'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"?

Homing in on that moment in Don Giovanni when "Everything returns to normal" -- or should we say "the new normal"?

CAUTIONARY NOTE (MONDAY): Maybe it was just supercharged enjoyment of the bounties of Internet Archive on a Pandemic Summer Sunday, but yesterday I had a dickens of a time both uploading audio clips and getting them to load in posts. If they aren't loading for you, try refreshing once or twice (or ----). Sometimes it helps.

JUST-POSSIBLY-FINAL UPDATE (MONDAY): We now have our answer to the question: What happens after Don Giovanni is dragged down into the flaming underworld? We didn't get to the related destination I intended, as explained in my "STILL TO COME" note, but for now, back to Don Giovanni.

FINAL UPDATE (WEDNESDAY): The music was all ready to go, with the Fidelio part of the project seemingly well in hand. Until, alas, it began expanding, the way these things usually do, and I've decided to let it do so, because this is, you know, a piece so close to my heart. So what do you say we just reconvene on Sunday, then start with some Don Giovanni review and proceed to Fidelio? I'll just give you a tease at the end.


Is there anything more miraculous than the way
this monumental opera ends? A mere 12 seconds:



New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond.

Or, to back up just a bit . . .

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

Claire Watson and Mirella Freni, sopranos; Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; Nicolai Gedda, tenor; Walter Berry, bass-baritone; Paolo Montarsolo, bass; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond.

by Ken

We've already heard (first in our John Macurdy remembrance, then again last week) -- which isn't going to stop us from hearing it again! -- that amazing scene in which the statue of the Commendatore shows up at Don Giovanni's place for that Last Supper he was invited to, the whole shebang ending with the Don being dragged down into the flames of Hell.

We always read that in the early history of da Ponte and Mozart's Don Giovanni -- let's call it the first century -- this was where the curtain was rung down, and a mighty impressive final picture and sound it must have made. It's not hard to see the logic of it. After all, there's only about seven minutes' worth of music still to come, and none of it can begin to compete for sheer drama with what we've just witnessed. At the same time, though, how bone-headedly wrong!

My original plan was to really do up the opera's final scene right, going back first to the portion we skipped over when we first heard Don Giovanni's dramatic (to put it mildly confrontation with his invited and yet still hardly expected supper guest, and then work our way through to the end. My second thought was, yes, to rehear that great climactic scene, but from there just to pursue those final seven minutes, where we take leave of the six other characters we've seen interacting with the Don in the final plot arc of his life.


WE CAN CONSIDER THE "FORM" OF THESE FINAL MINUTES
LATER. FOR NOW LET'S JUST HEAR THEM -- IN THREE PARTS

If you're just dying to know, is Don Giovanni a comedy or a tragedy?, you've come to the wrong place

REVISED VERSION: In addition to inserting texts, I've rejiggered the post to make a bit more sense. (I also added a few performances, including a couple that were always meant to be here.)


Most often a statue won't come to supper even if you ask nice. Other times you may wish, like Don Giovanni above, that the statue didn't come. (Here we see Miklós Sebestyén and Gavan Ring at Welsh National Opera, 2018.)


YOU REMEMBER THIS SNATCH OF DON GIOVANNI, RIGHT?
THIS TIME WE'RE HEARING SOME EXTRA PERFORMANCES

STATUE OF THE LATE COMMENDATORE:
"Don Giovanni, a cenar teco
m'invitasti, e son venuto"
("Don Giovanni, to sup with you
you invited me, and I've come")

John Macurdy (bs), Commendatore; Orchestra of the Theâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded June-July 1978

Giorgio Tozzi (bs), Commendatore; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Dec. 14, 1957

Kurt Moll (bs), the Commendatore; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Oct.-Nov. 1978

Matti Salminen (bs), Commendatore; Berlin Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Erato, recorded April 1991
[REVISION NOTE: We were always supposed to hear Kurt Moll here. Don't know what happened -- maybe I didn't realize the audio clip was already made! Still, aren't you happy to hear him now?]

by Ken

In a moment for just a single time [REVISION NOTE: now just two times] this week I'm going to let the scene run on (we've actually heard it to the end, a few weeks ago), so that we'll have it all in our ears for what we're going to hear next, which may surprise you -- or then again may not. (It involves going backwards, and in case you weren't aware, doing things backwards is almost a way of life here at Sunday Classics.)

