Gender Violence on Stage: Mozart's Don Giovanni in Performance and Recording

Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni has long inspired myths about eros and masculinity. Over time, its performance history reveals a growing trend toward critique—an increasing effort on the part of performers and directors to highlight the violence and predatoriness of the libertine central character, alongside the suffering and resilience of his female victims. Drawing from more than a century’s worth of audio and video recordings of the opera, Richard Will illuminates changing ideas about desire and power, the consequences of which may surprise or even implicate audiences. Once a figure of demonic charisma, the Don Giovanni of many recent productions suffers from psychological or social pathologies with the potential to undermine whole communities. His charisma wanes, yet its ill effects enmesh the other characters, including his most determined foe, Donna Anna. Beyond showing a libertine punished, the opera is taken to indict family, social, and economic structures that make libertinism possible.

****

Richard Will is Professor of Music and Chair of the Drama Department at the University of Virginia, where he teaches opera, 18th-century music, and bluegrass performance. He has written about classical music, opera, and folk music of America and Europe, and in 2022 he published “Don Giovanni” Captured: Performance, Media, Myth (University of Chicago Press).