Topic Don Giovanni Libretto and Opera Response Essay

Instructions

The detailed instruction of this response essay is attached in the addition material (DG Response essay.docx) The resources of Don Giovanni Libretto is attached, while for the Joseph Losey’s 1979 film-version of Don Giovanni, you might have to find it through the internet. Several important points in the guideline are: 1.Need not attach a bibliography or list of works cited to this essay. 2.References to or quotations from the assigned text of the libretto for Don Giovanni need only be documented with page numbers. 3. It is a personal essay for professor and the rest of the class, the appropriate style for your essay is less formal than that for an analytical paper, but more formal than journal-writing.

Essay #1: 

Don Giovanni Response-Essay

Material Requirements (due-date, length, documentation, etc.)

 

A hardcopy of your essay must be submitted to me no later than the very beginning of class on Thursday, October 11^th.  I will not accept your essay at any later time.

Your essay must be a bare minimum of 1500 words (approximately five pages, typed and double-spaced).

Other than the materials made available for the assignment, you may not consult any outside sources.  Consequently, you needn’t attach a bibliography or list of works cited to your essay.  References to or quotations from the assigned text of the libretto for Don Giovanni need only be documented with page numbers.

 

Subject

 

The subject of the Don Giovanni Response-Essay is your experience of both reading the assigned libretto to and viewing and listening to Joseph Losey’s film-version of W.A. Mozart’s and Lorenzo Da Ponte’s opera, Don Giovanni.  HOWEVER – the subject of your essay is NOT a comparison of the libretto with the film.  An opera is simultaneously a work of verbal and musical and visual art.  Joseph Losey’s film of Don Giovanni is not a filmed version of a book.  It is one among many different interpretations of the opera created by both Lorenzo Da Ponte (who wrote the words) and W.A. Mozart (who wrote the music).

 

The libretto (or “little book” in Italian), written by Lorenzo da Ponte, is posted to NYU Classes:

Lorenzo da Ponte, libretto to Don Giovanni (1787) [translated by Norman Platt and Laura Sarti].

Joseph Losey’s film is available as a  DVD at Avery Fisher on the second floor of Bobst Library.  I have put on reserve two personal copies of the DVD version, which are listed in the Bobcat in the reserve-menu by call number (DVD 18262) and under both our course number (CFIII-UF 0103) and my name (Culver).  Avery Fisher also owns a DVD version (DVD 1798).   None of these copies may be removed from the library.  You must go to the Avery Fisher collection on the second floor of Bobst Library to view one of these copies on one of the monitors there.  Of course, if you can get a hold of a copy of this film in some other way (such as through Netflix), you certainly may do so, but make sure that it is, in fact, the same film.

 

Some advice:

(1) Although the film has subtitles, I recommend that you read the libretto to the opera before viewing the film.

Most opera companies print in the program a plot-synopsis of the opera they are about to perform, so that the audience can familiarize themselves with the plot before the performance begins.  In lieu of such a program, I recommend that you read the assigned English translation of Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto (rendered in the meter and rhyme of the original) before you view the film.

(2) The film is 177 minutes long, so plan your viewing accordingly.

Don Giovanni, like most operas (and most plays), offers the audience an intermission between acts.   I recommend that you likewise take a break after viewing Act I before viewing Act II.  Most intermissions are between 15 and 30 minutes, but you might want to take an intermission of an hour or more so that your focus is just as sharp for Act II as it was for Act I.

Audience

 

The Don Giovanni Response-Essay is a personal essay for which the audience is both me and the rest of the class.

 

Consequently, you should assume that your audience has had the same general introduction to opera as a medium, has read the assigned libretto of Don Giovanni, and has viewed Joseph Losey’s film of this opera.  But you cannot assume that your audience will share the same reactions to these that you had.

 

Moreover, since it is a personal essay for me and the rest of the class, the appropriate style for your essay is less formal than that for an analytical paper, but more formal than journal-writing.

Purpose

 

Your purpose as the writer of this essay is to enable your audience not only to understand exactly how you responded, but exactly why you responded in the particular ways that you did to

Don Giovanni.

 

In order to achieve this purpose, make sure that in your essay you…

 

(1) refer to specifics of the story and characters of Don Giovanni,

 

(2) refer to specifics from Lorenzo Da Ponte’s written libretto for Don Giovanni,

(3) refer to specifics from at least three of the individual pieces of W.A. Mozart’s music for Don Giovanni (which include the orchestral overture, the twenty-four numbered arias and ensembles, and the many unnumbered passages of recitative singing), including at least one individual piece of music from each of the opera’s two acts,

 

(4) refer to specifics from this particular performance of Don Giovanni (such as the acting and singing by these particular performers, the staging and direction by this particular director, Joseph Losey, and the costumes, locations, and other visual elements of this particular performance), and

 

(5) above all, account for your individual reactions by referring each of them to its relevant context – the medium of opera as such, the genre of opera buffa, and the period-style of Classical music. (See the document Contexts for Don Giovanni (1787) posted to RESOURCES in NYUClasses).