First, though, I have to explain that I was pleasantly surprised by the number of folks who seem to have at least dropped in on the post in which we previously heard the final scene of Don Giovanni, as part of a sampling I offered of the work of the stalwart bass John Macurdy (1929-2020) -- "as Verdi's King of Egypt and Grand Inquisitor, Wagner's Fafner (x2), and Mozart's Commendatore." It was a grueling post to do, one I thought I wrestled to the end pretty much for me, and of course for the memory of the subject, a singer whom I found myself enjoying in this wild assortment of roles that all happened to be at the center of operatic arguments that after a hear-lifetime of close contact have been woven into my conscious being.

Naturally this suggested further listening, especially in another context we've been dabbling with: a crisis of artistic belief I went through awhile back, from which I've managed a sort of comeback with an assist from an unexpected source: a performance offered by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center of a work that had been hardly known to me: the Piano Quintet of Edward Elgar, which documents the composer's heroic struggle against the sense of public and private despair in the cataclysmic year 1918.


WOULDN'T THIS BE A GOOD TIME TO HEAR THE
DON GIOVANNI SUPPER SCENE TO ITS FIERY END?

John Macurdy (1929-2020): as Verdi's King of Egypt and Grand Inquisitor, Wagner's Fafner (x2), and Mozart's Commendatore

LATE, LATE THURSDAY UPDATE: Zounds, I think we've got the whole thing in place (though without an even minimally respectable proofreading, and I expected to have more things to say along the way, but I'm afraid this may have to be good enough).
WELL, ONE MORE THING (from the wee hours of Friday): Just when I thought we were done, it occurred to me that the order had to be switched, moving the Don Giovanni excerpts, until then sandwiched between the Verdis and the Wagners, to the end. By happy coincidence this put the five performances we're sampling to represent John Macurdy's career in chronological order. What really happened, though, is that once the Don Giovanni texts were finally in place, it suddenly became obvious that we had to finish with Don Giovanni.



OK, this isn't the king we want -- it's King Heinrich of Brabant (Lohengrin) rather than the King of Egypt (Aida) -- but a king's a king, right? And a sturdy all-purpose bass like the late John Macurdy is gonna sing a bunch of kings, not to mention priests, and of course papas -- and the odd inquisitor. Photo by Louis Mélançon/Metropolitan Opera

From the Triumphal Scene (Act II, Scene 2) of Verdi's Aida


John Macurdy (bs), King of Egypt; Carlo Bergonzi (t), Radamès; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. Broadcast performance, Dec. 7, 1963

[NOTE: Yeah, the Italian original of the King's first line should be italicized, but by the time I noticed this, fixing it would have required retyping the whole danged thing. -- Ed.]

by Ken

In the prepost to this remembrance of John Macurdy, I said we'd be hearing this 38-year Met mainstay in three characteristic roles, but in the event it'll be four or possibly five: two Verdis (the King of Egypt and the Grand Inquisitor), one Mozart (the Commendatore), and either one or two Wagners, depending on how we count the Rheingold and Siegfried Fafners.

It's seems only right that we begin with the King of Egypt. I think it was the first role I heard him in, and I'm pretty sure the first I saw him in, not long after he joined the Met. For the decades following he and Paul Plishka, whose Met career overlapped his , were pleasant constants in my early decades of Met experience.

It's interesting, though, to go back and hear just how fine a sound Macurdy made back then as the King, both above and in this additional Aida clip.

The King prepares the Egyptians for war

John Macurdy (1929-2020)

In Act II of Götterdämmerung (in Seattle, 1984) John Macurdy as the sleeping Hagen is "visited" by his late, little-lamented father, Alberich (Julian Patrick). Photo by Chris Bennion

by Ken

Sorry, searching quickly I couldn't find John Macurdy as the giant Fafner in Wagner's Das Rheingold, but I think Hagen is a not-too-bad substitute. I'm working on a more proper remembrance of that fine, ever-dependable bass, who died May 7 at 91, having logged 1,001 performances (in 62 roles!) at the Met between 1962 and 2000. At the moment it's looking like we'll hear from both the Rheingold and Siegfried Fafners and two Met standbys: the Commendatore in Don Giovanni and the King of Egypt in Aida. (For the record, we did wind up hearing these roles, and another as well: the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos. With an unexpected last-minute twist in the order of presentation.)

