'In this life scoundrels always receive their just desserts': Now that we know the lesson of Don Giovanni, how does it square with the lesson of Fidelio?

(And say, what fate exactly did Don Giovanni deserve?)


AND NOW, THE MORALS OF OUR STORIES



THE MORAL OF OUR STORY NO. 1:
from the six survivors of the fiery demise of Don Giovanni

"This is the end that befalls evildoers,
and in this life scoundrels
always receive their just desserts."

Claire Watson (s), Donna Anna; Christa Ludwig (ms), Donna Elvira; Mirella Freni (s), Zerlina; Nicolai Gedda (t), Don Ottavio; Walter Berry (bs-b), Leporello; Paolo Montarsolo (bs), Masetto; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded June-July 1966

THE MORAL OF OUR STORY NO. 2:
from Florestan, Leonore, and the rest of the Fidelio crew

"He who has won such a wife
may join in our rejoicing.
Never can we too much hymn
the savior of her husband's life."

Jon Vickers (Florestan), Sena Jurinac (Leonore), et al., with Otto Klemperer conducting, Covent Garden, February 1961

by Ken

We've put in a fair amount of effort, first in the June 14 post "If you're just dying to know, is Don Giovanni a comedy or a tragedy?, you've come to the wrong place," then in last week's post, ("Homing in on that moment in Don Giovanni when 'Everything returns to normal' -- or should we say 'the new normal'?"), to extract the moral of da Ponte and Mozart's Don Giovanni, which is so tidily contained in the opera's final lines, as we just heard them again above, in a form described as "l'antichissima canzon" (which I've been translating as "the most antique refrain," even though a canzon is really just a song) by the incantators themselves -- as we've heard previously, and are going, by gosh, to hear again.

As I mentioned last week, the episode of homiletic moralizing that follows hard upon the tumultuous scene of Don Giovanni resolutely consigning himself to a descent into the fires of hell, brings this epic tale to a seemingly incongruous end -- and we know that in the early decades of the opera's performing history the whole postlude was often simply lopped off, sending audiences off on a more satisfyingly cathartic note.

I also suggested that this wielding of the editorial hatchet seems to me a truly ghastly idea, and that the issue arises again with the homiletically moralizing ensemble that will in time draw Beethoven's one and only opera, Fidelio, to a close.


IT'S CERTAINLY TRUE -- ISN'T IT? -- THAT "IN THIS LIFE
SCOUNDRELS ALWAYS RECEIVE THEIR JUST DESSERTS"?

Listen here, bub, it had darned well better be true, hadn't it? I mean, we in the audience have just sat through hours and hours of Don Giovanni (well, some nights it really does seem like hours and hours, doesn't it?) to come away with this pearl of wisdom, and nobody better be suggesting that the pearl is paste! Sure, it often happens onstage that evildoers may get away with their evil-doing, but it surely never happens in real life, does it?

Or wait, is it possible that, antichissima canzon or no, it's, like the other way 'round? That whereas it may happen occasionally on the stage, in real life sometimes -- just sometimes, mind you -- scoundrels don't receive their just desserts? But the antichissima canzon says that scoundrels always receive their just desserts. They couldn't sing it onstage if it wasn't true, could they?

And suddenly into the mind pops the question I slipped just under the post title: What fate exactly did Don Giovanni deserve?

This "antichissima canzon," as its incantators describe it (which I've been translating as "most antique refrain"), is a useful talking point for anyone who's still waiting to see how the Don Giovanni sweepstakes -- is this dramma giocoso a comedy or a tragedy? -- turn out. Because, as we know, it's a known fact that in this life scoundrels always receive their just desserts. Hey, could these good folks sing their antichissima canzon on public stages if it wasn't true? Therefore, obviously Don Giovanni had to die. On account of his being, you know, um . . . a scoundrel?

Isn't this what the whole opera is about? We have it from as unimpeachable a source as the statue of the Commendatore: "On the wretch who brought me to the extreme passage I here await vengeance."

DON GIOVANNI and LEPORELLO have reconnected in a walled churchyard with monuments, including a statue of the late COMMENDATORE. In the moonlight DON GIOVANNI recounts an episode of having encountered a young woman who mistook him for LEPORELLO and proceeded to treat him amorously.

