The music of 'Don Giovanni' has so often been discussed, that brief
reference to its more salient features will be all that is necessary.
Gounod has written of it: 'The score of "Don Giovanni" has influenced
my life like a revelation. It stands in my thoughts as an incarnation of
dramatic and musical impeccability,' and lesser men will be content to
echo his words. The plot is less dramatically coherent than that of 'Le
Nozze di Figaro,' but it ranges over a far wider gamut of human feeling.
From the comic rascality of Leporello to the unearthly terrors of the
closing scene is a vast step, but Mozart is equally at home in both. His
incomparable art of characterisation is here displayed in even more
consummate perfection than in the earlier work. The masterly way in
which he differentiates the natures of his three soprani--Anna, a type
of noble purity; Elvira, a loving and long-suffering woman, alternating
between jealous indignation and voluptuous tenderness; and Zerlina, a
model of rustic coquetry--may especially be remarked, but all the
characters are treated with the same profound knowledge of life and
human nature. Even in his most complicated concerted pieces he never
loses grip of the idiosyncrasies of his characters, and in the most
piteous and tragic situations he never relinquishes for a moment his
pure ideal of intrinsic musical beauty. If there be such a thing as
immortality for any work of art, it must surely be conceded to 'Don
Giovanni.
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