Elvira wouldn't cause any trouble, partly because he guessed correctly that a servant girl wouldn't consider a noble's intentions with her very noble. It doesn't work out simply due to the arrival of a Masetto-led mob coming to lynch him. It does work on an unseen conquest, though.
  • Might have been what he was attempting with Anna, disguised as Ottavio, though it seems a little implausible.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The three female roles wear wigs to make things work like this in some productions.
• Big "NO!": Don Giovanni as he's dragged to hell. May very well be the trope originator.
• Book Ends: That awesome overture music? It gets reprised in the final scene.
• BSoD Song: A BSOD sextet, once the Don takes off his Wig, Dress, Accent and and turns out to be Leporello in disguise. Cue everyone else going "WTF?!" Afterwards, Anna leaves and everyone else promptly blames everything on Leporello.
• Bumbling Sidekick: Leporello has his moments.
• Butt-Monkey: Leporello, inevitably. With such a boss...
• The Casanova: Trope Maker; the legend of Don Juan predates Casanova himself by a few centuries. Just to confirm, here's his list: "In Italy, 640; in Germany, 231; 100 in France, 91 in Turkey; but in Spain, already 1,003."
  • The actual Casanova was a friend of Da Ponte's, and may have contributed suggestions to the libretto.
• Casanova Wannabe / possibly Handsome Lech: Leporello is an interesting variation; it seems he has no problems when on his own (as the Don himself suggests after encountering "one of your beauties"), but whenever his master shows up, the conquest is either thwarted (Masetto and Zerlina's wedding party), forced upon him because the Don already has said lady on his list and doesn't want to waste time with her now (Elvira) or stolen from him by his ever-noble master.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The Commander is killed off within ten minutes after the overture and shows up ten minutes before the finale... as a statue.
• Combat Pragmatist: Don Ottavio knows he can't possibly outmatch Don Giovanni with a sword, so he brings a gun. Don Giovanni realizes that his fencing skills are useless and simply runs for it.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Masetto is constantly flying into a rage at Zerlina over her imagined infidelities. Of course, when it comes to the Don, he's right to be suspicious...
• Deus ex Machina: At the end, Don Giovanni receives his comeuppance at the hands of... the ghost of the Commendatore, reanimated as a statue, which drags him off to hell.
• Did You Die?: After the duel at the opening, Leporello asks Don Giovanni, "Who died— you, or the old man?" The Don considers this a stupid question.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Ottavio is constantly pestering Anna to agree to marry him (and presumably more) despite her telling him over and over that she's grieving her father's loss too much to think about marriage.
• Door-Closes Ending: The film ends with a servant closing the palace's doors.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Giovanni, through the above trope.
• Dramedy: The opera deftly balances some very funny comic moments against serious high drama.
• Droit du Seigneur: Masetto is Genre Savvy enough to accuse Giovanni of hoping to try this with Zerlina. He's not far off, in fact.
• The Eleven O'Clock Number: Anna's second aria, Non mi dir. Somewhat an Enforced Trope; this aria was not present in the original staging in Prague, but added in to make it more appealing for its run in Vienna. It adds nothing to the plot, but is very pretty, so it is usually left in.
  • Also possibly added for the sake of Aloysia Weber, who was singing the part — Mozart had been in love with her and wanted to marry her, but she rejected him. He ended up marrying her sister Constanze, but continued writing spectacular arias for the famous soprano.
• Evil Laugh: When the protagonist is feeling particularly hammy.
• Faint in Shock: Donna Anna when she finds her father's corpse.
• First Law of Tragicomedies: The final scene follows this.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Masetto (the Cynic), Donna Elvira (the Optimist), Commendatore/Don Pedro (the Realist), Don Giovanni (the Apathetic), Leporello (the Conflicted), Donna Anna (the Cynic/Realist), Don Ottavio (the Optimist/Realist) and Zerlina (the Realist/Conflicted).
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Donna Elvira (sanguine), Masetto (choleric), Commendatore/Don Pedro (melancholic), Don Ottavio (phlegmatic), Leporello (leukine), Donna Anna (choleric/melancholic) and Zerlina (sanguine/phlegmatic).
• From a Certain Point of View: Of course Giovanni wants to marry every woman he woos! Marriage back then was sealed via consummation - meaning sex.
