PER UNA LETTURA NON-ROMANTICA DEL DON GIOVANNI DI MOZART

Matteo Bianchi

The investigation about the problem of the double ending of Don Giovanni by Mozart and Da Ponte makes it possible to identify some philosophical elements for a non-romantic reading of the opera. In the myth of Don Juan, the didactic and moral dimension of the final punishment has always had a decisive importance but, using the conceptual categories of Girard’s mimetic anthropology, it is possible to identify a second level of reading of the opera; this second level insists on the reciprocity of violence and questions the truthfulness of the accusations conventionally made against Don Giovanni. It is necessary to approach the problem of the two authentic versions and the double ending from an ethical point of view rather than an aesthetic one: depending on the chosen version, the lesson we wish to receive from the opera radically changes. The musicological reasons must therefore be flanked by anthropological and moral ones. Everything is composed in the perspective of the concertato and reciprocal violence, but the revenge of the antagonists is masked with the sacredness of the accusations, referring to a theology that guarantees the transcendence of the judicial system as a whole. The romantic lie of the Stone Guest thus consists in the denial and rejection of this social evidence, and it is only possible in its individualistic variation. This explains the importance of the last scene and the final concertato, because it highlights a fundamental truth, namely that restoring peace and order through a death sentence, whether physical or spiritual, is surely an illusion, and probably cannot be called an act of justice.