Recitative
DON GIOVANNI: I took advantage of the mistake. I don't know how, but she recognized me; she screamed, so, hearing people coming, I made off and quickly jumped over that wall there into this place.
LEPORELLO: And you can tell me about it
with such complete unconcern.
DON GIOVANNI: Why not?
LEPORELLO: But suppose the girl had been my wife?
DON GIOVANNI: Better still!
[He laughs loudly.]
STATUE OF THE COMMENDATORE [accompanied by clarinets, bassoons, trombones, cellos, and basses]:
You will be finished laughing before the dawn.
DON GIOVANNI: Who spoke?
LEPORELLO: Ah, that will be some soul
from the other world
who knows you in depth.
DON GIOVANNI [searching among the monuments and striking at some of the statues with his sword]:
Quiet, fool! Who goes there?
STATUE OF THE COMMENDATORE:
Scoundrel! Audacious fellow!
Leave the dead in peace!
LEPORELLO: I told you so.
DON GIOVANNI: It'll be someone outside
playing a joke on us. Hey, isn't that
the statue of the Commendatore?
Read a little of the inscription.
LEPORELLO: Excuse me, I didn't learn
to read by moonlight.
DON GIOVANNI: Read, I say.
LEPORELLO [reading]: "On the wretch who brought me to the extreme passage I here await vengeance."
Do you hear? I'm trembling.
DON GIOVANNI: O most buffoonish old man!
Tell him this evening I expect him to sup with me.
LEPORELLO: What madness! But it seems to me . . .
Oh gods! See there,
what a terrible look he's giving us!
Seems alive . . . seems to hear . . .
and to want to speak . . .
DON GIOVANNI: Look here, get on with it!
Or I'll kill you on the spot
and then bury you.
LEPORELLO: Softly, softly, sir . . . I'll obey now.

Duet, "O statua gentilissima"
LEPORELLO: O most genteel statue
of the great Commendatore . . .
Master, my heart is is shaking . . .
I can't, I can't finish . . .
DON GIOVANNI: Finish it, or in your breast
I'll put this blade!
LEPORELLO: What a mess! What an idea!
DON GIOVANNI: What fun! What sport!
LEPORELLO: I feel ice cold!
DON GIOVANNI: I want to make him tremble!
LEPORELLO: O most genteel statue,
although you are of marble . . .
Ah, master, my master!
Look! Look!
How he keeps his eyes fixed on us!
DON GIOVANNI: You die! You die!
Sir, my master
LEPORELLO: No, no, no, no! Wait, wait!
Sir, my master --
mark well, not I --
would like to have supper with you!
[THE STATUE nods its head in assent.]
Ah, ah, ah! What a scene this is!
O heavens, it nodded its head!
DON GIOVANNI: Go away! You're a buffoon!
LEPORELLO: Look, look, look again, master!
DON GIOVANNI: And what am I supposed to look at?
LEPORELLO: With his marble head
[nodding his head in imitation of the statue]
he's going like this, like this!
DON GIOVANNI and LEPORELLO: With his marble head
he's going like this, like this!
DON GIOVANNI [to THE STATUE]: Speak, if you can:
will you come to supper?
will you come to supper?
STATUE OF THE COMMENDATORE: Yes.
LEPORELLO: I can scarcely move, oh gods!
My strength is failing
For mercy's sake let's be off!
Let's get away from here!
DON GIOVANNI [overlapping]: Indeed the scene is bizarre.
Will he come, the good old man, to supper?
Let's go prepare it!
Let's head for there!
[They go off together!]

Ruggero Raimondi (bs), Don Giovanni; José van Dam (bs-b), Leporello; John Macurdy (bs), Commendatore; Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded June-July 1978
Picking up earlier, at the start of the recitative:

Cesare Siepi (bs), Don Giovanni; Fernando Corena (bs), Leporello; Giorgio Tozzi (bs), Commendatore; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Dec. 14, 1957

Bernd Weikl (b), Don Giovanni; Gabriel Bacquier (b), Leporello; Kurt Moll (bs), Commendatore; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Oct.-Nov. 1978


TO PIN DOWN THE MORAL OF DON GIOVANNI, MAYBE WE
SHOULD REHEAR THE "ANTICHISSIMA CANZON" IN CONTEXT?

