Talk:Don Giovanni/Archive 2

Voice type 'musical chairs'
Once again someone is changing the voice types in the roles table! My understanding is that we are using the original designations, not those that someone or other thinks are more appropriate. I think we should use those given in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe edition. -- Klein zach  04:14, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with you one-hundred percent! And, when I click on your link, I find, in the "PERSONEN" section at the beginning, that Donna Elvira is listed as "soprano", not "soprano or mezzo-soprano".  I am, accordingly, adjusting the table, in the hope that future participants will respect YOUR wishes and allow the adjustment to remain. SingingZombie (talk) 06:55, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Please indent — with a colon — I've done it for you above. -- Klein zach  07:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, but I had most of my colon surgically removed last year; not much left to spare. SingingZombie (talk) 00:39, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Given that we have a second revert within 4 days on this article by User talk:71.103.88.51, I've posted a note on his/her talk page (presently blank) to explain that this page should be consulted before any further edits are made. Viva-Verdi (talk) 20:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

"Great" portrayals of the Don
By what standard are Thomas Allen and Thomas Hampson "great" Don Giovannis? And should a wiki article use a subjective term like "great"? I would call both Thomases adequate, workmanlike but vanilla. Certainly there was nothing groundbreaking or essential to our conception of the character in their performances, as there was in the performances of Pinza, Siepi, Gobbi, Brownlee, and George London (who is, curiously, missing from the list; not to worry, I will correct--his DonG was legendary, it was one of his four signature roles! The other three were Boris Godunov, Wotan, and Amfortas.)  If you're looking to list someone from the Thomases' time, before Terfel but later than the others, I would say Samuel Ramey was greater than either of the Thomases, by a considerable margin; also more famous and demanded. But since it's a matter of opinion I'm leaving it alone other than adding GL. SingingZombie (talk) 04:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The Music of Don Giovanni
Why is there no section talking solely about the music of Don Giovanni? The libretto synopsis is only half of the opera. Mozart did not write the story he wrote the music which makes the story come alive. The Don Giovanni article tries to cover all aspects of the opera: characters, the history of the show, and the plot line. However it inconveniently leaves out one very important aspect of the opera, the MUSIC. I think that any Wikipedia article that has set out to be a biographical source of a piece of music should focus more heavily on the music. To me, it seems this article is heavily based on the plot of Don Giovanni, and while that is an important focus of the show it should only take up half of the article. Therefore I propose a complete music takeover of this article.

Currently, there is only coverage of the arias, and at that it is just a list of the arias. (At that all the arias aren't even listed. Furthermore, the recitatives are not even mentioned in this article which should be included in the aria section since they precede the arias.)  I want the Wikipedia article to cover all the music in the opera; the arias aren't the only songs that drive the musical. The ensemble pieces create all the drama and tension in between the arias such as “Non ti fidar, o misera, di quell ribald cor” the quartet in act 1 where Elvira is pressing Anna and Ottavio to place no trust in Don Giovanni while Don Giovanni tries to convince them that Elvira is crazy. Or the opening duet in Act 2, “Eh via buffone, non mi seccar” a piece where Leperello and Don Giovanni are in a tiff because Leporello believes Giovanni has crossed the line. Or my personal favorite: the sextet in Scene 7, “Sola, sola in bujo loco” where Elvira is alone trying in darkness trying to find Giovanni, while Leporello (disguised as the Don) tries to escape and is caught by Zerlina, Anna, Masetto, and Ottavio who all wish to kill Giovanni. You could cut that tension with a knife.

I would like to see more focus on the ensembles, since they are said to carry a more “complex expression” as stated by Groves. I am going to create a section solely on the ensembles inserted after the aria section. I also am going to also focus on 3-4 ensembles in particular that really drive the story of Don Giovanni. I also suggest that Wikipedia take after my action and expand on their list of arias to show how they fit in and drive the story of this opera.

Also, I have reformatted the reference section to have all the sources in reverse chronological order, thus providing the reader with readily available "up-to-date" sources. This provides anyone who wishes to read further into Don Giovanni. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Klai01 (talk • contribs) 23:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Removal of "in popular culture section"
I fully support this. Viva-Verdi (talk) 01:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes the references should go in the target articles, where they are relevant. -- Klein zach  01:40, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

