Don Giovanni: The Characters and Their Music

Don Giovanni: The Characters and Their Music

Giving Character’s character is one of the most interesting challenges in operatic composition; another is composing for all the specific characters. A composer has to distinguish between characters through his music. Jan can’t sound like Fran, and Dan can’t sound like Stan. Each character must have his/her own traits. Mozart’s opera, Don Giovanni, provides us with many different characters to compare and contrast.

One scene in particular lends itself to the comparison of Don Giovanni, Leporello, and The Commendator. Scene fifteen of Act two, places all three characters in close interaction with each other, making it easy to compare and find out how Mozart and his Librettist Lorenzo da Ponte brought them all to life. The libretto provides the main character traits of Don Giovanni, Leporello, and The Commendator. It gives an easy way of distinguishing between the characters. Don Giovanni is portrayed as being smart, charming, and brave, yet selfish, arrogant, womanizing, and pompous. We see all of these traits in the final dinner scene. These opposing traits set up a love hate relationship between Don Giovanni and the viewers.

Leporello on the other hand, is wimpy, subservient, nervous, and a bit dumb. He is often the butt of Don Giovanni’s jokes, and is always being bossed around. He can be thought of as the comic relief of the opera. In the dinner scene we get a definite feeling of Leporello being a wimpy idiot. After being slain by Don Giovanni, the Commendator returns as a statue. He is portrayed as being a mighty, powerful, and ominous. He tries to make Don Giovanni repent for all the terrible things he did. In the dinner scene he is truly a powerful being from beyond. His power is demonstrated when he sends Don Giovanni down to hell.

The above character descriptions are what Lorenzo da Ponte set up for Mozart to compose his music to. We now can observe how Mozart used musical devices to give each character his own flavor. One area to compare is the rhythmic traits of each character’s musical lines. Leporello’s nervousness and fear in the dinner scene is exemplified through a very jumpy unsteady rhythmic vocal line. Mozart really makes his nervousness obvious by giving him notes no longer in value than a quarter note. Mozart uses dotted eights to sixteenth notes to make his part especially disjointed. This creates the effect of someone shaking from fear as they are trying to speak. Mozart also uses a continuous triple pattern, which begins at measure 470, to create a rambling effect. Leporello seems to have lost his sanity from fright of the statue, and is now babbling incoherently.

Don Giovanni and the Commendator have very different rhythmic vocal parts then Leporello. They are much more bold and brave then Leporello, so Mozart gives them a more solid rhythm. The Commendator has the most stable part out of all of them. He has many whole and half notes. The stability of the rhythm adds to the confidence and power of his character. The only time his rhythm becomes quicker is when he is yelling at Don Giovanni to repent. Don Giovanni shares many similar rhythmic traits as the Commendator, although it has a little more diversity.

Don Giovanni shifts from being comfortable to uncomfortable throughout the dinner scene. In this situation, Mozart appropriately varies the speed of Don Giovanni’s rhythm. An example of this occurs at measure 522. Previous to this measure, Don Giovanni has a stable rhythm with most words occurring on the strong beats. It abruptly changes to a short offbeat eight note.

Rhythm is not the only musical area that Mozart crafts specifically for each character. He also uses certain melodic lines for each character. The Commendator’s musical lines are the most striking. He often has huge leaps in his part, giving the listener a full dose of the impeding force he is. The space creates a feeling of something bigger and more powerful then a mortal. It is important to note that a lot of these giant leaps are not easy. There are many augmented fourths, minor sevenths, and other strange intervals that he has to navigate through. An example of the strange interval leaps can be found from measure 552 to 461. This little section takes a break from having a key center and instead floats around between diminished chords. This only adds to the “something not of this earth feeling” the Commendator gives us.

Mozart also uses repeated notes to produce a powerful effect. The orchestral motive moves up by step each measure while the Commendator stays on the same note. This occurs between measures 465 and 470 and again between measures 475 and 478. Don Giovanni once again has similar qualities as the Commendator. The large jumps are present but they are tonally different. They are often very key oriented, outlining triads