• Genre-Busting: Don Giovanni is an odd duck in many ways. It isn't quite a comedy, given its rather brutal ending, and the lack of a definitive Happily Ever After, though it contains plenty of comedy, ranging from "innocent" to "dead baby". It isn't quite a tragedy, given that Don Giovanni is never sympathetic enough to be a Tragic Hero and is completely fallen from the start, as well as that Don Giovanni is ultimately not brought down by his main character flaw of womanising, but rather his secondary flaw of arrogance, though there are plenty of tragic moments. There is a ghost in it, but the ghost is more of a Deus ex Machina and doesn't appear until the final scene, so it's difficult to characterise as a ghost story. There are two revenge plots happening in the background, but neither one goes anywhere. There is plenty of stuff in there about love and relationships, but precious little that could be considered romance, and so on ....
• Green-Eyed Monster: Masetto spends most of the play borderline violently jealous toward Don Giovanni. Though, to be fair, what man wouldn't be jealous if Don Giovanni was hitting on his wife— on the wedding day?
• Handsome Lech: Oh, take a wild guess. Don Giovanni is definitely The Casanova in terms of his conquests, but character-wise he has just as much in common with the Jerkass elements of this trope.
• Happily Ever After: Averted, sort of. The two main couples do (allegedly) get together and Elvira and Leporello are no longer bound to the Don... but there is a reason why the final chorus citing the moral of the opera was often cut for sounding empty.
  • Enforced: Mozart didn't want to write it. He omitted it from the Vienna production, and it wasn't performed again for nearly 200 years.
    • There is also the possiblity that Mozart and da Ponte deliberately played with this trope. 'Ah! Dov'e il perfido' seems to at least hint at hypocrisy of the survivors and the falsehood of their 'moral to the story'; most notable example being the dissonance between the archaic and somewhat sepulchral music accompanying the characters' evocation of pagan chthonic deities ('Resti dunque quel birbon/Con Proserpina e Pluton').
• The Help Helping Themselves: Servile Snarker Leporello serves Don Giovanni his dinner, and when he thinks the Don isn't looking, Leporello steals a piece of pheasant to eat himself. Unfortunately, the Don does notice, but he pretends not to and toys with Leporello—ordering him to speak more clearly and then to whistle for him, which he can't do with his mouth full—until he finally confesses.
• Homage: The "live" band at Giovanni's dinner party plays then-contemporary snippets of music, including Non piu andrai from The Marriage of Figaro, by Mozart himself. ("I know this one only too well!")
  • The same band begins with a musical quote from Soler's 'Una cosa rara, ossia Bellezza ed onesta'; Leporello lampshades the obscure reference by exclaiming: 'Bravi, cosa rara!', seemingly complimenting the musicians' skill. Lorenzo Da Ponte was the librettist for both operas.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Masetto and Elvira fall victims to this during Act 2, immediately trusting that "Leporello" (the Don in disguise) is perfectly willing to kill his master (having been loyal until then) and that "Giovanni" (Leporello in disguise) is now quite ready to repent by marrying Elvira (disregarding the famous Catalogue Aria, which went through the Don's entire M.O.).
• "I Am" Song: Subverted as it's in fact sung by Leporello, first about the list of the Don's conquests and then about his usual methods for getting them.
• If I Can't Have You…: Elvira thinks she can do this. She can't.
• "I Want" Song: Leporello really wants to be a nobleman and not have to keep watch for other noblemen while they go off seducing ladies.
• Incredibly Long Note: In Il Mio Tesoro. Very few singers are actually capable of singing it through.
• The Ingenue: Zerlina eventually sobers up, though.
• Jacob Marley Warning:
  • Provided by the Commendatore, who orders Don Giovanni several times to repent. The Don repeatedly refuses. Very bad idea.
  • Also, Elvira plays this role for several of Giovanni's would-be conquests, telling them her experience of Giovanni's love-em-and-leave-em seduction methods.
• Jerkass: Giovanni, whenever he isn't in the middle of a seduction. The whole plot revolves around the other characters trying to get revenge on him for his jerkassitude, be it deliberate or not.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Masetto spends most of his time furiously jealous toward Don Giovanni— but, quite understandably, it's because Giovanni is trying to seduce his bride Zerlina on their wedding day, and Masetto is genuinely in love with her and upset by the thought of her possibly cheating on him. She doesn't, and they make up.
• Last-Second Chance: Offered repeatedly, refused each time.
• List Song: "My dear lady! Here's a list of the beauties my master loves; a list I have filed myself. Have a look; come and read with me!" (Madamina, il catalogo è questo.) This could be classed as a Long List gag, although the list is somewhat summarised.
• Living Statue: The Commendatore.
• Love Martyr: Elvira, especially in the finale.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The already mentioned aria Batti, batti, o bel Masetto sounds like a sweet innocent love song, but the lyrics are an Obligatory Bondage Song.