As you may recall, the whole epilog to Don Giovanni, from the point where the six "other" characters rush in, takes only about seven minutes max. Let's hear it again first the way we did originally, broken into three parts.

MOZART: Don Giovanni, K. 527: Act II, Final Scene,
from, "Ah, dov'è il perfido?"

[Part 1]
[The flames suddenly increase and engulf DON GIOVANNI.]

After DON GIOVANNI's disappearance, everything returns to normal. The six other characters rush in.
DONNA ELVIRA, ZERLINA, DON OTTAVIO, and MASETTO: Ah, where is the villain?
Where is the ingrate?
All of my rage
I want to vent on him!
DONNA ANNA: Only when I see him
bound in chains
will my anguish
be soothed.
LEPORELLO: Abandon hope
of ever finding him.
Give up your search;
he has gone far away.
THE OTHERS: What's happened? Tell us!
LEPORELLO: In flame and smoke,
listen to this,
the man of stone --
wait a moment --
right there
gave the sign,
and right there the Devil
came and dragged him down!
THE OTHERS: My stars, what do I hear?
LEPORELLO: My account is true!
DONNA ELVIRA and THE OTHERS:
Ah, it must be the ghost that I/she encountered!
[Part 2]
DON OTTAVIO: Now that we all, o my treasure,
have been avenged by heaven,
grant, grant me my reward.
Do not let me languish anymore.
DONNA ANNA: Allow, dearest, another year
for the sorrow of my heart.
DON OTTAVIO and DONNA ANNA:
To the desires of one who adores me/you,
a faithful love must give way.
DONNA ELVIRA: I shall retire to a convent
to finish out my life!
ZERLINA and MASETTO: We, Masetto/Zerlina, let's go home!
To have supper together!
LEPORELLO: And I'm going to the tavern
to find a better master!
ZERLINA, MASETTO, and LEPORELLO:
So let the wretch stay
with Proserpina and Pluto.
And we all, o good people,
will repeat joyfully
that most ancient refrain.
[Part 3]
DONNA ANNA, DONNA ELVIRA, ZERLINA, DON OTTAVIO, LEPORELLO, and MASETTO: This is the end that befalls evildoers,
and in this life scoundrels
always receive their just desserts.

[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 3]

Christa Ludwig (ms), Donna Elvira; Mirella Freni (s), Zerlina; Nicolai Gedda (t), Don Ottavio; Paolo Montarsolo (bs), Masetto; Claire Watson (s) Donna Anna; Walter Berry (bs-b), Leporello; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded June-July 1966
[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 3]

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (s), Donna Elvira; Graziella Sciutti (s), Zerlina; Luigi Alva (t), Don Ottavio; Piero Cappuccilli (b), Masetto; Joan Sutherland (s) Donna Anna; Giuseppe Taddei (b), Leporello; Philharmonia Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. EMI, recorded Oct.-Nov. 1959

Of course we should probably hear it all put together, and maybe going back a little -- maybe to the dramatic entrance of the Statue of the Commendatore? Or no, as long as we're going back, maybe we should go back into the Banquet Scene. Not as far as we did a couple of weeks ago. Let's say, from the point after Don Giovanni remarkably graciously persuaded the ever-intruding Donna Elvira to leave him in peace.

MOZART: Don Giovanni, K. 527: Act II, Final Scene,
from Don Giovanni, "Che grido è questo mai?"

While DON GIOVANNI was trying to enjoy his supper at home, served by LEPORELLO, he faced yet another intrusion by poor DONNA ELVIRA, making one more attempt to get the man she considers her husband to change his ways. Finally she left!

But no sooner is she gone than a shriek is heard and she rushes back in in a state and rushes out another door.

DON GIOVANNI and LEPORELLO: Whatever is this scream?
DON GIOVANNI [to LEPORELLO]: Go and see what's happened.
[LEPORELLO goes out.]
LEPORELLO [outside]: Ah!
DON GIOVANNI: What a devilish scream!
Leporello, what is it?
LEPORELLO [returning]: Ah, sir! for pity's sake
don't go out there!
The man of stone, the white man . . .
ah, master! I tremble,
I'm failing!
If you'd seen what a face,
if you'd heard how it goes ta! ta! ta! ta!
DON GIOVANNI: I don't understand anything at all!
LEPORELLO: Ta! ta! ta! ta!
DON GIOVANNI: You're mad, really!
LEPORELLO: Ah, listen!
DON GIOVANNI: Someone's knocking! Open up!
LEPORELLO: I'm trembling!
DON GIOVANNI: Open up, I say!
LEPORELLO: Ah!
DON GIOVANNI: Open!
LEPORELLO: No!
DON GIOVANNI: Madman! To satisfy my curiosity
I'll go and open it myself!
[He takes up a lamp and with drawn sword goes to open the door.]
LEPORELLO: I don't want to see our friend anymore!
Ever so quietly I'll hide, I'll hide.

