Don Giovanni in Prague (and Vienna)

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1787, Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” had its premiere performance in Prague, with Mozart himself conducting. Mozart had arrived in Prague early in October that year, but as singers and instrumentalists alike needed more time than originally planned to prepare his difficult new score, the premiere occurred later than planned.

The October 29th premiere was a triumph, and a Prague newspaper reported that Mozart was received with threefold cheers when he entered and left the theater. At the request of Joseph II, the Austrian emperor, “Don Giovanni” was staged in Vienna the following year. The emperor was pleased: “That opera is divine,” he told Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, but, surprisingly, the Viennese audiences didn’t seem to like it.

Da Ponte quotes the Emperor as suggesting “Don Giovanni” was just too complicated for their taste: “Such music is not meat for the teeth of my Viennese,” he said. In his Memoirs, da Ponte writes: “I reported this remark to Mozart, who replied quietly: ‘Well, give them time to chew on it, then.’”

”He was not mistaken,” continued da Ponte. “At each performance of Don Giovanni the applause increased, and little by little, even Vienna of the dull teeth came to savor it.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) Don Giovanni Michele Pertusi (as Leporello); London Philharmonic; Sir Georg Solti, cond. London 455 500

On This Day

Premieres

• 1787 - Mozart: opera, "Don Giovanni'," in Prague at the Nationaltheater;

• 1837 - Donizetti: opera, "Roberto Devereux," at the.Teatro San Carlos, in Naples;

• 1920 - Edward Burlingame Hill: symphonic poem “The Fall of the House of Usher” (after Poe), by the Boston Symphony with Pierre Monteux conducting;

• 1950 - Copland: Quartet for Piano and Strings, by the New York Quartet at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. at a Coolidge Festival concert; This work was commissioned by Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Coolidge Foundation;

• 1955 - Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1, by the Leningrad Philharmonic, Yevgeny Svetlanov conducting, with David Oistrakh as the soloist;

• 1956 - Bernstein: musical "Candide" (original version) in Boston as a trial run at the Colonial Theater, directed by Tyrone Guthrie and conducted by Samuel Krachmalnick; The show opened officially on New York at the Martin Beck Theater on December 1, 1956; According to Opera America magazine, this is one of the most frequently-produced American operas during the past decade;

• 1966 - Milhaud: "Music for Indiana," by the Indianapolis Symphony;

• 1967 - Persichetti: Symphony No. 8, in Berea, Ohio, by the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory Orchestra, George Poinar conducting;

• 1980 - Off Broadway premiere of Sondheim: revue "Marry Me a Little"(compiled from various Sondheim musicals);

Others

• 1734 - The famous Italian castrato Farinelli (Carlo Broschi) makes his debut in London at the opening performance of "The Opera of the Nobility," a company formed to rival Handel's "Royal Academy" (Gegorian date: Nov. 9); The performance takes place at the King's Theater in the Haymarket, formerly the home of Handel's company;

• 1739 - Handel advertises for subscriptions to his new set of Concertos, Op. 6 (Gregorian date: Nov. 9); They are published by John Walsh the younger on April 23 (Gregorian date: May 4) the following year.

• 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in c, Op. 6, no. 8 (see Julian date: Oct. 18);