Madamina, il catalogo è questo

"Madamina, il catalogo è questo" (also known as "The Catalogue Aria") is an aria from Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.

It is sung in scene 5 of the first act of the opera, by Leporello, to Donna Elvira. It consists of a description and count of his master's lovers but is sung (for the most part) to a light-hearted or laid-back tune. It is one of Mozart's most famous and popular arias.

Aria text and English translation

tructure and previous versions

The aria's two halves reverse the usual order of cavatina followed by cabaletta: in the first, a quick Allegro in 4/4, Leporello has a patter summarizing the number and occupations of Don Giovanni's lovers, while in the second, an Andante con moto in 3/4, he describes his approaches and preferences, while Donna Elvira presumably listens in horror.

A corresponding scene in which Don Giovanni's servant expounds the catalogue of his master's lovers was already present in several versions of Don Juan's story, in opera, theatre and Commedia dell'arte: probably the initiator was a version of "Il convitato di pietra" ("The Stone Guest") attributed to Andrea Cicognini.cite book |last=Mila |first=Massimo |title=Lettura del Don Giovanni di Mozart |publisher=Einaudi |location=Torino |date=1988 |id=ISBN 88-06-59999-2 it icon, which is a detailed, scene by scene, analysis of the opera: the catalogue aria is analysed in pages 93–102.] The most immediate forerunner (premiering in 1787, a few months before Mozart's "Don Giovanni") was the opera "Don Giovanni, o sia Il convitato di pietra" composed by Giuseppe Gazzaniga to a libretto by Giovanni Bertati. In Gazzaniga's opera, the aria in which Don Giovanni's servant, Pasquariello, describes his master's catalogue of lovers to Donna Elvira begins:cite book |last=Macchia |first=Giovanni |title=Vita avventure e morte di Don Giovanni |publisher=Adelphi |location=Milan |date=1995² |id=ISBN 88-459-0826-7 it icon, which also quotes other versions of the catalogue, in opera and in Commedia dell'arte.] [ [http://www.librettidopera.it/dongio_g/dongio_g_bnrid.html Libretto] of Giuseppe Gazzaniga's "Don Giovanni, o sia Il convitato di pietra"]

Commentary

Kierkegaard discusses the aria in the section "The Immediate Stages of the Erotic, or Musical Erotic" of his "Either/Or": he conjectures that the number 1003, the number of Spanish women seduces by Don Giovanni, might be a last remnant of the originary legend about Don Giovanni (or Don Juan); moreover the number 1003 being odd and somewhat arbitrary suggests in Kierkegaard's opinion that the list is not complete and Don Giovanni is still expanding it. The comic sides of this aria have dramatic and ominous undertones. Kierkegaard finds in this aria the true epic significance of the opera: condensing in large groups countless women, it convey the universality of Don Giovanni as a symbol of sensuality and yearning for the feminine.

Some commenters found that several devices in the text and the music manage to convey a universal meaning, something removed from a simple, humorous list of women: for instance, Luigi Dallapiccola remarks that the line "Cento in Francia, in Turchia novantuna", breaks the rhythm of octosyllables and so illuminates the whole aria. According to Massimo Mila, "this Commedia dell'arte gag (which used to be accompanied by the gesture of unrolling the catalogue's scroll towards the audience) had incalculable consequences in determining the romantic interpretation of Don Giovanni's character". Romanticism interpreted the obsession expressed in the catalogue as a longing for the absolute.

The aria is the basis of Michael Nyman's "In Re Don Giovanni" (1977), his first work for the Michael Nyman Band. It is a canon built upon, and then varying, the first fifteen bars. This work, in turn, became a duet between Wolfgang and Leopold Mozart in Nyman's opera "Letters, Riddles and Writs" titled "Profit and Loss."

References and further reading

* "Le Don Juan de Mozart" by Pierre Jean Jouve (see in the French Wikipédia)
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* English translation of "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" published on the [http://www.columbia.edu/itc/music/NYCO/dongiovanni/catalogue.html New York City Opera Project] at Columbia University