[LEPORELLO hides under the table as DON GIOVANNI returns to the reception hall accompanied by THE STATUE OF THE COMMENDATORE.]
THE STATUE: Don Giovanni, to have supper with you
you invited me, and I've come!
DON GIOVANNI: I would never have believed it;
but I'll do what I can.
Leporello! Another supper
have brought at once!
LEPORELLO [from under the table]: Ah master! We're all dead!
DON GIOVANNI: Go, I say!
THE STATUE: Stay a bit!
He does not partake of mortal food
who partakes of celestial food!
Other cares more grave than this
has brought me here below!
LEPORELLO: I seem to have fever . . .
and to keep my limbs still . . .
I can't anymore!
DON GIOVANNI [overlapping]: Speak then!
What do you wish? What do you want?
THE STATUE: I speak, listen! I have no more time!
DON GIOVANNI [overlapping]: Speak, speak! I stand listening!
LEPORELLO [overlapping]: Ah, I can't keep my limbs still anymore!
THE STATUE: You invited me to supper,
now know your obligation!
Respond to me, respond to me,
will you come to have supper with me?
LEPORELLO [standing well back]:
Oh dear, oh dear! I don't have time, excuse me!
DON GIOVANNI: I'll never be wrongly accused of cowardice!
THE STATUE: Decide!
DON GIOVANNI: I've already decided!
THE STATUE: Will you come?
LEPORELLO: Tell him no, tell him no!
DON GIOVANNI: My heart is firm within my breast:
I'm not afraid, I'll come!
THE STATUE: Give me your hand in pledge!
DON GIOVANNI [giving his hand]: Here it is! Ah! Alas!
THE STATUE: What's the matter?
DON GIOVANNI: How ice cold this is!
THE STATUE: Repent, change your life!
It's the ultimate moment!
DON GIOVANNI: No, foolish old man!
THE STATUE: Repent!
DON GIOVANNI: No!
THE STATUE: Repent!
DON GIOVANNI: No!
THE STATUE: Yes!
LEPORELLO: Yes, yes!
DON GIOVANNI: No, no!
THE STATUE: Ah, there's no longer time!
[THE STATUE leaves. Flames burst out from all directions.]
DON GIOVANNI: With what unaccustomed terror
I feel the spirits assail me!
Whence issue these swirling flames
so fraught with horror?
CHORUS OF SPIRITS [from below]: All is as nothing to your crimes!
Come! There is worse in store!
DON GIOVANNI [overlapping]:
Who is rending my soul? Who is tearing at my viscera
What torture, alas! What frenzy!
LEPORELLO [overlapping]:
What a desperate grimace! What gestures of a soul in hell!
What screams! What wailing!
DON GIOVANNI: What terror! etc.
LEPORELLO: How it fills me with terror! etc.
CHORUS OF SPIRITS: All is as nothing etc.
DON GIOVANNI [as he is swallowed up by the ever-increasing flames that burst through the mansion]: Ah! [The flames suddenly increase and engulf DON GIOVANNI.

