The time setting of the two acts of Mozart’s Don Giovanni has always puzzled me. Everyone, including I suppose Mozart and Da Ponte, seems to think that the action in Act 2 starts immediately after that of the first act. In other words, the action from start to finish is continuous and depicts the last few hours of the Don’s life. But clearly, this is impossible. Basically, the whole timeline is screwed up.
Let’s assume that the timeline is continuous. The Don kills the Commendatore in the opera’s first scene. It is night. The next scene is set early in the morning. Scene 3 is later in the morning. The next one is in a garden, no time of day specified. The last scene (5) of the first act is in Giovanni’s house. The second act says it’s night. No time is given for scene 2, though it presumably immediately follows the previous one. Scene 3 is set at almost 2 am in a graveyard. This is where the temporal problem arises.
Giovanni is addressed by the statue of the Commendatore (La statua del Commendatore). Below is a picture of the graveyard scene from a Prague production just a few year after the opera was first performed in that very city.
Notice that there’s a large equestrian statue over the Commander’s grave. How did it get there? He’s been dead for less than 24 hours if the opera’s action is continuous. Hardly time for a burial, much less a grand statue and tomb. The Don invites the statue to dinner – at 2 am? Must be so if the action is continuous? If the action is continuous the dinner would be at about 3 am as there’s a scene between the graveyard and the Don’s last supper.
When the opera was first performed it was labeled a dramma giocoso. Mozart entered it into his personal catalogue of his works as an opera buffa. The latter designation seems better. Don Giovanni is sort of a long locker room story set to glorious music. It’s an opera and composer and librettist needed a statue, so they just said the hell with the constraints of time and put one in. As for the Don himself, I’ve never seen him as a very interesting fellow. He seems best characterized as a victim of the heartbreak of satyriasis.
“Due della notte” does not mean 2 A.M., but 2 hours after sunset. This explains inviting the statue to dinner.
very good point about the statue scene:I suggest; Horse was ready on the grave, there is always hope for the artist that someone will die and buy his ASAP horse. The man’s figure can be manufactured in a good workshop within less than 24 hours, after all, it can be in stock, only the head especially the face needs personal adaptation. So while the Don flirts with Zerlina, the poor dead officer can be prepared for a funeral. Anna and Ottavio can arrive in time after the Non ti fidar and her big accompagnato and air, go home, have a little crudele squible and the wonderful Anna air, and instead of going to bed they go now for revenge, picking Zerlina and Masetto on their way, who are probably now asleep. Meanwhile Elvira goes to the don for her scene, and all arrive in time for the Prague finale. By the way, does the time line trouble you? Not realistic? All the rest is realistic? What about Mozart’s time line composing the overture on the night before Gala? that’s even more implausible. Can not be. and, Have a statue ever come to you for dinner, without visit card? We should better suspend our disbelief to incredibles if we want to concentrate on what’s important.
Or even better: The statue was prepared long ago under the supervision of the Commendatore, and the horse and rider were kept in his basement for his last day. Or he didnt really die, just like some other people who look dead for a couple of days, I know whom you are thinking of, but I meant Black cat, white cat movie, And he recovered, and went to take the air early in the morning, suddenly noticing the Don and Leporello, following them, and playing a dirty trick on them in the cover of darkness and graveyard atmosphere.