Revised August 10, 2019

When an opera performance starts, the overture is the first thing the audience hears, but it’s the last thing the composer writes. Rossini disliked writing overtures, and the various impresarios he worked for had legendary difficulties keeping him on track. Mozart had no such aversion to overtures. Nonetheless, composing the overture to Don Giovanni produced a drama equal to any story about Rossini.

Mozart’s work habits

Most composers, I suppose, require silence and concentration in order to work. Not Mozart. He regularly sat at a keyboard to compose and worked far into the night. His doctor was concerned about all that sitting and encouraged Mozart to compose standing and to get as much physical exercise as he could.

No problem. Mozart could compose while bowling or playing billiards. He could compose while he socialized at parties.

When he composed at the keyboard, he liked to drink wine or punch. One of his immediate next-door neighbors, Johann Loibl, was a music-loving fellow Mason. He kept a well-stocked wine cellar and shared freely. The wall between the two apartments was so thin that Mozart got in the habit of knocking on the wall when he wanted some wine.

Whenever Loibl heard Mozart playing, he knew he would eventually hear a knock on the wall. When he did, he sent his servant next door with some wine.

The composition of Don Giovanni

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Johann Georg Edlinger, ca. 1790

When Mozart collaborated with Lorenzo da Ponte on The Marriage of Figaro, the two produced a revolutionary new kind of opera. The audience in Vienna received it with respect in 1786, but the audience in Prague received it with passionate enthusiasm.

The following year (February 1787), the Prague opera theater commissioned a new opera. So Mozart asked da Ponte for a new libretto. They quickly decided to base it on the legend of Don Juan. Its full title is Il dissoluto punito ossia il Don Giovanni – Dramma giocoso in due atti (The Rake punished, or Don Giovanni, a dramma giocoso in two acts).

Rehearsals started in October. For whatever reason, Mozart hadn’t finished composing it. Not only did it lack the overture, but Mozart also had to compose the entire second act finale in Prague. Evidence? It turns out the paper he used came from Prague, not Vienna.

After the dress rehearsal, that is, the night before the opening performance, Mozart decided to pull an all-nighter to write the overture. He asked his wife Constanza to stay up with him.

Constanza’s job was to make punch to keep his spirits up and keep talking to him. So she told him stories from Arabian Nights and other common collections of stories. Probably only Mozart could ever listen to stories, laugh at them, and compose music at the same time.

The plan had a major flaw. The punch made him even sleepier than he would have been ordinarily at that time of night. Whenever Constanza stopped talking, he began to doze off. Even Mozart could not write music in his sleep. Finally, she suggested that he take a nap and promised to wake him in an hour.

He slept so soundly that she didn’t have the heart to keep her promise. She let him sleep for two hours.  By that time, it was five o’clock in the morning. Mozart finished composing at seven and delivered the score to the copyists.

By the time the copyists finished writing out the parts and passed them out, there was no time for the orchestra to rehearse the overture. So they sight-read it.

They must have played it pretty well. One of the members of the orchestra later wrote that the overture roused the audience to great enthusiasm. Mozart turned to the orchestra and said, “Bravo, bravo, gentlemen. That was excellent.”

Sources:
The Book of Musical Anecdotes / Norman Lebrecht (Free Press, 1985)
Music Monday: Don Giovanni / Robert Greenberg. October 29, 2019

Image:
Don Giovanni and the statue. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Mozart portrait. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons The authenticity of this portrait has been questioned. Follow the link to learn about the controversy.