Last week was ridiculously busy for all sorts of reasons. First, it was Valentine’s Day, the focus of the fund-raising anthology five other fabulous JAFF authors and I put together for the benefit of the Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, UK. We were overwhelmed by the amazing response this collection of stories received and we’re looking forward to being able to present a very healthy donation to the museum in a few months. If you haven’t seen it, take a look here: https://books2read.com/u/mZpv5R
Second, I decided a couple of weeks ago to redo my den. The room started as my daughter’s bedroom when she was a baby, and at the time, we loved the pale purple paint and cute white child-appropriate furniture. Over the years, we tossed in various other bookshelves, new and previous-loved, and the place was… er… busy and eclectic. And cluttered and messy and rather awful as a Zoom background! It was time for a change, and I’ve spent the last week unpacking shelves and cabinets and splashing dark red paint everywhere. Once the new—matching—shelves go up and we organize our books, it will look much more like a place where a (ahem) serious author does (ahem) serious writing.
But the highlight of my week was a night at the opera!
I’m an opera lover. I can’t sing a note, but oh, I love listening to people who can. And so we got tickets to see Don Giovanni, and wow, it was a fabulous production. Excellent singing, great acting, and the most creative and brilliant set design I’ve seen in a very long time.
Of course, the show got me thinking about Jane Austen. Doesn’t everything, after all? Did she know the opera? What did she think about it? Are there any echoes of the themes in her novels?
Very briefly, Don Giovanni is a 1787 opera about the legend of Don Juan, with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. It tells the story of a serial playboy who goes one step too far and kills the father of one of his attempted romantic conquests. When confronted by the ghost of the dead man and ordered to repent, Giovanni refuses and is condemned to Hell. Don Giovanni is a charismatic but incredibly flawed character, and as the leading man in a musical morality play, he is in many ways the archetypical anti-hero, the bad guy we almost root for. He has lots of great songs, too!
So, what about Jane Austen? While the opera was popular on the continent, the first “official” performance in London was not staged until April 12, 1817. At the time, Austen was already very ill. She died in Winchester just three months later, and could not have seen that production. Alas.
But wait! I said “official” production. That 1817 performance at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, might not really have been the first time Don Giovanni strutted across a London stage. After a great deal of sleuthing, my husband came across an article in The Musical Times from 1986 that posits a much earlier performance.[1] The author traces various accounts and advertisements and early examples of the libretto circulating in London. In the April 4, 1809 edition of The Times, there is an advertisement in which, “Mr Griffin respectfully begs leave to acquaint the Nobility, Gentry, and his friends in general, that his benefit concert is fixed for Thursday the 20th April… The first part will consist of the most beautiful composition from Mozart’s celebrated opera ‘Don Juan…’” at the New Room, Hanover Square. Other advertisements suggested a short run of this concert. A similar performance, with considerable overlap of performers, was given on a handful of dates that same month at The Old Tavern, suggesting two venues, accessible to a large number of people.[2]
While we have no evidence that Jane Austen attended one of these performances, she was fond of London and often visited her brother Henry, who lived in the city from around 1801 to 1816. That she loved the theatre and music is well established, and it is not impossible that she found herself contemplating this most delicious of bad guys one evening while the performer entertained the assembled crowd.
Of course, this possibility led to other musings, this time about echoes of Don Giovanni in her works. The tale of Don Juan far predates the opera, and the libertine who meets his fate is a common enough trope that I can’t attribute her own rakes to this influence. But still, it’s fun to contemplate.
I think of Henry Crawford, who wants to make Fanny Price fall in love with him, and who eventually seduces Maria Rushworth. I think of John Willoughby (the least redeemable bad boy in Austen’s oeuvre), who dallies with Marianne Dashwood after seducing and abandoning poor Eliza Williams. I think of Captain Frederick Tilney, who tempts Isabella Thorpe away from her betrothal to James Moreland. And, of course, I think of George Wickham, whose list of romantic conquests might well match Giovanni’s reported 1003.
Can you imagine a variation of P&P with Wickham as the anti-hero protagonist, being offered one chance after another to mend his ways, before eventually being cast into some version of Hell? I can, and it’s quite delicious. I wonder if I can summon up da Ponte’s spirit and ask him to write me the libretto!
Here, for your enjoyment, is the brilliant “Catalogue Aria” from Don Giovanni, in which Leporello enumerates his master’s many lovers. Enjoy.
If you’re interested in the whole thing, here’s a fascinating modern production with some excellent singing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wEMzWH52FA&t=3s
[1] The Musical Times, Vol. 127, No. 1722 (Sep., 1986), pp. 487-493
[2] p. 488
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