[After his disappearance, everything returns to normal, and the six other characters rush in.]
DONNA ELVIRA, ZERLINA, DON OTTAVIO, and MASETTO: Ah, where is the villain?
Where is the ingrate?
All of my rage
I want to vent on him!
DONNA ANNA: Only when I see him
bound in chains
will my anguish
be soothed.
LEPORELLO: Abandon hope
of ever finding him.
Give up your search;
he has gone far away.
THE OTHERS: What's happened? Tell us!
LEPORELLO: In flame and smoke,
listen to this,
the man of stone --
wait a moment --
right there
gave the sign,
and right there the Devil
came and dragged him down!
THE OTHERS: My stars, what do I hear?
LEPORELLO: My account is true!
DONNA ELVIRA and THE OTHERS:
Ah, it must be the ghost that I/she encountered!
[Part 2]
DON OTTAVIO: Now that we all, o my treasure,
have been avenged by heaven,
grant, grant me my reward.
Do not let me languish anymore.
DONNA ANNA: Allow, dearest, another year
for the sorrow of my heart.
DON OTTAVIO and DONNA ANNA:
To the desires of one who adores me/you,
a faithful love must give way.
DONNA ELVIRA: I shall retire to a convent
to finish out my life!
ZERLINA and MASETTO: We, Masetto/Zerlina, let's go home!
To have supper together!
LEPORELLO: And I'm going to the tavern
to find a better master!
ZERLINA, MASETTO, and LEPORELLO:
So let the wretch stay
with Proserpina and Pluto.
And we all, o good people,
will repeat joyfully
that most ancient refrain.
DONNA ANNA, DONNA ELVIRA, ZERLINA, DON OTTAVIO, LEPORELLO, and MASETTO: This is the end that befalls evildoers,
and in this life scoundrels
always receive their just desserts.

Lisa della Casa (s), Donna Elvira; Cesare Siepi (bs), Don Giovanni; Fernando Corena (bs), Leporello; Kurt Böhme (bs), Commendatore; Hilde Gueden (s), Zerlina; Anton Dermota (t), Don Ottavio; Walter Berry (bs-b), Masetto; Suzanne Danco (s) Donna Anna; Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Josef Krips, cond. Decca, recorded June 1955

Kiri Te Kanawa (s), Donna Elvira; Ruggero Raimondi (bs), Don Giovanni; José van Dam (bs-b), Leporello; John Macurdy (bs), Commendatore; Teresa Bergamza (ms), Zerlina; Kenneth Riegel (t), Don Ottavio; Malcolm King (bs), Masetto; Edda Moser (s) Donna Anna; Chorus and Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded June-July 1978

Wilma Lipp (s), Donna Elvira; Eberhard Wächter (b), Don Giovanni; Geraint Evans (b), Leporello; Franz Crass (bs), Commendatore; Jeanette Scovotti (s), Zerlina; Luigi Alva (t), Don Ottavio; Ricardo Catena (b), Masetto; Elisabeth Grümmer (s) Donna Anna; Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, cond. Live performance, Sept. 10, 1963

Sylvia Sass (s), Donna Elvira; Bernd Weikl (b), Don Giovanni; Gabriel Bacquier (b), Leporello; Kurt Moll (bs), Commendatore; Lucia Popp (s), Zerlina; Stuart Burrows (t), Don Ottavio; Alfred Sramek (bs), Masetto; Margaret Price (s) Donna Anna; London Opera Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Oct.-Nov. 1978

Sena Jurinac (s), Donna Elvira; Nicolai Ghiaurov (bs), Don Giovanni; Sesto Bruscantini (bs-b), Leporello; Dimiter Petkov (bs), Commendatore; Olivera Miljakovic (s), Zerlina; Alfredo Kraus (t), Don Ottavio; Walter Monachesi (b), Masetto; Gundula Janowitz (s) Donna Anna; Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of Radiotelevisione Italiana, Rome, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. Broadcast performance, May 12, 1970

I should probably say something about these performances, at least to the point of the people in each I thought you might enjoy hearing -- the fact of the matter is that Don Giovanni makes such wide-ranging cast demands that at some point(s) nearly every performance's cast is exposed unhappily. But we've also got some terrific performances scattered around her, and I don't think you'll have much difficulty spotting those.

The one role we might want to think about is the Commendatore, which after all is what got us into Don Giovanni in the first place. We've been hearing a preponderance of pretty good ones, and some gorgeously sonorous Commendatores, notably Franz Crass and Kurt Moll. Now the balance is shifting a little. In addition to the tough-toned Kurt Böhme in my much-loved 1955 Decca Don Giovanni, we've got the likes of no-pleasure-to-the-ears Bulgarian bass Dimiter Petkov. Paradoxically, though, these Commendatores may help us raise the question, Is the Commendatore really such an unimpeachably upright specimen of aristocracy? Or is he maybe a hot-headed, loudmouthed, prone-to-violence son of a bitch? Who rushes to instigate violence when he doesn't know what the fuck is going on? Who forces the unknown intruder to a duel despite the stranger's trying every which way to not do so? If there's a perpetrator here, it's not Don Giovanni, it's the Commendatore.