New section:The Music of Don Giovanni
Klai01 has contributed a new section entitled 'The Music of Don Giovanni', including some existing lists of arias etc. It's a bit different from sections in other opera articles. Perhaps we can have a look at the section and see how best to integrate it into the article? -- Klein zach  01:40, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Since I wrote the note above the section has had an editorial battering but I'm not sure (apart from the copyediting) that it is much improved. There are still some bizarre sentences, for example "As progressive as Don Giovanni was, the music cannot be described as anything other than classical music." We also still have the duplication of the lists of arias etc. which are also given (in context) in the synopsis. I'd prefer to see the lists (in 'The Music of Don Giovanni') removed and this section restricted to music. -- Klein zach  23:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The whole section seems way too detailed and, well, nerdy. The harmonic analysis, Zerlina's key-change, all very interesting, but hardly appropriate for an encyclopedia article.  And speaking of bizarre sentences, "Mozart utilized every classical technique in the book" is very bizarre and probably wrong, I bet SOMEONE could find a technique he didn't use.  No fugues--are we counting fugues as classical techniques?  Maybe not until after DIE ZAUBERFLOTE and Mozart REQUIEM re-popularized the form, before that they're a BAROQUE technique.  OK.  Well, how about significant choral numbers?  That's certainly a traditional classical-opera technique "in the book", straight out of the archtypical classical opera, Gluck's ORPHEUS ED EURIDICE.  Mozart put small but significant stand-alone choral pieces in COSI, ENTFUHRUNG, and FIGARO, and some major choral music in ZAUBERFLOTE.   In fact, getting rid of the big choruses was one of Wagner's innovations in the first three chapters of THE GOBLIN'S RING that turned GBShaw on so much.


 * Another bizarre, very objectionable sentence: "Called the “great” sextet of Don Giovanni it is one of the best works in the entire opera." How do you decide which parts are the "best"??? They're all so damm great!  Even the little ariettas like when Donna Elvira warns Zerlina "Ah fuggi il traditore!" are great.  And I've never heard anyone say the sextet is greater than, say, the second-act finale or the three-orchestra dance scene in the first-act finale or the act I quartet "Non ti fidar, o misera" or the graveyard scene, or the Act I duet between Donna Anna and Don Ottavio following the murder.


 * And what's the point of listing all the first-lines of all the sections of the finales? A few really are notable--"Protegga il giusto cielo" is sometimes performed in recitals, and GBShaw mentioned it specifically in the intro to MAN AND SUPERMAN.  Also, the beginning of the Act II finale "Gia la mensa e preparata" is famous, and so of course is the Statue's entrance "Don Giovanni, a cenar teco ...", but surely not the rest of them!  It's very tempting to start listing all the GREAT ensembles rather than just the very famous ones, but if you do, you end up listing them all cos they're all great.  It seems like the author of the section wants EVERY section to be analyzed as he analyzed "La ci darem la mano".  If you're gonna do that, you should consider awarding PhD degrees to the contributors! SingingZombie (talk) 05:15, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Excise this section entirely as unencyclopedic, inaccurate and superfluous. Someone reverted my original excision, so I am happy to discuss, but this kind of stuff does not belong here. Wikipedia is not a high school essay Eusebeus (talk) 07:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * We have a similar (related) problem at Opera buffa. -- Klein zach  13:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I was the one who reverted the excision. I am not enthusiast of the section either, but neither I am of just deleting it. I agree with its author that a section on Don Giovanni's musical aspects is necessary, and I think this is an interesting starting point, at the very least to be taken and piecewise modified till nothing of the original remains.
 * To give a single example, I am not a musician, and my knowledge of musical theory is amateurish, but I find useful to learn something about the tonal structure of the opera, and I more or less understand the present explanation. So, I believe we should improve and source it, not remove it. Goochelaar  (talk) 15:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Goochelaar: The problem with reverting and then saying you are not a musician etc. is that we get stuck with a bad section which makes the whole page look bad. If you take responsibility to revert that's fine but you should then work on it. In fact – even without knowing a lot about music technically – there are a lot of possible improvements that you could have made, including copy editing and taking out irrelevant information. -- Klein zach  22:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * You are right, Kleinzach, and I should have at the very least cleaned up and perhaps tagged something. In my defence I may say that, having seen a large-scale deletion of a section not obviously false, or obscene, or libelous, I thought that the first thing to do was to restore it, and ask for more discussion. Thanks for your editing and let's hope somebody will improve and enlarge the section. If I find time, I'll try to do a bit of research myself. Goochelaar  (talk) 22:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Goochelaar: I've had a go at cleaning it up, but I wonder how much of the remainder is really savable. Having a thoroughgoing musical analysis would be good, but usually what we get is a list of keys that are immediately disputed. The trouble with these sections, that are "not obviously false, or obscene, or libelous" but simply sub-standard, is that they waste so much of our time. I've just spent over an hour on this. In the same time, I could have started two short pages that actually added to the encyclopedia. -- Klein zach  23:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Note that the Wikipedia way is the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, not bold – revert – revert – discuss. That way, readers are not confronted for weeks (or forever) with questionable content. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey. I didn't realise that there was a discussion on this section, but removed, with exception to aria references, all prose on the tonal structure, et cetera, citing WP:OR and WP:SOAP. My reasoning is thus: quite frankly, it is written terribly. It is amateurish and laden with personal feelings on the music, ridiculous, unencyclopaedic language and original research:
 * "This is one of the most memorable duets in the entire opera" starts the prose of the section. Straight away I have an objection: says who? Citation needed.
 * "Never in the opera does Zerlina touch the keys of D major or B♭ major (the opera’s two main keys). This is significant, because the music is reflecting an artificial change in Zerlina’s character. She is blinded by Don Giovanni’s fake kindness, and it is not until later in the opera she realizes what a devil Don Giovanni really is". Cool, really, but written as though the author were talking, as opposed to explaining. A citation is needed for the artificial change in Zerlina's character and I'm sure she's not blinded by the Don, unless he had bad aim during a dodgy production of Tosca.
 * There are plenty more examples than those above, but I'm all for rewriting the section and including it: it would be a great addition to the article, especially for people who, like me, don't have the greatest grasp of musical structure et cetera. The section in Tosca is how it should be done, and it should be changed quickly. I'm not the man for the job; just one who thinks that the section should be improved before added, and I'm sure there are people who have the capacity to do a good job on it. 79.71.106.253 (talk) 16:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * It's worth noting that this section actually only covers three pieces out of the whole opera! Quite a lot of it inaccurately, and in bad English, duplicating the synopsis. I'm now editing it. I'd be grateful if someone can check the information about the keys. I suspect it is wrong since so much else is. -- Klein zach  22:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Those of us who have had the misfortune to undergo conservatory training will know that the description of the music is, as I noted above, nonsensical and inaccurate. Perhaps Antandrus' opinion would carry more weight than mine, but I suspect he will concur that as long as this is left intact we are simply misinforming our readers, which is unconscionable. I regret not being clearer when I initially expunged this as I thought it would be generally clear that the description of the tonal character is simply an erroneous (idiosyncratic might be friendlier way of saying it) way of discussing the music. There is a real discussion of the music to be had, focusing for instance on the relationship between 38 and DG (esp through Dm), the use of falling scales and chromaticism, for instance. But the discussion here is simply bogus. Eusebeus (talk) 13:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I stand corrected. Upon reading, as the edit summary, "remove superfluous/non-encyclopaedic information" I believed that someone considered a section about Don Giovanni's music a superfluous topic, so I reacted by reverting the deletion. Now I understand that the critique was actually solid and justified. Happy editing, Goochelaar  (talk) 14:42, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

