ACursory Observation Concerning aDetail in Don Giovanni
[XIII 447] A CURSORY OBSERVATION CONCERNING A DETAIL IN DON GIOVANNI66
Mozart’s Don Giovanni is being performed once again.67 Compared with many another warmed-over, delicate, and unnourishing piece, in this opera the theater has what in household language is called good solid food that sticks to one’s ribs, and the public is already happy to know that it can be presented, even though it is rarely produced. —The newspapers have already passed their verdict on the performance as a whole and in part. I shall not venture an opinion so quickly, not even of the newspapers’ evaluation business. There is the beautiful ancient rule of the departed Socrates:68 to reason modestly from the little that one understands of something to the much that one does not understand. The theater criticism in the newspapers always constrains me to extreme modesty and ascetic abstinence from any conclusion.
Concerning Mr. Hansen’s69 performance, much is said with general omnivalidity and a most admirable facility that is finished in an instant, overall judgment. There is, however, one particular detail of which I have become aware and on which I wish to dwell for a moment, requesting a reader’s interest, for I do not wish to delay anyone who is in a hurry or to waste the time of businessmen. I much prefer to dwell on this particular detail since I do not regard it as an [exceptional] [XIII 448] high point in Mr. Hansen’s interpretation and rendering, on which I do not have any overall opinion, but rather regard it as a high point independent of whether this actor performs just as well in the whole opera (which, after all, cannot obscure the genuine brilliance of a specific part) or he does not perform as well in other parts (which could in fact make the high point relatively more conspicuous). This point is the duet with Zerlina in the first act, which must be regarded as the absolute prize, even though one may otherwise have a different opinion about the importance of the recitatives for performance on our stage.
The first requirement for a singer is voice, then delivery, which is a unity of voice and mood and is different from vocal flexibility in coloratura and runs, since as possibility it is the mutual compatibility of the two and as actuality the harmony of voice and mood in the delivery. The final requirement for a singer is that the mood suit the situation and the poetic character. If the singer has voice and joins it with mood, he has artistic passion. If he is also an actor, by means of miming he will even be able to encompass contrasts at the same time. The more reflective he is and the more skilled at managing his voice on the pianoforte of mood, the more combinations he will have at his disposal and thus be able to do full justice to the composer’s demands, if, of course, the composer’s work knows how to make demands on the singer’s delivery and is not one of the unendurable and unperformable operas. If he is less reflective, he will not have such a great range in mood and character. But there is still one more thing: all the more universal foundations of mood, the ability to infuse voice with imagination, to be able to sing with imagination. This is the kind of delivery I have admired in Mr. H. in this particular part.
For the duet with Zerlina, one involuntarily has great expectations. The first scene with Anna70 is too stormy for one to identify Don Giovanni clearly, but here everything is set in order, the surroundings minimized, the attention focused on how he is going to respond to his first challenge, and we think: Here we will see whether Don Giovanni is a fop and a dandy, a windbag (which a person becomes when he wants to be a Don Giovanni) who has a gullible trumpeter in Leporello and an impotent troubadour in Mozart, or whether he is that celebrity and that celebrity’s most famous work.
The composer fulfills his obligation. The accompaniment is charming and eloquent. Like the murmuring repetition of the brook, it recurs enchantingly, because the orchestra takes care [XIII 449] of itself and goes on and cannot come to an end. It has a dreaming yet captivating effect, overpowering like the fragrance of flowers; it ushers one into the infinite, not with the energy of passionate desire but with quiet yearning. Mozart certainly knows what he is doing, and a Zerlina is deemed not to have the qualifications of individuality that define a different conception, such as, for example, a violent flaming passion in a shared desire, in which feminine concupiscence almost matches Giovanni’s natural force in energy and daring, or a feminine absorption in Giovanni to which an infinite feminine kingdom is devoted, or an overcome resistance that subsides with pride, or that noble simplicity which is deceived, or that elevated purity which is defiled, or that humble ardor which once outraged is outraged for life, or that profound naiveté which once victimized is victimized forever, or the holy passion of infinity that is led astray to damnation, or a feminine rashness that amounts to nothing, etc. Zerlina’s seduction is a quiet marriage that goes off without any fuss.