Now I love a bass who can really make the Commendatore's magnificent music sing. I take enormous pleasure in the performances of Franz Crass and Kurt Moll, and I'm always on the lookout for Commendatores of that vocal caliber. We've heard a couple who aren't in that class but till make sense: the ever-dependable John Macurdy, for one, who sang the role so much and so well, and also the strangely variable Gottlob Frick, who you'd think could have mustered his considerable resources into something memorable, and maybe did in some other time and place -- he sang the role a fair amount, and I've got a couple of other performances I meant to check out more carefully.

But I don't let a smooth-talking Commendatore fool me into thinking those beautiful sounds make him a good guy.

I don't think I've ever actually done it, but for ages I've wanted to do a post conjoining the Commendatore with another wildly, suffocatingly "protective" father, the Marquis of Calatrava, the father of Leonora di Vargas, in Verdi's Forza del destino, whose death by dreadful accident is similarly treated as a murder that destroys, in their different ways, both of his children.

Of course Don Giovanni is filled with things that don't fit into tidy pre-existing formulaic categories. And when it comes to the handed-down business of a final bit of homiletic moralizing, my suggestion here is that all the way through the opera we might want to pay closer attention to the human actualities.


AS TO ALL THIS "FORMULAIC" OPERATIC MORALIZING

How often is it explained to us that this business of bringing out all the characters and winding them up into a homiletic conclusion is a formal device dating back to the ancient Greeks and their theatrical formulas, as taken up with a vengeance in the early history of opera as we know it?

This is all true, of course. It's at the same time not only not the most important thing about these scenes as managed by the really great composers, but it's a handy way of avoiding dealing with what really matters about them. Mozart, for one, doesn't seem to have thought of these endings as obligations but as opportunities -- he banged out a bunch of beauties.

It may just be a happy coincidence that in the case of Don Giovanni the surviving-cast count at the end is six, meaning that it gave him a sextet opportunity, and nobody could write an operatic sextet like Mozart. In his first collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte, the librettist had handed him one of his all-time-happiest operatic opportunities: the hilarious and sublime Act III sextet in which everything we and the characters thought we knew is turned on its head as Figaro literally embraces his bitterest enemies suddenly transformed into his long-lost parents, and then Susanna enters, thinking she's come to save the day and instead finds her beloved frolicking with her bitter enemy.

Earlier in Don Giovanni da Ponte had served up another sextet, involving these very same six characters, wandering separately along the walled streets of Seville until they bump into one another. And again it may just be coincidence, but for their final collaboration, and their first non-adapted subject, da Ponte create what we might call "a sextet opera" -- six characters matched in just about every imaginable ensemble grouping, including a couple of glorious sextets. Way back when we did listen to the Figaro and Don Giovanni sextets, so I know their are pluckable recordings in the Sunday Classics archive, and I've had to fight like heck to control my urge to stop everything and do a still-more-encompassing listen-to of "the da Ponte-Mozart sextets"!


BUT WE'VE GOT BEETHOVEN WAITING, AND UNLIKE THE
EVER-ACCOMMODATING MOZART, HE'S APT TO GET TESTY

Since I used to experience it myself, I'm familiar with the weariness that can set in at the prospect of one of these foolish, obligatory moralizing final ensembles. In the case of Fidelio, notably, after the wildly chilling and thrilling dangers and heroics we've witnessed, it can seem a mighty comedown to engage in this sort of fluff.

Except it isn't. Geniuses tend to respond differently to what may seem like mere formulaic obligations. Mozart, it should be noted, had no problem with the convention -- he repeatedly banged out beauties. And I think the Don Giovanni one is problematic only if we haven't really been paying attention.


FLASHING FORWARD TO FIDELIO, WE HIT
BEETHOVEN IN A SOMEWHAT TENDER SPOT

For all of Beethoven's reverence for Mozart, morality was an area in which he had kind of a problem, and Mozart's operas were consequently something of a sore subject for him. Is it possible that when it came to his version of a moralizing operatic sendoff he particularly flexed his musico-dramatic muscles?

