 
Heinrich Spängler
Helga Rabl-Stadler
Entführung
Masterpiece
Don Carlo
Don Giovanni
The concerts
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DON GIOVANNI AS A CHALLENGE
Key signatures and tempi determine the drama of the opera
This year’s successful production will also be on the pro-gramme in 2003 with many of the stars of the Salzburg Festival 2002, in particular Anna Netrebko and Thomas Hampson, and with Nikolaus Harnoncourt again conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.
Mr. Harnoncourt, what is the challenge of this tremendous subject?
HARNOVOURT: Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas are always an enormous
challenge and within this trilogy Don Giovanni is always something very
special. You can never come to an end with this work because it says so
much and at the same time it also conceals so much that interested listeners
have to add for themselves. For people who love music and drama –
and I would describe myself as such – the way in which text and
music are worked together so perfectly and mysteriously, is simply incomparable.
Which basic principles determine your approach?
HARNOVOURT: Mozart uses two basic dramatic principles in order to achieve
cohesion in a major work:
the principle of the key signatures and the principle of tempi in determining
the dramatic concept. Nowadays we can more or less disregard the dramaturgy
of key signatures. Today’s listeners cannot distinguish key signatures,
they only hear major and minor. No one notices if, for instance, Masetto’s
aria is sung a whole tone higher as was once the case in Salzburg. It
made my hair stand on end because the entire dramaturgy of key signatures
was turned upside down but at the time no one found anything wrong with
it.
On the other hand the dramaturgy of tempi is noticed. Mozart is probably
the only composer who requires such varied tempi in an opera and who therefore
struggles to find the exact allocation of a certain tempo in context.
In the case of Don Giovanni there are about forty different tempi. These
are indeed very narrow niches, because if from the slowest to the fastest
tempo you have forty niches, you can come into difficulties between andantino
and larghetto. And Mozart is extremely precise when he scratches something
out and makes a change.
Rudolf Hradil, Vineyard,
Florence, 1987
Andante alla breve the decisive tempo
Where is the central point for the tempo of Don Giovanni?
HARNOVOURT: It is what we call nowadays andante alla breve, with
which the opera begins and with which Giovanni’s death is sealed
through the reappearance of the Commendatore. This tempo occurs six times
at decisive points in the opera. One could say it is the axis on which
the entire opera is based and around which all the tempi revolve. In other
words this means I have to begin with the first bar in such a way that
I can find the same tempo in other similar passages. Elvira’s aria
Ah, chi mi dice mai and Leporello’s aria Madamina, il catalogo,
the so-called catalogue aria, which immediately follow one another, are
written in the same tempo. I am quite certain that Mozart wanted to have
them in the same tempo but usually nowadays they are never performed in
the same tempo. The reason is simple: through Rossini’s influence
tone repetitions in the accompaniment are considered to be virtuoso in
character and light. However, the two arias are not in alla breve, they
are true 4/4 arias and therefore these repetitions must have a different
significance. In my opinion they mean that each individual quaver is a
stab in Elvira’s heart – and not a virtuoso, easy-going accompaniment
of a cavorting bass buffo.
Learning to understand the key signatures again
What is the basis key of the piece?
HARNOVOURT: Quite clearly the tension between D major and D minor.
That is the basis. D major: that is the royal key, the key of the trumpets,
the key of the glorious ruler and victor. D minor is the key of great
grief. It is not the key of death, that is G minor. But it is not only
this D minor that is established very early on in the work, but also the
chromatic fourth, already in the fourth bar. It could well be that the
listener nowadays is still aware of this specific feature and can again
understand what it means. For listeners in Mozart’s time, at the
moment when this dramatic chromatic descending fourth occurs in the bass,
it was apparent that it could only be a so-called and not a real dramma
giocoso. This descending fourth is a kind of permanent stamp. It is used
repeatedly and in the musical rhetoric of the time it was the expression
of the greatest possible despair and grief. A third principle in the music
is precisely this rhetoric, a kind of musical shorthand. For instance
when Don Ottavio appears, he has a maestoso in the recitative. This dotted
rhythm symbolises that Ottavio should show more spine. This can be interpreted
in two ways: either he really does have this spine and is therefore a
true opponent to Giovanni, or one could say that this is the spine he
ought to have. Which conclusion is drawn from this is decided by the performance.
Don Giovanni is characterised throughout by such ambivalence.
Nikolaus Harnoncourt was interviewed by Karl Harb.
This is an abridged version of the article that first appeared in the festival supplement of the Salzburger Nachrichten on 27 July 2002.
Rudolf Hradil, Bay
of Neaples, 1998
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Don Giovanni
Revival
Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Stage director Martin Kušej
Stage design Martin Zehetgruber
Costumes Heide Kastler
Lighting design Reinhard Traub
Chrous master Rupert Huber
Dramaturgy
Sebastian Huber · Hans Thomalla
Don Giovanni Thomas Hampson
Leporello Ildebrando d‘Arcangelo
Donna Anna Anna Netrebko
Donna Elvira Melanie Diener
Zerlina Isabel Bayrakdarian
Il Commendatore Kurt Moll
Don Ottavio Christoph Strehl
Masetto Luca Pisaroni
Vienna Philharmonic
Concert Association of Vienna
State Opera Chorsus
Grosses Festspielhaus
Premiere: 14 August 2003
Further performances
16, 18, 21 (7.00 p.m.) and 23 August
(Performances begin at 6.30 p.m. unless otherwise stated)
Tickets available for
€ 22 / 45 / 65 / 90 / 140 / 210 / 270 / 350
Telephone: 0043 662 8045-500
Telefax: 0043 662 8045-555
E-mail: info@salzburgfestival.at