For now, though, I couldn't resist sharing this wonderful rendering of one of those gorgeous little set pieces that stud the Ring cycle, in which Fafner tries to explain to his more sentimental, thick-headed brother Fasolt the tangible value, as far as the gods are concerned, of having their beloved goddess Freia in their midst.



John Macurdy (bs), Fafner; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Sixten Ehrling, cond. Broadcast performance, Feb. 15, 1975


WELL, MAYBE JUST ONE MORE TEASE:
Is this the most dramatic 40 seconds in all opera?

John Macurdy (b), Commendatore; Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded June-July 1978


NOTE THAT TONIGHT'S MET FREE "NIGHTLY OPERA STREAM" --

is a January 1986 Lohengrin conducted by James Levine with Macurdy as King Heinrich (and Eva Marton as Elsa, Peter Hofmann as Lohengrin, Leonie Rysanek as Ortrud, and Leif Roar as Telramund).

#

Guess who's coming to dinner at Don Giovanni's place

Ildar Abdrazakov as Don Giovanni and Andrew Foster-Williams as Leporello, in Washington last October

Don Giovanni, you invited me
to dine with you, and I have come!

Matti Salminen (bs), the Commendatore; Berlin Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Erato, recorded April 1991

Kurt Moll (bs), the Commendatore; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Oct.-Nov. 1978

Giorgio Tozzi (bs), the Commendatore; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Dec. 14, 1957

by Ken

In Friday night's special Sunday Classics "TV Watch" post we listened to Leporello's Catalog Aria from Act I of Don Giovanni, in which he tries to pacify the hysterical Donna Elvira, abandoned by Leporello's master, Don Giovanni, with an outline of his sexual exploits. Or if not to pacify her, at least to put her off until he can find a way to shake loose from her.

It's a manageable leap to use that as a springboard to one of the towering chunks of musico-dramatic literature that I've had it in mind to get to before we wind up business. So today, with a minimum of chatter from me, we're going to tackle the Final Scene. (Just to be clear, the end of the "Final Scene" isn't the end of the opera. There's an epilogue, which doesn't figure in our considerations today.)


IT ALL GOES BACK TO THE MURKY BUSINESS
OF THE OPENING SCENE OF THE OPERA --s

Sunday Classics TV Watch: "White Collar" 's Neal Caffrey's Mozart is Leporello's little list

On last week's White Collar episode, "Out of the Frying Pan," Mozzie (Willie Garson) and Neal (Matt Bomer) planned a caper.

LEPORELLO: My dear lady, this is a catalog
of the beauties my master has loved,
a list which I have compiled.
Observe, read along with me.

(1) Gabriel Bacquier (b), Leporello; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Oct.-Nov. 1978
(2) Ferruccio Furlanetto (bs), Leporello; Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded Jan. 1985

by Ken

I thought I was going to be really topical tonight, pouncing on Neal Caffrey's choreographed White Collar routine to Leporello's "Madamina," and then I remembered that through the miracle of DVR technology I was watching last week's episode, "Out of the Frying Pan," in which Neal wsa rehearsing this elaborate routine choreographed Mozzie in order -- as we eventually found out -- to surveillance cameras for a necessary heist.


WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THE WOOFY
PERFORMANCE THEY USED ON THE SHOW

Our "J" and "K" conductors shine in Mozart's Don Giovanni andCosì fan tutte

Eugen Jochum (a few years older in the picture!) conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in the Overture to Mozart's Così fan tutte, from his December 1962 DG recording of the complete opera.

by Ken

We're showing off our "J" and "K" conductors in Mozart operas this week. In Friday night's preview we heard both Eugen Jochum and Josef Krips conducting the opening of The Abduction from the Seraglio. Today we're going to hear each in excerpts from one of the great operas Mozart wrote with his supreme librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte: Krips conducting Don Giovanni and Jochum conducting Così fan tutte -- not only my favorite recordings of these much-recorded operas, but two of my all-time favorite opera recordings.

