Scene 1. Evening on a street in Seville. Don Giovanni wants to seduce Elvira's maid. He changes clothes with Leporello. When Elvira enters, Leporello is sent off with the lady. She thinks he is Don Giovanni. Giovanni sings a serenade. Masetto and his friends come in. They are looking for Don Giovanni. He beats Masetto and runs off. Zerlina finds Masetto and comforts him.
Scene 2. A nearby street. Leporello wants to get rid of Elvira. She may discover he is not Giovanni. The two hear others coming into the street. They hide behind a wall. Anna, Ottavio, Zerlina, and Masetto open a door in the wall, and find Leporello. They want to punish him. He runs away. Ottavio says he will go to the police.
Scene 3. (This scene is cut in modern performances.) A street. Zerlina threatens Leporello with a razor. A servant ties Leporello to a chair. When Leporello is left alone, he escapes. Zerlina comes back with Elvira and Masetto. They believe Don Giovanni must have helped Leporello escape. Elvira is left alone. She thinks of her love for Don Giovanni. She is certain he will be punished.
Scene 4. A cemetery in Seville. Don Giovanni and Leporello make jokes about Elvira. A strange voice is heard. It tells the two that justice is near. The voice is coming from a statue of the murdered Commendatore. Giovanni orders Leporello to invite the statue to dinner. The two leave to get dinner ready.
Scene 5. A room in Donna Anna's house. Anna is feeling great sorrow over her father's death. Ottavio says his love will comfort her. She is shocked with this suggestion. Ottavio says she is cruel to him. She asks him not to say such things. She tells him that her sorrow is so deep that she can think only of her dead father.
Scene 6. A room in Don Giovanni's palace. Don Giovanni is eating dinner. Elvira begs him to repent and change his way of life before it is too late. He laughs at her, and she leaves. Suddenly, the statue comes into the room. It orders Giovanni to repent. He refuses. Flames rise, and demons scream. The statue takes Giovanni's hand. Hell opens. The two disappear in the flames. Anna, Ottavio, Elvira, Zerlina, and Massetto come into the room with the police. They are looking for Don Giovanni. Leporello tells them that Giovanni has met his end. They are pleased, and make plans for happier days.
"Don Giovanni" is based on a character in European folklore. This character is known as Don Juan. In 1581, the first play about Don Juan was written in Spanish by Juan de la Cueva. Other plays were also written. The most famous Don Juan play was "The Playboy of Seville and His Stone Guest" by a Spanish monk named Tirso de Molina. This play is the source of all the Don Juan stories and plays that were written after it. Da Ponte even used some words from it when he was writing "Don Giovanni".
Traveling actors performed the Don Juan plays in France and Italy . The Don Juan character became well known. There were French, German, and Italian plays. Molière wrote "Dom Juan" in 1665, and Thomas Shadwell wrote an English play in 1676. Carlo Goldoni wrote an Italian play in 1736. Mozart and da Ponte probably knew the Goldoni play.
The first opera was a French one written in 1713. It was a comic opera. Gluck wrote a ballet for Vienna in 1761. Vincenzo Righini wrote an opera that was performed in Vienna and Prague in 1777 ten years before "Don Giovanni". There were other operas written about Don Juan. The best known opera was one by Giovanni Bertati and Giuseppe Gazzaniga. It was performed in Venice in 1787. It was a great success. Da Ponte knew this opera. He made use of Bertati's libretto when he wrote "Don Giovanni".
Mozart and da Ponte first met in Vienna in 1783. At that time, da Ponte promised to write a libretto for Mozart. Three years later, he adapted a French play called "The Marriage of Figaro" to an opera libretto for Mozart. In three months, Mozart had completed the music. "The Marriage of Figaro" had its first performance in Vienna on May 1, 1786. It was a great success.
In January 1787, Mozart went to Prague for the first performance of "Figaro" in that city. The opera was a wild success. The manager of the opera house hired Mozart to write an opera for Prague. In Vienna, Mozart asked da Ponte for a libretto. Da Ponte gave him "Don Giovanni". Mozart started work on this new opera.
Mozart wrote most of "Don Giovanni" in the summer of 1787 in Vienna. Early in October, he went to Prague. He completed the opera in Prague at the Villa Bertramka, the home of friends. The first performance of the opera was postponed. The curtain rose on the world premiere of "Don Giovanni" at the National Theatre in Prague on October 29, 1787. The opera was a great success.
One critic wrote: "On Monday the 29th the Italian Opera performed Maestro Mozart's eagerly awaited "Don Giovanni" ... Music lovers and musicians say that nothing to equal it has every been seen before in Prague ... Mozart himself conducted and he was given three cheers ... The opera is uncommonly difficult to perform ... The crowd of spectators bears witness to its general acclaim."
There are many legends about the making of "Don Giovanni". One legend says Luigi Bassi, the 22 year old singer playing Don Giovanni, wanted more music to sing. He was said to have forced Mozart to rewrite a duet five times. Another legend says Mozart flirted with all three sopranos in the opera. When one would reject his passes, he would simply move on to the next. Another legend says Mozart's wife Constanze kept her husband awake with funny stories the night before the first performance so he could complete the overture to the opera.
Mozart left Prague for Vienna in November 1787. Music lovers in Vienna had heard good reports of "Don Giovanni". The Emperor ordered the opera to be produced at the Burgtheater. Mozart wrote some new music for the characters of Elvira and Ottavio. He also wrote a duet for Zerlina and Leporello. "Don Giovanni" was first performed in Vienna on May 7, 1788. Mozart's sister-in-law Aloysia Lange sang Donna Anna.
Legend says the performance in Vienna ended with Don Giovanni going to Hell. The final scene for Anna, Elvira, Zerlina, Ottavio, Masetto, and Leporello was probably cut. Mozart wrote some new music for the Vienna performance. He may have had to cut the last scene to keep the performance within a certain length of time. The opera was not as successful in Vienna as it was in Prague. It was dropped at the Burgtheater after fifteen performances.
"Don Giovanni" was performed all over Germany. It was performed in Poland in 1789. It was performed in German in Amsterdam and St Petersburg. The opera was popular in France, in both Italian and French versions. The first performance of "Don Giovanni" in Italy was at Bergamo in 1811. It was performed in Rome the same year. Its first performance in England may have been an amateur performance. In 1817 though, it was presented in both English and Italian. Lorenzo da Ponte produced the first American performance of "Don Giovanni" in New York City in 1826.
In 1979, Joseph Losey made a movie of the opera. Baritone Ruggero Raimondi played Don Giovanni. Edda Moser, Kiri Te Kanawa and Teresa Berganza played the three ladies in the opera. The movie was made in Venice instead of Spain. It used Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio's Villa Capra near Venice as its setting.
Vincent Canby wrote in the "New York Times" on November 6, 1979: " ... the climactic confrontation between the Don and the Commendatore is surprisingly tepid visually. I've seen better descents into hell at our own Metropolitan Opera and in any number of Hammer horror pictures. Mr. Losey and his associates haven't destroyed "Don Giovanni," but then they haven't illuminated it either. Their film is a busy, disorienting spectacle, superbly sung ... "