So I want to go back to the Fidelio sendoff. I want to do it, however, with a particular voice remaining constant. I think I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago when I first raised the subject of Fidelio. For most of the role of Florestans, although I have managed to hear some other decent enough attempts at the role, there's always one voice I hear. And so while we're going to hear five performances of these final minutes of the opera, under three conductors with fairly strong views about it, we're going to hear just one Florestan.

BEETHOVEN: Fidelio: Finale, from Don Fernando: "Du schlossest auf des Edlen Grab" ("You opened up the noble man's grave")

DON FERNANDO [to ROCCO]: You opened up the noble man's grave,
now remove his fetters!
But stop! Yours, noble lady, alone
yours is the real right to set him free.
[LEONORE takes the key and, with profound emotion, removes FLORESTAN's chains; he falls into her arms.]
LEONORE: O God! O what a moment!
FLORESTAN: O inexpressibly sweet happiness!
DON FERNANDO: Righteous, o God, is Thy judgment!
MARZELLINE, then ROCCO too: Thou triest but dost not forsake us!
CHORUS, LEONORE, MARZELLINE, FLORESTAN, DON FERNANDO, and ROCCO: O God! O what a moment!
O inexpressibly sweet happiness!
Righteous, o God, is Thy judgment!
Thou doest try, but not forsake us!
[Allegro ma non troppo]
CHORUS: He who has won a lovely wife
may join in our rejoicing.
Never can we too much hymn
the savior of her husband's life.
FLORESTAN: Your loyalty sustained my life;
virtue banishes the villain.
LEONORE: Love guided my efforts;
true love fears nothing.
CHORUS: Praise with high blazing joy
Leonore's noble courage.

The music transforms suddenly, with a fortissimo orchestral outburst including an energetic uprush from the first violins, to a vigorous Allegro ma non troppo.

FLORESTAN, then with the MEN'S CHORUS:
He who has won such a wife
may join in our rejoicing.
Never can we too much hymn
the savior of her husband's life.
LEONORE [embracing him]: Loving, to me it was given
to free you from your chains.
Loving, be it sung aloud,
Florestan is mine again!
MARZELLINE, JAQUINO, DON FERNANDO, and ROCCO
[overlapping]: He who has won a lovely wife
may join in our rejoicing.
Never can we too much hymn
the savior of her husband's life.
CHORUS: He who has won a lovely wife
may join in our rejoicing.
Never can we too much hymn
the savior of her husband's life.
ALL SOLOISTS: Loving, to me/her/you it was given
to free you/me/him from your/my/his chains.
CHORUS [overlapping]: Never can we too much hymn
the savior of her husband's life.

-- translation (except stage directions) by William Mann

Giorgio Tozzi (bs), Don Fernando; Birgit Nilsson (s), Leonore; Jon Vickers (t), Florestan; Laurel Hurley (s), Marzelline; Oskar Czerwenka (bs), Rocco; Charles Anthony (t), Jaquino; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Feb. 13, 1960

Forbes Robinson (bs), Don Fernando; Sena Jurinac (s), Leonore; Jon Vickers (t), Florestan; Elsie Morison (s), Marzelline; Gottlob Frick (bs), Rocco; John Dobson (t), Jaquino; Covent Garden Opera Chorus, Covent Garden Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. Testament, recorded live, Feb. 24, 1961

Franz Crass (b), Don Fernando; Christa Ludwig (ms), Leonore; Jon Vickers (t), Florestan; Ingeborg Hallstein (s), Marzelline; Gottlob Frick (bs), Rocco; Gerhard Unger (t), Jaquino; Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded Feb.-Mar. 1962

Eberhard Wächter (b), Don Fernando; Christa Ludwig (ms), Leonore; Jon Vickers (t), Florestan; Gundula Janowitz (s), Marzelline; Walter Kreppel (bs), Rocco; Waldemar Kmentt (t), Jaquino; Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded live, May 25, 1962

José van Dam (bs-b), Don Fernando; Helga Dernesch (s), Leonore; Jon Vickers (t), Florestan; Helen Donath (s), Marzelline; Karl Ridderbusch (bs), Rocco; Horst R. Laubenthal (t), Jaquino; Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded 1970


SO WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

It's complicated, and I think with Fidelio too we're going to have to back up and consider just what light this conclusion throws on what has come before. Stay tuned.