Sextet

ACD's fascinating consideration at Sounds and Fury of the epilogue of Don Giovanni has had me thinking. I'm happy to say that, like Signor S & F, I'm definitely not among those who would say that "[the] closing sextet is actually a superfluous, dramatically lame if pretty bit of operatic nonsense the opera would have done better without." Mostly because it contains several of my favourite musical moments from the opera as a whole. But ACD's suggestions about its dramatic significance are intriguing also:

In that closing sextet, Mozart, with a sly and slightly malicious off-stage grin undetectable by most of his audiences, assures those audiences that Giovanni has been dealt with fittingly, and now everything is once more restored to proper bourgeois order with nothing of consequence left to threaten or disturb their good and just bourgeois sleep.

I'd say it's a definite possibility. Especially given that we're talking about the sudden moralising of six not necessarily terribly well-behaved people, over the fate of a never entirely evil Don Giovanni - it's hard to think of it as a wholeheartedly sincere Happy and Virtuous Ever After kind of conclusion. There's a similar idea at work in the staging of this sextet in the Zurich Opera 2001 production, available on DVD - the six line up "l'antichissima canzon" with hymn books in hand, turning the pages dutifully but faster and faster until finally they throw the books away when they see what's going on behind them - Giovanni alive again and entangled with a new and very modern looking conquest. At which point the curtain drops - but only in front of Don Giovanni and his latest love - the sextet are left on stage, aghast. I haven't described it wonderfully well, but I think it's a very clever piece of direction. This is a different view of things to ACD's, but the sense of the closing sextet's insincerity is, I think, common to both.

Though speaking of staging, there's just one thing that I'd question in ACD's post (without, I hope, provoking too much Fury) and that's his suggestion of the way in which that sextet should be staged. If this is - and it could well be - " a sly and slightly malicious off-stage grin undetectable by most of his audience", mightn't we keep it that way? Rather than making it evident to all by having the six assemble in front of the curtain and sing to the audience. Because I'd say there are still today plenty in the audience happy to accept the epilogue at face value and to go home with all the moral issues so nicely sorted out for them. If we oblige everyone to 'get the joke', then where's the fun in that?

Comments

[A.C. Douglas]

Thank you, Sarah, for your gracious comments on my post.

I've just responded to your thoughtful quandary in an update to that post.

Regards,

ACD