Music01 Jun 2007 07:14 am
When Mozart set out to write Don Giovanni, he based it on Giovanni Bertati’s theatrical version of the Don Juan story. There were over a dozen versions of the story in Mozart’s time, and dozens more have been written since. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a time when “Don Juan” wasn’t a character everyone had heard of. (That’s why words like “folklore” come up so often when discussing the story, putting its origin in a far-off, mythical past.) But, like Peter Pan, another great myth that is actually the creation of a flesh-and-blood artist (J. M. Barrie), Don Juan was created by a single author: a 17th century Spanish playwright named Tirso de Molina. His most famous work, a three act play called El Burlador de Sevilla, introduced Don Juan to the world.
The story centers on Don Juan Tenorio, a 14th century nobleman of Seville. Don Juan is forced to flee Seville after spending the night with the Duchess Isabella, who had mistaken him for her lover Duke Octavia. In his absence, arrangements are made for Don Juan to marry Doña Ana, the daughter of the powerful Don Gonzalo. But, of course, Don Juan betrays her, and Don Gonzalo vows with his dying breath to haunt the philandering nobleman. He eventually appears to Don Juan in a cemetery and strikes him dead, but not before forcing him to eat a banquet of snakes, fingernails, and tarantulas.
Important as it is, translations of the play are hard to come by. A good project for a devoted intellectual who knows Spanish!
Speak Spanish? Read El Burlador de Sevilla in the original (PDF) here.
One Response to “Mozart’s Don Giovanni: The Origin of Don Juan”
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Upon reading this I was suprised to see how El Burlador de Sevilla is so similar in title to Rossini’s Barber of Seville. Granted bulador means “the mocking one” or “the deceptive one” and not barber. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the author of the Barber of Seville, Pierre Beaumarchais, began working on his main character, Figaro, in a seperate work: Le Sacritan. A work that, according to Beaumarchais, was written in the Spanish style. If there is a connection, then perhaps Don Gionvanni and the Barber of Seville are distant cousins!