Explore Don Giovanni
Learn about the original story and other interpretations of the Don Juan / Don Giovanni legend and browse an A-Z of key terms and people.
From Source to Performance (and Beyond)
Don Giovanni - a well-told tale
The story of Don Giovanni (the Italian equivalent of Spain's Don Juan) is an old one. For centuries, poets, playwrights and composers have been inspired by tales of the legendary libertine, his dalliances with comely young women and his eventual grisly demise. Literary critic Harold Bloom even finds a prototype for the character in the works of Shakespeare: King Lear’s Edmund, whose Machiavellian romancing of sisters Regan and Goneril marks him out as an opportunistic womanizer without a conscience.
Early Versions
Published in Spain around 1630, a few decades after this Shakespearean forbear and 150 years before Mozart's opera, Tirso del Molina's play The Trickster of Seville and the Guest of Stone is the earliest surviving account of the Don Juan legend. Molina's Don is a shameless lothario, cunningly disguising himself to ensnare his prey, leaving a slew of broken hearts and homes in his wake. In accepting an invitation to dine from a ghostly statue – the reanimated father of one of his conquests – Juan inadvertently seals his fate: following a feast of fingernails and tarantulas, the spectre seizes the villain thus ending his life.
Retelling the tale
Arguably the most famous Don Juan is French dramatist Molière's, published in 1665. Published nearly 200 years later in 1884, José Zorilla's Don Juan Tenorio reinvents the character somewhat by having him fall for the pious Donna Inés. A tug of war between Inés and her father over the Don's soul culminates in the daughter successfully drawing Juan to heaven.
The story in verse
But perhaps the most celebrated retelling is Lord Byron's epic poem, unfinished at his death in 1824. When first published, this pointed satire on human nature engendered a frosty critical reception – perhaps indicating that Byron's barbs had met their marks. Byron also includes a running gag whereby the narrator persistently mis-rhymes Juan's name (traditional Spanish pronunciation /doɴˈχwan/) with words like 'new one' and 'true one', necessitating an altogether more English pronunciation:
She knew not her own heart; then how should I?
I think not she was then in love with Juan:
If so, she would have had the strength to fly
The wild sensation, unto her a new one:
She merely felt a common sympathy
(I will not say it was a false or true one)
In him, because she thought he was in danger,
Her husband's friend, her own, young, and a stranger
--Lord Byron, Don Juan – Canto XIV
The story in music
There have been several musical adaptations including a ballet by German-born composer Christoph von Gluck. But the most renowned is unquestionably Mozart's opera. French composer Charles Gounod called it 'unequalled and immortal'. Beethoven and Chopin (among others) were inspired to write variations on the Giovanni/Zerlina duet, 'Là ci darem la mano'. And Liszt created one of the most enduring and challenging fantasies in the piano repertoire with his Réminiscences de Don Juan, which quotes extended sections of the Mozart score. Just like the legend itself, Don Giovanni stands the test of time.