• Manipulative Bastard: Getting Masetto to leave his bride on their wedding day, playing Anna and Ottavio against Elvira (initially), getting Leporello to stay even after such mistreatment... he isn't always successfull, but he tries.
• Meaningful Name: One of the possible roots of Leporello's name is the Italian word for rabbit, which might explain his tendency to run away from the scene whenever possible. It can also stem from a word meaning "joke". Both meanings fit the character.
• Mood Whiplash: The opera switches from comic to serious whenever Anna and Ottavio or (especially) the Commendatore appear.
• Morality Ballad: The final chorus.
• Motor Mouth: Mozart wrote 'Finch'han dal vino' to be sung 'as fast as possible'... and halfway through, 'faster'. Leporello also has his many moments.
• Neutral Female: Averted with Anna; once her father arrives to confront her attacker, she runs off to return with her fiance and servants in tow.
• Obligatory Bondage Song: In Batti, Batti, o bel Masetto, Zerlina begs Masetto to beat her up, saying that she'll kiss his hands no matter how much he slaps her. Though subverted as well, when she takes his refusal to hit her as proof that he really loves her after all.
  • If it's included, Per queste tue manine can also be played like this.
• Obsession Song: Mi tradi quel'alma ingrata is a tragic variation; Elvira acknowledges that Giovanni brought her nothing but misfortune, but she still can't bring herself to forsake him.
• Offstage Villainy: Don Giovanni is confirmed to be a serial womanizer, but none of his attempted seductions during the course of the story actually succeed in closing the deal. Not for lack of trying, though. He is introduced escaping from Donna Anna's bedroom, where whatever happened he was clearly up to no good, but even that is still offstage.
• Ominous Knocking: How the Commendatore announces his presence in the final act.
• The Ophelia: Subverted with Elvira; she isn't crazy at all, but Giovanni tries to convince Anna and Ottavio of this when they come to him seeking help. It doesn't help that Elvira goes through several stages of anger, desperation and grief in the scene.
• A Party, Also Known as an Orgy: Don Giovanni throws a wild party for the peasants, during which (he boasts to Leporello) he hopes to add ten more names to his list.
• Patter Song: Fin ch'han dal vino calda la testa, sung by Don Giovanni organizing a party.
• Playing Cyrano: Ironically, Giovanni himself. Subverted in the fact that this is part of the Bed Trick to get Elvira out of the way; Leporello is posing as the Don under her window while Giovanni supplies the correct melodrama. Afterwards, he gives his unwilling servant a brief pep talk and observes for a while to make sure everything works out. An example of the Unbuilt Trope, as Cyrano de Bergerac was written over a century after Mozart's opera.
• Plot-Triggering Death: The Commander's death at the beginning triggers Anna and Ottavio to attempt to take revenge on him and eventually leads to Giovanni's death. Downplayed, as some of the other characters have reason to want revenge on Don Giovanni separate from that death.
• The Power of Love: Zerlina's secret cure-it-all on a very beaten-up Masetto. Fixes broken bones and bleeding bruises within a matter of two scenes.
• Questionable Consent: Don Giovanni claims all his conquests are willing, but he's also clearly not above using deception or coercion to talk a woman into bed, including more than one Bed Trick. If one believes Donna Anna's version of the story, he's also willing to use force, making him at least an attempted rapist.
• Really Gets Around: This is Don Giovanni's character in a nutshell - lampshaded with Leporello's recounting of his list of women. Giovanni has, in Leporello's accounting, slept with 2,065 women in total. In other words, an average of one woman every night for over five years and eight months.
• Retraux: Elvira's aria "Ah fuggi il traditor" is written in the style of Baroque opera composers such as George Frederic Handel, with even the text written in a deliberately old-fashioned verse form.
• Sanity Slippage: A frequent interpretation of Don Giovanni towards the end of the opera. Considering that he forces Leporello, at swordpoint, to invite a statue to dinner...
• Satellite Love Interest: Don Ottavio does have a noticeable enough stand-out persona and does contribute to a number of plot points, but his role mostly revolves around being Anna's fiancé.
• The Scapegoat: Leporello again. Even when the other characters discover that the man they thought was Giovanni was in fact his servant, they still blame him for most of what happened a few minutes ago.
• Scare Chord: "Don Ottavio, son morta!"
• Say My Name: DOOON GIOVAAAANNIII!!!
• Seduction Lyric: Unsurprisingly given its subject and plot, the opera has a whole load of Seduction Lyrics. Aside from the Don himself, Zerlina gets in on this when working to keep her soon-to-be husband happy and distracted.
• Servile Snarker: Leporello has a few moments.
• Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: Donna Elvira makes every effort to expose Giovanni's philandering and seductions as evil, but when offered a pretense of forgiveness, she's ready to hop back in bed with him herself. In the end she decides to enter a convent.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Notably averted in the final scene, where Leporello remains onstage throughout and even manages to crack a couple of jokes.
• Sidekick Song: Leporello gets a few.
• Skewed Priorities: Half the town is looking for you with Torches and Pitchforks, and the other half is looking for revenge after you killed their father? If you're Don Giovanni, this is a good time to start looking for girls!
• Spanner in the Works: For most of the opera, Elvira is the one who ruins all of Giovanni's plans.
• Swapped Roles: On multiple levels. Giovanni and Leporello switch clothes in order to perform the Bed Trick listed up above, but it is also common for the actors playing Giovanni and Leporello to literally swap roles, as they are both within the same approximate voice range (if you're an operatic bass-baritone, it's a damn good idea to learn both roles).
  • In the 1987 Salzburg festival run, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Samuel Ramey took turns singing both parts on alternating nights.
  • The film "Don Giovanni: Leporello's Revenge" features Dmitri Hvorostovsky as both Giovanni and Leporello simultaneously.
• Talking to the Dead: And how! The entire last act features a fateful conversation with the Commander, returned from the dead in the form of a statue.
• Tenor Boy: Don Ottavio.
• Tsundere: Masetto accuses his fiancee of being a hussy before she's said more than two words to Don Giovanni but reverts into a loving husband whenever there's no pesky interested man within 500 yards of his girl. Elvira as well, who swings between hating Giovanni/wanting to kill him and loving him.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Giovanni to Leporello. During the party, he tries to frame him for his own philandering and threatens to kill him in front of everyone, only to be interrupted by the other characters (so we can never be sure if he planned to go through with it). Later, he gets him to swap clothes with Giovanni himself...and when he runs into an angry mob, sends them after "Giovanni" to save his own skin, even telling them how he is dressed.
• Unrequited Love: Subverted with Giovanni, who loves all women and thus refuses to be cruel to them by being constant to a single one — or so he says. Played for laughs and tears as well with Elvira. "You seduced and abandoned me, told your servant to show me the gigantic list of women you scored with, proclaimed me insane, had me locked out in the garden, had your servant pretend to be you while you went off after my chambermaid... but I still pity and love you!"
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Elvira thinks this about herself and Giovanni; Giovanni would like Zerlina to think this about him and her. At least, until the end of the first act.
• Villain Love Song: "There we will entwine our hands, there our yes we shall share... not far from here my home stands, my dearest, let us go there..." and "Oh, come to the window" (Deh, vieni alla finestra) which really is a serenade for Elvira's chambermaid, complete with a mandolin accompanying the Don, troubadour-style.
• Villain Protagonist: Giovanni is an unrepentant scoundrel and sociopath from the first scene to the last scene, where he refuses to apologize for anything he's done even to keep out of Hell itself.
• Villain Song: Giovanni gets one of the most famous baritone arias in existence, the fast-paced Champagne aria (which is more about his amorous plans for the evening than about drinking, really) and Meta di voi qua vadano to separate the peasants when they are out to get him and he's posing as Leporello.
• Villainous Valour: Whatever else you may say of Giovanni, he's no coward. When a Living Statue of a man you murdered after seducing/raping his daughter turns up to dinner, dares you to fulfil your obligations as the inviter and take his hand, most would refuse. Giovanni accepts the challenge, and then when it's clear he has no way of fighting or talking his way out of his situation, repeatedly refuses to repent and change his ways, in full knowledge that he is facing damnation.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: Repeatedly, from Leporello's Notte e giorno faticar (Giovanni has shortcomings as an employer), via Elvira's Ah! Chi mi dice mai (which at the same time goes into rather gruelling detail about what she'll do if he doesn't come back to her), through to the often omitted final chorus (by which time the point is getting a bit laboured). Maybe he should rethink his people-handling methods before it's too late... oh, wait.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: A trio of mysterious maskers loitering outside of your house can't possibly be people you know! Oh, and Leporello seems to enjoy telling you guys to hit his master as hard as you can when you find him...
• Woman Scorned: Elvira, naturally. Anna also, though mostly because her father gets killed (or so she says). Zerlina, a little bit...
• You Killed My Father: Played straight with Anna. Ottavio as well, as she gets him to swear an oath to avenge them practically next to the dead body and swear it by the blood spilled. The Spanish take honor very, very seriously.

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Leporello: Forsake this TV Tropes page!

Giovanni: Forsake TV Tropes?! Madman! I need them more than the air I breathe, the bread I eat!

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