Talk:Don Giovanni/Archive 1

Comments
I'm a music student studying this piece. Anyone who is knowledgeable in this area maybe you could add a section focussing on Mozart's music and the musical elements employed in this opera.

Too derivative? When one looks up Don Giovanni, he should be given all information about the subject.

A concluding chorus of the entire cast of the opera is generally omitted.

Does this mean including Don Giovanni, or is it the usual ending where the remaining characters get together to sing about what a bad guy he really was? I'm not aware of any other ending.

I think this is usually played these days.

Also, is this article too derivative? Violating Wikipedia principles? -- David Martland 04:13 17 May 2003 (UTC)

Please revert this article to previous version. Some characters in this article are destroyed by editing environment of mine. Sorry. I hope editors use ' instead of &#8217;... -- Lupinoid 11:18 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Every performance of Don G I have seen has included the final chorus. -- Viajero 18:26 24 Jun 2003 (UTC) - This has been moved to Don Giovanni (Mozart): pardon me for asking, but are there any other Don Giovannis, and if so, who by? The Anome 19:40 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any, but maybe there's something I don't know - User:Matdaddy moved it - he seems pretty knowledgable, so you might ask him. --Camembert


 * Nope, just Mozart's. --Viajero 08:15 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Moved it back to original name. -- Viajero 16:18, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, there was at least one earlier one by a composer named Giuseppe Gazzaniga. (I don't know if he was any relation to the famous neurologist.) 38.117.238.82 05:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

List of characters
A list of characters per Shakespeare playscripts would be useful. --Plastictv 05:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Good idea - I've had a go at this, but someone might like to tidy it up a bit!

Or Sai Chi L'Onore
The translation should be "Now you know who TRIED to rob me of my honor." In the previous recitative, "Don Ottavio, Son Morta" ("Don Ottavio, I am Dead"), Donna Anna explicitly tells Don Ottavio that Don Giovanni had failed to seduce her. People have of course been arguing ever since about whether or not she was lying. (As we are dealing with fictional characters here, a definitive answer is of course impossible.) 38.117.238.82 06:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC) (Sorry I forgot to sign before.)

Link to libretto
The link to the libretto is dead. I've spent at least 15 minutes on Google trying to find another, to no avail. If Google can't help me, who can?

RedRabbit1983 14:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I've replaced it with a link to the libretto at the Karadar site, which I located by using this site: . --GuillaumeTell 16:57, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Place
While it is tempting to assume that Don Giovanni is set in Seville, the score says no such thing: see here. We have to assume that description (La scena si finge in una città della Spagna) has been chosen deliberately, so please stop inserting Seville as the place of the plot. Michael Bednarek 02:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

"Fin ch'han dal vino"
No, it's not "Fin ch'han del vino", it's "Fin ch'han dal vino". Here's the relevant part of the libretto - it's near the end of Scena 15. --GuillaumeTell (talk) 14:28, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ooops! I am sorry, you are right. This teaches me to check rather than trusting my memory. Happy editing, Goochelaar (talk) 14:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Help
'''Could Anybody who knows alot about Don Giovanni the Opera please add some more topics on things like a write up of the play and basically what it is like as I really need more facts on it. Thanks.''' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.97.14 (talk) 15:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Appearances in other media
Before having seen the opera in its entirety, I first heard "Fin ch'han dal vino" (better known to us English-speakers as the "Champagne Aria") in the video game Grand Theft Auto III. It is part of the "classical station" (placed in the game to represent the Italian Mafia presence in Liberty City), alongside some Pavoratti hits, one aria from Madame Butterfly, and the drinking song from the first act of La Traviata. Apart from being featured in one of the more controversial video games, I also think the aria deserves distinction for two reasons: it lasts only a minute and a half (unheard-of in the aria world), and it is the only time that Giovanni sings a solo. In other words, the only time he is not singing a duet aria in which he tries to seduce a female, he boasts in anticipation of seducing a dozen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.253.186.9 (talk) 06:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Recordings/Discography
I'm not a big fan of these sections. They seem like advertising (especially when only recent recordings are listed). I'd almost prefer that they be completely removed.

