In mid-September Mozart and Constanze went to Prague, bringing the
partly finished _Don Giovanni_ score. Bondini had found the composer
lodgings at the house on the Kohlmarkt called the “Three Lion Cubs.”
Across the way, at the inn _Zum Platteis_, rooms were engaged for Da
Ponte and, as the windows faced each other, composer and librettist had
long discussions across the narrow street about details of the book, in
the preparation of which Mozart, with his keen dramatic instincts,
played a dominating role. He and Constanze appeared, however, to have
spent quite as much time with the Duscheks at the _Bertramka_ as at the
“Three Lion Cubs.” Rehearsals consumed a great amount of energy, there
were numerous modifications to be made in the music (the young baritone,
Luigi Bassi, who had the title role, demanded _five_ recastings of the
duet _La ci darem_ before he was satisfied with the music), and Mozart
had all manner of trouble with Catarina Micelli, the Elvira. In
addition, the singer of Zerlina, Caterina Bondini, could not utter the
peasant girl’s shriek in the first finale to the composer’s satisfaction
until he terrified her by grasping her roughly and thus causing her to
scream exactly as he wanted. After one of the last rehearsals the
conductor, Kucharz, being asked by the master for his candid opinion of
the opera, replied encouragingly: “Whatever comes from Mozart will
always delight in Bohemia.” “I assure you, dear friend, I have spared
myself no pains to produce something worthy for the people of Prague!”
declared the composer, who had already boasted that “my Praguers
understand me.”
Here is the place, no doubt, to tell once more the oft-repeated tale of
the overture, put on paper, according to a hoary legend, the night
before the première while Constanze kept the master awake by plying him
with punch and telling him stories. As a matter of fact, the overture
was written the night before the dress rehearsal—and it was nothing
unusual for Mozart to write down at the last moment a work mentally
finished in every detail.
A few days after the first performance the Prague _Oberpostamtszeitung_
published a review that probably excels anything ever written about the
opera. It read simply: “Connoisseurs and musicians say that nothing like
it has ever been produced in Prague.” The opinion is probably as true
today as in 1787. For there is literally nothing like _Don Giovanni_,
either among its composer’s creations or elsewhere. One can only share
the emotion of Rossini when, being shown the manuscript score, he said
to its owner, the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia: “I want to bow the knee
before this sacred relic!” And echo the words of Richard Wagner: “What
is more perfect than _every_ number in ‘_Don Giovanni_’? Where else has
music won so infinitely rich an individuality, been able to characterize
so surely, so definitely and in such exuberant plentitude as here?”
_Figaro_ is, if you will, the more perfect artistic entity of the two;
_Don Giovanni_ is looser, less consistent, on the surface even grossly
illogical. But so, too, is human nature. And if all the world’s a stage,
what more than a _dramma giocoso_ is the experience of life? Whatever
the narrow intent of Lorenzo da Ponte, when he carpentered the book out
of well-worn odds and ends, it was with a profound knowledge of the
sorrows and absurdities of humankind that Mozart breathed into it an
abiding soul.
“Long live da Ponte, long live Mozart!” had written the stage director,
Domenico Guardasoni. “All impresarios, all artists must exalt them to
the skies; for as long as such men live there can be no more question of
theatre miseries!” The Duscheks outdid themselves to make life pleasant
for their guests. Mozart found time to compose several songs and even a
superb concert air, _Bella mia fiamma, addio_, for Josefa after that
lady had locked him up in the garden house till he had finished the
promised music.
On November 15, 1787, which virtually coincided with the composer’s
return to Vienna, Gluck died. Less than a month later Joseph II
appointed Mozart to the older master’s post of Kammerkompositeur, with
an annual salary of 800 Gulden. Gluck had received 2000; and before long
Mozart was complaining that his pay was “too much for what he did, too
little for what he could do.” What he did was principally to supply
minuets, contradances, and _Teutsche_ for court balls and similar
occasions.
The year 1788 dawned in gloomy fashion for Mozart. To be sure, _Don
Giovanni_ had its first Viennese hearing on May 7, with a cast including
his sister-in-law, Aloysia Lange, as Donna Anna, Catarina Cavalieri (the
original Constanze in _Die Entführung_) as Elvira, and Francesco
Benucci, the first Figaro, as Leporello. Mozart had cut out some
numbers, replacing them with new ones, eliminated the platitudinous
epilogue, and ended the work with the prodigious hell music of Don
Giovanni’s disappearance. The Emperor remarked: “The opera is divine,
perhaps even finer than ‘_Figaro_.’ But it is a rather tough morsel for
the teeth of my Viennese”—to which Mozart replied, “Let us give them
time to chew it!”