Letters: Don Giovanni, Lost in Translation
Understanding the Don
Mozart's operas are a fascinating subject for me. I have to agree that
Don Giovanni does not qualify as a hero; but what is fascinating is that, in the penultimate scene, Mozart makes him into one, immediately after he is at his most disgusting with Donna Elvira. His cries of "No!" in response to the statue's demands for repentance are thrilling.
If the text of that scene is just read aloud, forgetting the music, it reads almost like comic-opera patter, which is probably what Da Ponte intended. It is the music that makes the difference. So we have a case where the librettist and composer were pushing the opera in somewhat different directions.
Don Giovanni is a perfect example of Socrates' "unexamined life," or of the "lone wolf" type described in Ayn Rand's "Selfishness Without a Self." Thus, even though he is a fairly complex character, he appears to be an "operatic archetype." He never asks why he should do something; like Bill Clinton, he does it because he can.
Regarding the opening scene: Donna Anna's first words are "Non sperar, se non m'uccidi, Ch'io ti lasci fuggir mai." I know only bits and pieces of Italian (mostly from operas), but I don't see anything there that conveys the sense of "Do not ever expect. . . ."
She then calls him "scellerato." That isn't exactly "rapist," "criminal," or "violator," but it translates as "scoundrel," which is in the same general category. She then calls him "traditor" (traitor or betrayer), but that is when she's calling for help. In that context, it doesn't make sense to interpret it as a complaint that he is running out on her. My sense is that she wanted "kissie-kissie," as you put it, but that he forced himself on her when she tried to set a limit. So the scene comes across as a kind of "date rape." This is consistent with her attempt to cover up the story for Don Ottavio.
Gary McGath
John Kerns responds:
I quite agree with the comments about Mozart's making Don Giovanni a hero by providing him the music of the finale.
Don Giovanni has many of the anti-social characteristics described in "Selfishness Without a Self," or the DSM-IV for that matter. I hesitate to put him in the category described by Rand in her essay, however. Don Giovanni's values, though mistaken, seem quite authentic to him and not the kind of second-hand values described by Rand. Again, Mozart transcends the words: you can't hear La ci darmen al mano without admiring the supreme skill of Don Giovanni. It is not the level of skill one finds in a second-hander.
Alas, I do not speak Italian. The translation I cited—"Do not expect me to ever let you escape, unless you kill me"—comes from the Dover Opera Guide and Libretto Series. I examined this text word by word with an Italian speaker and concluded that the translation is a good rendering, although it is not a metaphrasing with reversible mapping. The opening scene moves very quickly. One moment, Donna Anna is clinging to the Don, the next moment she realizes that her romantic hopes are misplaced and she becomes supremely angry. "Scoundrel" seems a perfectly fitting epithet for someone who has taken advantage of a woman only to drop her moments later. In any case, the opening scene is very ambiguous and open to widely divergent interpretations.
The way McGath envisions events between Don Giovanni and Donna Anna just before the opening of the opera is consistent with the text, but probably not something that would readily occur to an eighteenth-century audience. In those days if a man was in a woman's chambers late at night, it pretty much meant that either he was invited there or he had obtained criminal entry. "Setting a limit" is something that might occur while kissing in the garden, but the idea of setting a limit after inviting a man into your bedroom late at night is not a construction of events that would come so easily to an eighteenth-century audience.
Don Giovanni in performance
We greatly enjoyed John Kerns's piece on Mozart's Don Giovanni in the May Navigator. It was informed and well-reasoned—not to mention entertaining! We wonder which audio and video recordings of the opera he would recommend.
Michelle Marder Kamhi and Lou Torres
John Kerns responds:
The best overall video is the 1987 Salzburg performance conducted by Herbert von Karajan with Samuel Ramey in the title role. For those new to opera, the Joseph Losey film version is highly accessible. For opera old-timers who can do without subtitles, the 1954 Salzburg production featuring Cesare Siepi in the title role is sublime. My favorite CD version is the 1985 Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra production featuring Alan Titus in the title role, but this is hopelessly out of print. The Sir Colin Davis production with Richard van Allan is a pleasing and available alternative.
In praise of Lost in Translation
I second Mike Smolens's kudos to Lost in Translation ["Letters to the Editor," Navigator, June 2004] and agree with him that the film is sweet and touching. I disagree with Russell LaValle's opinion that it is depressing. It is not that at all. Sure, the folks have some setbacks, very probably temporary and partly induced by jet lag as well as the distance—literal and otherwise—from their spouses. But seeing that they are roughly in the same boat, they connect and make the most of their somewhat cheerless situation. This brings them a measure of joy that is encouraging under the circumstances. As someone whose profession requires him to travel a great deal, I felt much empathy for both main characters and thought that their "solution" was inspiring. I walked away from the movie with a warm smile and have seen it three times since, each time feeling pangs of joy. La Valle didn't see the movie I saw.
Tibor R. Machan
Russell La Valle responds:
If by saying Lost in Translation is a "sweet and touching" film Tibor Machan were merely saying that he liked it, then I would have no response. De gustibus non est disputandum. But he says more. He offers an assertion about the lives of the main characters, Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson). Machan says: "Sure, the folks have some setbacks, very probably temporary and partly induced by jet lag as well as the distance—literal and otherwise—from their spouses." Even a cursory examination of the various exchanges between Bob and his stateside wife reveals an emotionless, diseased marriage long gone, whose distance is a blessing rather than a hardship. Similarly, Charlotte's husband is physically with her but emotionally absent—as evidenced by Charlotte's desperate cri de coeur to her friend back in America, "I don't know who I married!" Mere setbacks? Very probably temporary? I think not.
Throughout the movie one hopes that—after the characters' suffering, detachment, unspoken feelings, bad jokes, endless drinking at the hotel bar, aimless forays into Tokyo, vacuous staring out of hotel-room windows, watching of inscrutable Japanese television shows, and chronic insomnia—the movie's relentless depression will somehow lift and the main characters will discover their souls, offering us a compelling and profound window onto the world. Alas, no such profundity emerges. If after viewing Lost in Translation four times, Machan's reactions are "a warm smile" and "pangs of joy," so be it; however, they would gain greater credence if he offered evidence from the movie itself to justify them.
Rockefeller and the Muckrackers
Laurence Gould has written to point out an ambiguity in my reckoning of how the amount John D. Rockefeller paid the widow Backus relates to the value she herself placed on the property. My reckoning from Henry Demarest Lloyd's account was this: Rockefeller's negotiators offered Mrs. Backus $50,000 for the property (and goodwill), plus $19,000 for the materials on hand. The total of $69,000 I considered to be slightly less than the $71,000 she had written down as the value of her property. Rockefeller made his negotiators tack on $10,000 to the property offer, yielding an overall purchase price of $79,000, much more than she had written down. But there is a problem. The $71,000 figure may be comparable to the $50,000 offer (and to $60,000 eventually paid for the property itself), not to the $69,000 (later $79,000) package that was paid her. Still, the key point is that when the wealthy Rockefeller came seeking to buy her property, Backus claimed that the property was worth $200,000.
Roger Donway