The two performances reflect markedly different sensibilities, but that same quality of basic musicianship -- which I might boil down to discovering how the music wants to move of its own momentum -- I've been trying to highlight in our tributes to Jochum, Krips, and our other "K" conductors, Rudolf Kempe and Rafael Kubelik.

You don't really think of matters of tempo (or at least I don't), because the tempos have been chosen to make scenes happen, and that's where at least this listener's focus is. Nor do you especially register obvious ploys to create rhythmic "momentum"; the point is that the momentum happens from within, with the music always seeming to move of its own volition in accord with the dramatic needs of the moment, while at the same time, cunningly enough, allowing the music to shine fully.

In the booklet for the Decca "Legendary Performances" reissue of the Krips Don Giovanni there's an "evaluation" of this legendary performance, which of course is careful to allow for its "legendary" status (otherwise the author wouldn't have been paid; these people do now how to give their masters what they're looking for) but picks it apart in a "checklist"-type way. Some of the learned-sounding prattle is moderately accurate as far as it goes, which isn't far, while much of it not even that. But almost all of it is innocent of what seems to me the most important, and in some ways only, consideration: how does the music play?

I don't like doing this: spotlighting performances I expressly don't like, all the more so in a case like this, where the recording seems to me to fundamentally misrepresent the performer. But here's the Così Overture again, and performed by Karl Böhm, for whom this opera may be said to represent a specialty. If you were to describe the performance objectively, in terms of tempo and phrasing and articulation, it might sound like "Böhm's Così Overture," but to me it doesn't, at all, because it doesn't move the way "Böhm's Così Overture" did in every other performance I've heard. In this version, much of the life has been squeezed out of the music.

MOZART: Così fan tutte, K. 588: Overture

Philharmonia Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. EMI, recorded November 1962

Here, by contrast, is a Böhm Così Overture, unfortunately in so-so broadcast-quality mono sound, from just a few months earlier.

MOZART: Così fan tutte, K. 588: Overture

Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. Recorded live at the Salzburg Festival, Aug. 8, 1962


THAT SAID, LET'S MOVE ON TO THE KRIPS DON
GIOVANNI AND JOCHUM COSÌ RECORDINGS

Preview: Two of our "J" and "K" conductors shine in Mozart

As a native Salzburger, not to mention a man with ambitions to be master of all the musical heights, Herbert von Karajan tried, tried, and tried again to make his mark in Mozart. This Don Giovanni Overture is better than many of his efforts -- far from great, but not bad.

by Ken

In the "modern era" of Sunday Classics we've had occasion to take note -- largely but entirely coincidentally -- of four conductors from roughly the same era who to me epitomize "musicality," something I'd rather have you listen to and glean for yourselves than attempt to define. So far we've heard our three "K" conductors (Rudolf Kempe, Josef Krips, and Rafael Kubelik; preview and main post) and our "J" conductor (Eugen Jochum; Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4) alphabetically segregated. This week as we move into the treacherous terrain of Mozart, and specifically the Mozart operas, we're going to cross-group, since two of our conductors are responsible for what seem to me two of the all-time great operatic recordings.

For tonight, though, we're just going to focus on the openings of two great Mozart operas, what seems to me his first true operatic masterpiece, The Abduction from the Seraglio, and that towering masterpiece from the height of his creative outpouring, Don Giovanni. (Actually, we first heard this music, and many of these recordings, in a May 2010 preview post.) I hope this will be fun because we're going to hear these two overtures, neither a stranger to the concert platform, as stand-alone pieces, with little concert endings tacked on, and then we're going to hear them the way they were composed, to lead directly into the operas' opening numbers.


HERE ARE OUR TWO OVERTURES IN STAND-ALONE FORM

MOZART: The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384: Overture

Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. EMI, recorded c1981

MOZART: Don Giovanni, K. 527: Overture

Staatskapelle Dresden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. BMG, recorded c1998


NOW HERE THEY ARE AS THEY WERE MEANT TO PLAY