Don Giovanni explained
Since fuzzyfeetz was nice enough to ask and I didn't explain it properly when I was talking about it, I will now give you my dissertation on Don Giovanni... I'll try not to get too "into it" so to speak. It's hard cause as I'm sure you all know by now, when I love something I tend to ramble on and on endlessly about.
Okay.... Ahem....
Don Giovanni is based on the story of Don Juan, the master seducer. But I wanna give you all the whole story for those of you who aren't familiar with either story.
Don Giovanni is this nobleman, who has a problem with womanizing. According to him in the beginning of act 2, he says to his servant Leporello to justify his actions, "A man who is faithful to one woman is inherently cruel to all others. But with my immense feelings I love them all." Which we all know that's just a pretext, but to Don Giovanni its his reason for doing the things he does.
But I'm jumping ahead. When we first catch up to Don Giovanni, or should I say his servant Leporello, we hear his servant complaining that he can't stand playing watch guard for his boss, that he wants to be the rich one. The reason why Leporello is playing watch guard is because Don Giovanni just went upstairs to try to seduce some woman named Donna Anna. After failing and nearly raping her, he leaves her house but is caught fleeing by her father who challenges him to a duel. After refusing to fight the old man for a moment, his frustrations get the better of him so he kills her father.
So Don Giovanni and his servant leave and Donna Anna and her boyfriend Don Ottavio discovers her father has been murdered by the guy who just tried to rape her. So she makes her boyfriend promise to avenge her father's death. Meanwhile, our boy Don Giovanni sees some woman and instantly wants to seduce her. Come to find out that it's already someone he'd been with named Donna Elvira. So not trying to hang out with her anymore, Don Giovanni tells his servant to tell her about all his womanizing exploits and Leporello breaks out Don Giovanni's long list of conquests, but Donna Elvira vows to get him to change because she loves him and she wants to help him.
Fast forward a bit Don Giovanni and Leporello come across this wedding and instantly DG wants the blushing bride Zerilina all to himself. So he breaks up the happy couple, much to Masetto (Zerilina's fiancée) horror. So DG tries to seduce Zerilina and almost gets her, but their little sex fest is broken up by Donna Elvira who tells Zerilina he's a dog leave him alone.
Now cutting out a few arias and key parts, Donna Anna discovers that the guy who killed her father and tried to rape her is Don Giovanni, meanwhile DG decides to throw a party (I can't remember why), so at this party. While Masetto decides he wants to get DG in trouble by exposing him to be the pervert he really is, so he kinda forces Zerilina to go off with him at this party (what that was supposed to prove I don't know). So everyone shows up to this party, Don Giovanni gets caught trying to rape Zerilina. He tries to blame it on his servant, but no one falls for it. And that's how act one ends.
The second act starts with Leporello threaten to quit after DG tried to blame him for the party incident, but he reconsiders after DG bribes him with 4 gold coins. And that's when they have that discussion where Don Giovanni tries to justify his actions. After that conversation DG goes on to state that he's now after Donna Elvira's maid and he's going to seduce her wearing Leporello's clothes, but first they had to coax Donna Elvira out of her house. So after coaxing her out of her house, Leporello (who's pretending to be Don Giovanni) go off into the mist while Don Giovanni tries to seduce her maid. However his attempts are stopped when Masetto and his cronies show up to try to kill Don Giovanni after the attempted raping of his fiancée. But DG manages to separate Masetto from his friends and he beats the hell outta Masetto who then runs with his tail between his legs back to his fiancée.
A lot of other stuff happens in between this, but it's not really important to the overall story so I'll skip to the cemetery scene. What happens here is Don Giovanni and Leporello find they way to the cemetery where Donna Anna's father is buried and being the smart ass, Don Giovanni invites the dead man to dinner. The dead man accepts the offer. So dinner commences Donna Elvira does one last ditch attempt to get Don Giovanni to change his life, but he refuses. As she leaves, she sees the ghost of the dead dinner guest and screams. DG sends Leporello to investigate and he sees the dead man too. Finally he appears to Don Giovanni and basically asks him to dinner. Not being one to back down in the face of fear, Don Giovanni accepts his offer, but it's really a ploy to get Don Giovanni to repent his sins and change his life.
After adamantly refusing. The dead man tells him there is no more time and Don Giovanni is then sent to hell for refusing to repent (thus blowing up in a Volgin style fireworks display, depending on the production). After that Don Ottavio finally comes in with the police to have Don Giovanni arrested, but only to discover it's too late. So Don Ottavio asks Donna Anna for her hand in marriage, but she says give me a year for her to get her life together. Donna Elvira goes into a convent cause she feels really guilty for sleeping with Don Giovanni, Masetto and Zerilina go off somewhere together, while Leporello says he's going to find a better person to work for.
So that in a nutshell is the story of Don Giovanni. It has it all. Sex, violence, people going literally to hell. Its great! Highly recommended if you wanna see something out of the ordinary.
Well it's now 8:35 and I'm late for starting work, but it was more then worth it to explain one of my favorite opera's to people.