But, an editor had recently removed the 1959 Giulini recording from the list stating in a comment "I'm not sure why these are special". The Giulini recording has been considered the "standard" or "classic" recording of this work for many years. I figured if a discography section was to be included, that this one needed to be on the list. DavidRF (talk) 20:04, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * If you have a book, like the NPR Guide to Opera or something like that which says that the Giulini is the "standard" or "classic," then by all means, this article needs to say that. Jindřichův Smith (talk) 20:40, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * In the meantime, another editor has added three more recordings. I've added two references for the Giulini recording (there are literally dozens I could have used. I've edited the remainder for clarity and flow, corrected cast errors, removed the "ad-speak", etc. I've complete removed the Furtwangler mention as it seems to be a confusion between two different recordings. It can be re-added when that is sorted out.Voceditenore (talk) 18:08, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Fact-tags added
I've gone and fact-templated some language that really stuck out in the article. "Da Ponte refused to acknowledge that his model was" - yuck! "X refused to acknowledge that Y" is the kind of phrase you see in muckrake journalism where the writer wants to advance claim Y using loaded verbs in place of support. It's a horrid phrase but if it must stay it has two separate branches needing specific citation: the claim itself (who says this other libretto was his source) and the "refused". Can a specific citation into the Memoirs show this refusal? "X refused to acknowledge Y" does not apply to "X never said Y" or "people wondered if Y but X didn't mention it" or even to "X was asked if Y and said no." (The last is still different because "was asked and said no" is neutral where "refused to acknowledge" is loaded.) "People wondered but X didn't mention it" could only at the outside be considered "refused" if the wondering was pervasive and public and weighing on Da Ponte while he wrote the Memoirs, and that would need documentation anyway and still be a stretch.

It happens again later in the article: "His claim that he finished the libretto in June is untrustworthy." Ok, but says who? It doesn't help that this single sentence is followed by an extensive discussion of when the score was finished, at some risk of confusing the two different questions.

If Da Ponte were a living person, this is the kind of material that might merit immediate removal under WP:BLP. Thankfully, he's dead, but readers should still expect careful sourcing for such things. --71.98.86.94 (talk) 03:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Error in Either/Or
This sentence The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote a long essay in his book Enten/Eller (Either/Or) has an error. The title of "Either/Or" in Original Danish is "Enten-Eller", that is, a dash seperates the words than what we see in English translation. In fact that difference is very significant. Thanks, Prophetoffrivolity (talk) 07:35, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That's really a discussion for the Either/Or article. Cheers. DavidRF (talk) 17:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Noted Arias section
It's not a good idea to remove all the arias from the "noted arias" list that have been incorporated into the synopsis and leave just the two unincorporated ones there. It gives the impression that they are the only two noted arias when in fact they are the least noted arias. Also per the recent promotion of Agrippina (opera) to Featured Article, the consensus was that a complete article should have the main arias, duets, etc. incorporated into the synospsis, plus a separate list of them. I've reverted the list here to its original state. It shouldn't be edited out until all the numbers are incorporated into the synopsis. But even then, I would recommend keeping it also as a separate section. Voceditenore (talk) 13:49, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I thought that we had agree (WikiProject Opera) that, once the arias are integrated, we do not keep a complete list under a separate heading. Thatr makes no sense to me at all.


 * I agree that the two, which I could not see included in the synopsis, should be integrated into that section. I'd like to see some other opinions here before I revert the changes you have made, but long lists of arias and their accompanying refs to Act, Scene, Scene #, etc. are just bloody redundant. Viva-Verdi (talk) 21:32, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with Voceditenore's comments about the ungainly and possibly misleading effect of having only those two arias listed. I also agree with the notion that a separate list of noted arias, regardless whether they are mentioned in the plot, is a feature likely to be helpful to many readers; the Opera Project should probably revisit that discussion.
 * As for this particular article: if the Opera Project decides that both presentations, incorporated + list, is not desirable, then those two arias could well be omitted altoghether. However, in that case the article [[File:LinkFA-star.png]]Agrippina obviously also needs revisiting. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:25, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Discssion opened at the Opera Project here. Voceditenore (talk) 12:23, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Given the present state of this section, I think it would be better to cut it out altogether and keep the 'arias' with the synopsis. -- Klein zach  04:26, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

First line translations
Donna Anna's aria "Or sai chi l'honore" begins: Now you know who TRIED TO steal my honor ("Or sai chi l'honore rapire ME VOLSE") Any translation which indicates that the attempt succeeded, is a mistranslation. Even if it did succeed, she's not telling Don Ottavio that.

Graveyard scene: "Gentilissima" means most REFINED, or most NOBLE, or a most deserving member of the gentry, a gentleman rather than a common or vulgar person. It does NOT mean kind or gentle.