The situation is essentially this: she did not know how it happened,71 but it did, and so she was seduced;* and the result of Zerlina’s most strenuous mental exercise is this: It cannot be explained. This is very important for an understanding of Zerlina. Therefore, it was a mistake for an otherwise fine actress, Madame Kragh,72 to sing the line “No, I will not”73 with force, as if it were a resolve fermenting in Zerlina. Far from it. She is confused, dazed, and perplexed from the start. If reflection is attributed to her at this point, the whole opera [XIII 450] is a failure.** The same is true of the line following: “Masetto’s soul will bleed.” If this sympathy is distinctive, the whole thing will not pass muster. Therefore, the line must not signify more and must not be sung otherwise than is appropriate for its being au niveau [on the same level] with spontaneous gestures, for example, clutching her apron or repulsing Don Giovanni’s embrace. Precisely this makes her beautiful and adorable, her relation to Masetto just right. To hear an act of reconciliation in the aria “batti, batti”76 is completely wrong. She has not even attained her meager presence of mind, which is quite adequate in Masetto’s household but not in Don Giovanni’s trap. She sees that Masetto is angry, and so there is nothing to do but to speak a good word for herself to him and to herself, for she is unclear about the whole thing, and to her in her innocence, her innocence is altogether unquestionable. She must be maintained in this naiveté; she cannot even make out why Masetto became so angry. Therefore, the reconciliation must have no essential character to it, as if now she were saved. By no means. As soon as she sees Don Giovanni, it begins all over again, and then she must once again go and whimper a little to Masetto,77 and then she comforts him, and [XIII 451] then finally she believes that it is Don Giovanni and Masetto who have become enemies, God knows why, and she is the one who is to mediate between them. Let a few years go by, and then pay a visit to Madame Masetto. You will find Zerlina essentially unchanged. Just as she dillydallies and whiles away the time in the opera, she scurries about her house, sweet, utterly charming, etc. If you were to say to her, “But how was it with that character Don Giovanni,” she will answer: “Well, it was strange, a strange wedding day, such a hullabaloo, and I had to be on the go everywhere; now it was Masetto who grumbled, then Don Giovanni wanted to talk with me, and I am positive that if I had not been there they would have killed each other.”
This character must be sustained to distinguish her in her femininity from Anna and Elvira. Anna is relatively far less guilty than Zerlina. She has mistaken Giovanni for Ottavio, nothing more. But because she is essentially developed, this is sufficient to disturb her for perhaps the rest of her life. She suppresses it as long as possible and then is beside herself with revenge.78 But Zerlina is undaunted and undismayed, goes blithely away both to the dance with Don Giovanni and to confession with Masetto; it is all wonderful and to each of the interested gentlemen is good enough in turn. She joins in everything, feels that she is associating with fine ladies and is just as important as any of the others. She takes part in capturing Don Giovanni, not because he has seduced her but because he has struck Masetto (it is clear that she confuses the physical and the moral), and she therefore considers Leporello just as guilty because he also has struck Masetto,79 her own little Masetto of whom she is so fond and to whom the others are so mean.
Elvira is a tremendous feminine character, with the essential passion to know what it means to be seduced. She does not want to salvage one shred of honor from the world; she wants to stop Don Giovanni, with the reservation, of course, that if Don Giovanni will be faithful to her, then she will give up the itinerant activity of the mission—but in that case he is in fact stopped. It is genuinely feminine, a splendid invention. Yet, regarded as a woman, she with her mission is in a way auszer sich [beside herself] and therefore in all consistency must appear comic. I am not thinking of that deeply tragic [XIII 452] situation in the second act,80 where she mistakes Leporello for Don Giovanni, a scene that an author81 has called almost brutal, but of something else. She herself has been seduced and now wants to save others without considering that such an enterprise takes preliminary study and much examination whereby one gains the competence to identify with others. That she is utterly unable to do. This also explains why she cannot make herself understandable to Zerlina. Here Elvira becomes comic. She transfers all her pathos to Zerlina, and in the end Zerlina is better able to understand Don Giovanni than to comprehend Elvira. Therefore, an actress who portrays Zerlina must not—as was done when the opera was given in the past—be shocked, gripped by anxiety, because of Elvira’s speech—that is much too much. She should be astonished at the new surprise, and so astonished that a good spectator almost smiles at the situation while at the same time he grasps the tragic in Elvira.
(To be concluded tomorrow.)
(Conclusion) [XIII 453]
Now to Don Giovanni.82 If the singer combines imagination with voice and uses this delivery as an accessory, what then? Then the situation becomes a situation of seduction. Perhaps, but not in an opera—on the contrary, this occurs in a drama, where a seducer does not sing to the girl but for the girl, using this means to stimulate her imagination. I shall sketch such a situation. The girl is no peasant maid but a donna, a mature young lady with impressive qualifications. The seducer has a good voice and knows how to combine imagination with it. So he sometimes sings for her what she wants to hear. One day, quite by chance, as they say, he chooses this number by Don Giovanni. He delivers it with all imaginative inspiration. He, of course, does not look at her, not one glance, not one desiring look, for then all is lost. He looks straight ahead, and his voice quickens in mood and imaginative seductiveness. The donna listens and feels safe, and since she knows that he is not singing to her, that the song does not pertain to her, she surrenders to infatuation, and since they are assumed to be equally strong, the seducer has to create the first tryst in her imagination and in the fleeting face-to-face encounter of imaginative intuitions and presentiments. If this is depicted, then it is not essentially an opera, but in a drama or narrative the transition is formed from this situation to the reflected actuality of the seduction.