"Great" Don Giovannis
Sorry, I can't stand seeing the TOTALLY ARBITRARY list of "great" portrayers of Don G any longer. First of all, that's a matter of opinion; secondly, the list is not sourced; thirdly, the list is redundant--if the reader wants a list of great DonG's, the discography gives it; forthly, Thomas Allen and Thomas Hampson were not "great" by any reasonable criterion. They were the best available at a time when there was a real shortage of good midrange baritones. Even Samuel Ramey was not "great"; merely adequate. Terfel too--he's not bad but he's way overhyped and he's more comfortable as Leporello anyway. The last really great Don G IMHO was George London. But rather than argue about who's great and who's not, I'm deleting the entire un-verifiable, un-sourced, un-encyclopedic paragraph. Hope no one minds! SingingZombie (talk) 02:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Synopsis
The intro to the synopsis was very awkwardly phrased. I have cleaned it up and shortened it. 207.237.243.185 (talk) 20:02, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Masetto's range
Masetto is a baritone, not a bass. He is always one of the middle voices of his ensembles, never the lowest voice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.243.185 (talk) 03:58, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sigh – this kind of thing has been raised ad nauseam in various articles. The score calls Masetto a basso; everything else refers to performance practice and should be mentioned on the article's prose. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The score designates him as a bass, his range is G2-E4, and in the original production, he doubled with the Commendatore. There's absolutely no basis for designating him as a baritone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.152.189.91 (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Till they are tipsy
the words are:
 * Finch' han del vino calda la testa
 * Una gran festa fa' preparar.

literally
 * Till they have got some wine and are hot-headed,
 * let's prepare a great party.

The point is that Giovanni wants them to get tipsy - not just to have some wine. NBeale (talk) 23:14, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the implications we read into the verse, "Till they have wine" is wrong. It's just grammatically incorrect. "Finch'han del vino" would be "Till they have wine," but the line is "Finch'han dal vino calda la testa." "Calda la testa" ("la testa calda") is the object. Till they are hot-headed from wine or on account of wine. Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 00:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)