Regarding the SYNOPSIS before the blow-by-blow action: shouldn't this be short and engaging? Why include details which the interested reader can easily find by continuing to read, and which the uninterested reader doesn't need? I know we should be encyclopedic, but does that HAVE to mean boring and stodgy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SingingZombie (talk • contribs) 06:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not sure I agree about the new one-sentence synopsis. First of all, I see your point about not being boring, but this looks like the tagline on a film poster, or something similar. We are not selling Don Giovanni to anyone here. And it is a bit exaggerated: Don Giovanni is primarily a womaniser. I am not sure he "gratuitously abus[es] everyone": he tries to bed as many women as he can, while this looks like someone out of "A Clockwork Orange". Goochelaar  (talk) 08:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi again, you wrote: "I am not sure I agree about the new one-sentence synopsis. First of all, I see your point about not being boring, but this looks like the tagline on a film poster, or something similar. We are not selling Don Giovanni to anyone here." This would be a good point IF anything I wrote had been wrong, or if anything important had been omitted. But in fact what I wrote is right and everything else in the opera is just details. If the reader comes away desiring to know more about the piece, than we have accurately portrayed the undeniable fact that it's well worth knowing more about. That's DESCRIBING it, not "selling" it.

You continue: "And it is a bit exaggerated: Don Giovanni is primarily a womaniser. I am not sure he "gratuitously abus[es] everyone": he tries to bed as many women as he can,..."

And kills their fathers, and breaks up their weddings, and tries to rape them at parties, and re-seduces them and lets his servant take advantage of them, and beats their fiances to jelly, and (offstage) tries to bone them by impersonating their lovers. Even when he's trying to bed women, he tries to do so in the nastiest way he can think of. You don't call this gratuitous abuse? Then I'm glad you're at the other end of the cable, far away from me! And not just the women; in fact, there are ZERO characters in the opera whom DonG does not abuse; it's only a question of degree and mode. Also, being abused by him is the MAIN THING about every one of the other characters. What characteristic of any of them can you name, which is more essential to who they are, than the mode of abuse they suffer from DonG? There is none.

You objected that my summary "looks like someone out of "A Clockwork Orange".

Well I don't think anyone asked Stanley Kubrick about this, but can there be any doubt AT ALL that both the novel and the movie interpretation ACO were heavily influenced by DonG? What else is ACO if not a modernized, expanded retelling of DonG? (just as FIDELIO was a modernized and expended retelling of ORPHEUS ED EURIDICE). Can you name any essential character traits which apply to DonG but not to Alexander deLarge, or vice versa? The paradox is the same: a total shithead who is disarmingly likable because he ENJOYS being a shithead so much. And it's not just him. Who is Dim, if not Leporello, and what is Leporello, if not DonG's little droogie? Also, the vengeful victim deprived of motion--either crippled or reincarnated in stone; and, just as the "treatment" Alex gets causes him to feel terror and nausea without physically hurting him, even so, the Statue doesn't DO anything to DonG; he feels fear when he touches its hand. Punishment by mind-control, both times.

You want more? How about the ground-breaking special effects in both pieces? Special effects aimed at intensifying the experience, whether Kubrick's colors and facial close-ups or Mozart's trombones and clarinets? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SingingZombie (talk • contribs) 12:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

In fact, I would argue that sounding like something out of ACO indicates a GOOD synopsis of DonG.

Sure, we're not trying to sell it, but can't we let just a little bit of the focus and viceral excitement in the piece show through? Just a malenkey bit of experience-tease? Really, it makes the description MORE accurate.

Oops, posted without signing. My bad SingingZombie (talk) 11:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Even if I didn't disagree with your ACO/DG analogy, you are getting far too carried away with the WP:OR here. The story is colorful enough as it is.  It doesn't need any unsourced embellishments. DavidRF (talk) 15:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * SingingZombie, much as I enjoyed your comparison between DG and ACO, this unfortunately is not the place for it, nor an ACO-inspired synopsis of the opera is the right one for Wikipedia. If not factually wrong, it had a tone, or style, not suitable to an encyclopedia, which should be as neutral as possible. I for one, when reading an essay, a blog, a remark, be it by a famous critic or by a random passerby, may enjoy it very much, if it gives me food for thought. But when browsing an encyclopedia, I prefer it to be as neutral, as zero-degree, as low-key as possible. I do not want to be enticed or encouraged (nor discouraged, of course) to read or listen something. And I believe this is one of the guidelines of WP itself. Thanks for the interesting exchange of opinions, by the way! Goochelaar  (talk) 16:36, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