Now if Mr. Hansen’s task were to lay the groundwork for that situation in a drama, then his performance was omnibus numeris absoluta [perfect in every respect], and anyone who has a flair for such observations certainly will not deny that it [XIII 454] is astonishing to hear such superb delivery. Calm, yet insinuating in tone, dreamy and full of longing, yet distinct in phrasing, with every letter so articulated that nothing is lost or wasted, he achieves a rare effect. But if it is an opera, and it is here that the battle is to be fought, then this excellent delivery is not in the right place, is not a golden apple in a silver bowl.83 Don Giovanni is no mawkish zither player nor a seducer84 who uses such a disguise at the outset. Taking another part of the opera, for example, the guitar aria,85 or Don Giovanni’s intervention in Elvira’s first solo, “Poverina, poverina” [Poor girl],86 then, specifically in the second instance, I would say that here such a delivery ought to be used. Essentially, this outburst is not addressed to anyone—it is Don Giovanni standing there pondering and anticipating pleasure. Therefore, imagination must be combined with the voice, and the irony must not arise in Don Giovanni’s reflecting on the relationship but must be in the mind of the spectator, who understands Don Giovanni. Therefore, the actor ought to see to it that he is calm and collected at that moment, although it is quite right for him to pace back and forth in a kind of tension during the aria. But, above all, he must not come up front while singing these words, for Elvira is not supposed to hear them. Nor is he to sing them to Leporello, as he does in the rest of the aria. Essentially, they signify only that Don Giovanni is in good humor. The matchless effect of the situation must not result from Don Giovanni’s reflection or planning but is to be sought in the total effect, as a writer87 has pointed out.
In the duet with Zerlina, Don Giovanni sings to Zerlina. It is Don Giovanni, and Zerlina is an adorable little peasant girl. In the imaginary situation with the donna, it was necessary for it to begin as it did, because it did not start with desire. Thus it began in an innocent dreaming; in all seduction it holds true: too speedy a plunge and all is lost. Just because Zerlina is a peasant girl, it does not necessarily follow that Don Giovanni should begin crudely; Don Giovanni never does that. Not through reflection but like a force of nature, he always has decorum and grace. The recitatives before the duet are even languorous in the best sense of the word. It is absolutely proper, for Don Giovanni is not reflective, and to portray a peasant girl in an idealizing cloak in such a capacious imaginative setting, when someone like Don Giovanni is sure that she has enough to do just to behold and admire him, the beautiful man, is perfect for making her bedazzled and confused. A fast, palpably obvious fellow would be understood [XIII 455] by Zerlina too quickly and would make her alert, because in all her naiveté Zerlina is chaste and does not understand at all. Meanwhile, and as a decidedly important commentary on the text, we also see Don Giovanni’s superiority, see him catching flies with sweets, see that in a certain sense he is right when he says to Elvira: “It was only for amusement.”88 This line is neither malicious nor ironic; it is spontaneous and direct. Don Giovanni regards Elvira as too strong to be affected by a little affair with a little Zerlina: she the seduced ϰατ’ ἐξοχὴν [par excellence] and Zerlina! It is easy to endow Don Giovanni with a little reflection, but in the opera the art is precisely to keep it out so that Don Giovanni does not become an ordinary character and the opera structurally flawed. The actor has to use bearing, facial expression, gestures, personal presence, the full authenticity of the character to project his superiority.
The duet begins. The dreaming generality of the accompaniment (because music is a more generalized medium)89 is audibly clear in Don Giovanni’s performance, in his gripping Zerlina with his own natural power and that of the musical accompaniment. As he stands, incomparable, and sees her confused and perceives that her unwillingness is a camouflaged surrender, he concentrates all his superiority in an almost commanding omnipotence. It is the egotism of natural vigor and virility. Therefore, the accompaniment to the first “Be mine”90 is not ingratiating but energetic and decisive. Now she surrenders. Don Giovanni, of course, does not do it that way. Here again his superiority may be seen. With respect to Anna, Elvira, and their kind, it is not inconceivable that Don Giovanni in the moment of victory relishes the desire so strongly that he seems like a lover who gives as much as he takes and is the seducer only in the next moment. But Zerlina is captured and treated in another manner. Here the amusing game is itself the enjoyment, and Don Giovanni, immediate and purely musical, is in his element. To him Zerlina is no less than any other woman, but is different from Elvira or Anna, and in her own way just as desirable and just as engaging to him. I repeat, therefore, that Zerlina must be projected in such a way that when she is seen and heard with Don [XIII 456] Giovanni she will produce a certain feeling of elation in the viewer, because he will try in vain to apply the earnest category to her. And when she is seen with Masetto, she will elicit a smile, because essentially Zerlina is neither seduced nor saved but is continually in trouble.
Perhaps some, even the majority, feel that this whole thing is of no importance, since in fact one almost never sees Zerlina made an object of esthetic interpretation. I myself am inclined to regard it as unimportant and therefore feel obliged to beg Mr. Hansen’s pardon, inasmuch as upon seeing his name mentioned he may take the trouble to read the article, and I beg the forgiveness of Fædrelandet for burdening it with such a contribution, whose defect, curiously enough, is that it is not sufficiently weighty. Mr. Hansen can easily forgive me. How fortunate for someone who has the desire and has made his choice in life to have the singing voice he has, how fortunate for someone who has the desire and has chosen his profession and then has all the fine qualifications for an actor that he actually has. When one has been given so much and has also acquired something, I daresay one could squander a little time practicing how to walk and how to stand. I really do not believe that my legs91 or my gait have any connection with my interpretation of the most immortal opera; then I would have to get other legs for walking.
A.92