RE: Graveyard scene summary. What Leporello complains to DonG about--nearly being killed by DonG's enemies--is NOT a "near-death experience"; it's a BRUSH WITH DANGER. "Near-death experience" means something you experience while you are physically close to death--you get shot and you have a vision of looking down at yourself from above, watching the medics trying to save you, or whatever. The old cliche of "your whole life passing before your eyes" while you are drowning, THAT's a near-death experience (assuming someone saves you so you live to tell about it). If you're gonna use a cliche, try to use a CORRECT cliche. "Brush with danger", please. SingingZombie (talk) 19:39, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

One more thing about A Clockwork Orange, if anyone's still reading: the parallels are most obvious if you listen to the Furtwangler record with Tito Gobbi. Total sarcastic snarl, with no pretense whatsoever of dignity. He sings beautifully but all the beauty is obviously sarcastic. Very easy to picture him singing "Singin' in the Rain" and kicking the writer in the ribs.

UPDATE: Anthony Burgess was an opera-junkie and wrote a version of THE GOBLIN'S RING set in an English boarding school. SingingZombie (talk) 04:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Translations
The word "fuggi" does not always mean "flee". It can also mean "go away", or "shun"/"avoid". When Donna Anna, standing over her murdered father, tells Don Ottavio "Fuggi, crudele, fuggi, lascia, che mora'anch'io", it means "go away, cruel one, and let me die too". Not "flee [etc]". SingingZombie (talk) 06:43, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Dear Management, I am sorry to tell you that you have a vandal on the loose, who keeps re-posting the MISTRANSLATION of "Or sai chi l'onore". The mistranslation is "He is the one who robbed me of my honour". The correct translation is "He is the one who TRIED TO rob me of my honour". This is now the THIRD entry about this on this talk page. It's an extremely bad error, totally misrepresent a critical plot-element. If Don G had succeeded in taking her honor, and she were to tell Don O, he'd most likely dump her on the spot. That's what a gentleman was supposed to do in those days if his fiancee got raped.

"What I tell you three times, is true!" --THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK SingingZombie (talk) 07:49, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Notable arias and ensembles
The three little ariettas--"Ho capito, Signor, si" by Masetto, "Ah fuggi il traditore" by Donna Elvira, and "Ah pieta, Signori miei" by Leporello, are NOT "notable"; they are the least notable things in the whole opera. If you're gonna include them, you may as well just paste the whole table of contents into your list (which seems to be more or less what the previous poster did). Also, the "notablility" of Donna Anna's second-act aria "Non mi dir" is questionable at best. Sure, it's beautiful and challenging for the singer, but no one ever listens to it; everyone's waiting for the finale to begin. And I don't think I've EVER seen it in an anthology or compilation. SingingZombie (talk) 20:09, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Voice type
Someone wrote a note saying that "soubrette" is not a voice type, but a role-type. Sure, but then by the same token, "heldentenor" is not a voice type either!† ("Helden" means "heroic", a role-descriptor, not a voice descriptor.)  What silliness! Both "soubrette" and "heldentenor" (and "heldenbaritone") refer to both voice and role types, in fact, to a voice-type particularly suitable to a certain role-type.

If we must have pedantry, let's have CORRECT pedantry, please. SingingZombie (talk) 05:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, Donna Elvira is not a "soprano or mezzo-soprano"; she's a soprano, beautiful and capable of occasional spurts of coloratura, like Fiordiligi in COSI FAN TUTTE or the Countess in FIGARO. OCCASIONALLY, high mezzos like Christa Ludwig try to sing Donna E., but the result is invariably disasterous, and Mozart's original score unabiguously calls for a soprano. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SingingZombie (talk • contribs) 06:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * † That's why no role in any table of roles is designated as "Heldentenor"; nor should "soubrette". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Really? Are you saying Siegmund, Siegfried, Tristan, Parsifal, Walther von Stolzing, and Lohengrin should not be designated as "heldentenors" but merely as "tenors"? Should Siegfried's voice-type (a heldentenor) not be distinguished in any way from Mime's (a shrill cackling character-tenor)? This seems very strange to me but if you say that's how you want it, ok.... SingingZombie (talk) 12:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE: You want sources? We got sources! From http://www.naxos.com/education/glossary.asp?char=G-I#

"The heroic tenor or Heldentenor is a tenor with a quality of voice (NOTE: "quality of VOICE", not "acting style", not "fach", not "character"--SZ) suited to the heroic rôles of 19th century French Grand Opera and of the music-dramas of Wagner, as in the part of Tannhäuser in Wagner's opera of that name. "

SingingZombie (talk) 01:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Video
Why did some person remove my "on video" section??? If you object to my use of the word "blaxploitation" to describe the style of Peter Sellars' DVD, go watch it. DonG and Leporello are african-american street-thugs in leather jackets; DonG kills with a modern handgun, not a sword, and smokes a cigarette while watching the Commendatore bleed to death (singing the death-trio through his own smoke); both DonG and Donna Anna shoot up intravenous drugs on stage, DonG bribes Leporello to stay with him at the beginning of Act 2 with cocaine, not gold; Donna Elvira dresses as an obvious punked-out Madonna-look-alike, Don Ottavio wears a NYC cop's uniform, and at the party in the first-act finale, Don G strips to his tighty-whities and dances around Zerlina, aggressively waggling his dong at her. If this isn't blaxploitation, then the word has no meaning. SingingZombie (talk) 05:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Much of the section "Selected recordings" and all of "On Video" (which fails WP:NAME) is of no use to the reader without further details of those publications. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Ummm, I don't mean to be argumentative, but surely that's not quite true. The info in ON VIDEO enables the interested reader to search for these videotaped performances on line, and buy them, and enjoy them, (or enjoy parts of them on YouTube without spending money) which (s)he would not have been able to do without first learning of their existence. Isn't it, therefore, useful information to the reader? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by usefulness.

Furthermore, even if the reader doesn't want to obtain the videos, their existence, especially the Furtwangler/Siepi, carries just a bit of historical importance. I know of no other full-length operatic performance under Furtwangler available on video. The fact that Don G, rather than one of the Wagner pieces for which Furtwangler was so much better-known, is his only full-length visual to make it to the public, testifies to the general importance of this particular opera, which many conductors consider to be the cornerstone on which Wagner's entire mature opus is based (along with The Magic Flute). Similarly significant is the fact that Peter Sellars became something like a household name through his interpretation of it for modern tv-viewing audience. It was considered something of a milestone in the ongoing effort to make opera more appealing to popular-culture audiences.

More generally, there seems to be, as far as I can tell, no pattern at all in how recordings (audio and video) are cataloged and described in WIKIPEDIA articles. I have seen variations from boardered tables with complete cast listings, release-dates, and catalog numbers, to single-sentence lists of the conductors of the various recordings. I had THOUGHT that this might depend on factors like the popularity of the piece, the number of available recordings, the size of the cast--but now you seem to be suggesting otherwise. Please advise how you want it. I can easily post complete info about the three videotaped performances I mentioned, although I obtained them quite some time ago. SingingZombie (talk) 13:05, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Recordings should be cited similar to other publications: at minimum specifying year and publishing house. I suggest further reading at WikiProject Opera/Article styles and formats sqq. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

WARNING: BUG ALERT I tried to enter the short version, but your system has a bug--no matter how many times I try to put a carriage return character after each line, it combines them into one line. Please fix! SingingZombie (talk) 01:41, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Importance of civility
Wikipedia has an important policy on civility. I suggest SingingZombie studies this carefully.

Edit summaries like "Replaced VIDEO section which some degenerate moron removed" and Corrected stupid, juvenile mistranslation of the word "gentilissima""'' are unacceptable.

Also established sections of this article should not be deleted without explanation here. -- Klein zach  06:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry for incivility; but I meant both those summaries as objective statements of fact, not as insults. SingingZombie (talk) 06:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Calling others "degenerate morons" and "stupid" and then asserting this as "objective statements of fact" nullifies the "Sorry for incivility" and intensifies the original insults. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Good! I will be glad to see this policy applied to my section "on video". SingingZombie (talk) 06:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * SingingZombie, please do not be rude with other editors, and please do not construe your rudeness as "fact". Thanks, Goochelaar  (talk) 08:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, bad sense of humor. Apologies. When I write about this stuff, I find myself writing more and more like a Wagner character. SingingZombie (talk) 08:45, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * SingingZombie: This is not a chat room. It's for discussing the article. And regarding the article we have a policy discouraging original research. We also have standard formats followed by the Opera Project. If you want to change these (regarding voice types or whatever) I suggest you go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera and talk to them there about this. -- Klein zach  10:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)