Now even if what has been developed here is correct, it by no means thereby follows that a particular gifted nature should not have attempted to interpret Don Juan in some other way. Everyone knows this, but not everyone may have noticed that the model for all other interpretations is essentially Moliére’s Don Juan;® but this, in turn, is much older than Mozart’s and is also comic, and in relation to Mozart’s Don Giovanni is like a fairy tale in Muszeus’s” interpretation in relation to a version by Tieck.”! Therefore, I can in fact limit myself to a discussion of Moliére’s Don Juan, and as I try to make an esthetic assess- ment of it, I shall indirectly be assessing the other interpreta- tions. But I make an exception of Heiberg’s Don Juan.”? He himself declares in the title that it is “modeled partly on Mo- liére.” This is indeed entirely true, but nevertheless Heiberg’s play has a great advantage over Moliére’s. This no doubt is due to the sure esthetic eye with which Heiberg always compre- hends his task, the taste with which he knows how to discrim- inate, but in the present instance it is still not impossible that Prof. Heiberg was indirectly influenced by Mozart’s interpre- tation to see—namely, how Don Juan must be interpreted as soon as music is not made its proper expression or he is placed in completely different esthetic categories. Professor Hauch has also produced a Don Juan” that is on the verge of falling within the category of the interesting. Therefore, as I go on to discuss the other group of versions of Don Juan, I presumably need not point out to the reader that this is done not for their 86 87 106 Either/Or, I own Sake in the present little exploration but only in order to illuminate the significance of the musical interpretation more fully than was possible in the previous discussion.
The turning point in the interpretation of Don Juan has al- ready been designated above in this way: as soon as he is given spoken lines, everything is changed. That is, the reflection that motivates the lines reflects him out of the vagueness in which he is only musically audible. This being so, it might seem that Don Juan could be interpreted best as ballet.” It is indeed well known that he has been interpreted in this way. Yet this inter- pretation must be commended for having known its powers, and for this reason it has limited itself to the final scene, where the passion in Don Juan would be most readily visible in the pantomimic play of muscles. As a consequence, here again Don Juan is presented not in his essential passion but according to the accidental, and the poster advertising such a perform- ance always includes more than the play; that is, it says that it is Don Juan, the seducer Don Juan, whereas the ballet presents almost nothing more than the torments of despair, the expres- sion of which, since it has to be solely in pantomime, he shares with many others who are in despair. What is essential in Don Juan cannot be presented in ballet, and everyone readily feels how ludicrous it would be to watch Don Juan infatuating a girl by means of dance steps and ingenious gesticulations. Don Juan is an inner qualification and thus cannot become visible or appear in bodily configurations and movements or in molded harmony.
Even if Don Juan is not given speaking lines, an interpreta- tion of Don Juan that nevertheless uses words as a medium is conceivable. And there actually is such an interpretation by Byron.” That Byron was in many ways particularly endowed to present a Don Juan is certain enough, and therefore one can be sure that when that undertaking failed, the reason was not in Byron but in something far deeper. Byron has ventured to bring Don Juan into existence for us, to tell us of his childhood and youth, to construct him out of the context of his finite life- relationships. But Don Juan thereby became a reflective per- sonality who loses the ideality he has in the traditional picture.
The Immediate Erotic Stages 107 I shall quickly explain here the change that takes place in the idea. When Don Juan is interpreted musically, I hear in him the total infinitude of passion, but also its infinite power that noth- ing can resist; I hear the wild craving of desire, but also the ab- solute victoriousness of this desire, against which any at- tempted opposition would be ineffectual. If thought dwells just once on the obstruction, then it is more likely to gain im- portance just by inciting passion than by actually creating op- position; the pleasure is increased, the victory is certain, and the obstruction is only a stimulation. In Don Juan, I have such a rudimentarily stirred life, demonically powerful and irresist- ible. This is his ideality, and this I can enjoy undisturbed, be- cause to me music presents him not as a person or individual but as a power. If Don Juan is interpreted as an individual, then he is eo ipso in conflict with the world about him. As an indi- vidual, he feels the constraint and the fetters of these surround- ings; as a great individual he may triumph over them, but one immediately feels that the difficulties of the obstructions play a different role here. The interest is preoccupied essentially with them. But Don Juan is thereby drawn under the rubric of the interesting. If by means of turgid words he were to be pre- sented here as absolutely victorious, one would promptly feel this to be unsatisfactory, since it does not belong to an individual as such to be victorious, and one demands the crisis of con- flict.
The opposition that the individual must combat can in part be something external that is not so much in the object of at- tention as in the surrounding world; it can in part be in the ob- ject itself. The first has been the preoccupation of nearly all the interpretations of Don Juan because they have clung to the ele- ment of the idea that as an erotic he must be triumphant. If, on the other hand, the other side is stressed, only then, I believe, is there any prospect of a significant interpretation of Don Juan that would form a counterpart to the musical Don Juan, whereas any interpretation of Don Juan that lies between these would always have imperfections. In the musical Don Juan, there would then be the extensive seducer; in the other, the in- tensive. So the latter Don Juan is not presented as possessing 88 108 Either/Or, I his object with one single blow—he is not the immediately qualified seducer; he is the reflective seducer.”° That which oc- cupies us here is the subtlety, the cunning, whereby he knows how to steal into a girl’s heart, the dominion he knows how to gain over it, the enthralling, deliberate, progressive seduction. How many he has seduced is of no importance here; what oc- cupies us is the artistry, the meticulousness, the profound cun- ning with which he seduces. Ultimately the enjoyment itself becomes so reflective that by comparison it becomes quite dif- ferent from the musical Don Juan’s enjoyment. The musical Don Juan enjoys the satisfaction; the reflective Don Juan en- joys the deception, enjoys the craftiness. The immediate pleas- ure is past, and reflection on the enjoyment is enjoyed more. In this respect, there is a little hint in Moliére’s interpretation, except that this can by no means be developed, because all the remainder of the interpretation is a hindrance. Don Juan’s de- sire is aroused because he sees a girl happy in her relation to the one she loves; he begins to be jealous. This is an interest that in the opera would not occupy us at all, simply because Don Juan is not a reflective individual. As soon as Don Juan is inter- preted as a reflective individual, an ideality corresponding to the musical ideality can be attained only when the matter is shifted into the psychological realm. What is achieved, then, is the ideality of intensity. Therefore, Byron’s Don Juan must be regarded as a failure because it stretches out epically. The im- mediate Don Juan must seduce 1,003; the reflective Don Juan needs to seduce only one, and how he does it is what occupies us. The reflective Don Juan’s seduction is a tour de force in which every particular little episode has its special significance; the musical Don Juan’s seduction is a turn of the hand, a matter of a moment, more quickly done than said. It reminds me of a tableau I once saw. A handsome young man, a real ladies’ man. He was playing with some young girls, all of them at that dangerous age when they are neither adults nor children. Among other things, they amused themselves by jumping over a ditch. He stood at the edge and helped them jump by taking them around the waist, lifting them lightly into the air, and setting them down on the other side. It was a charming The Immediate Erotic Stages 109 picture; I delighted in him as much as in the young girls. Then I thought of Don Juan. They themselves run into his arms, these young girls; then he seizes them, and just as quickly, just as nimbly sets them down on the other side of the ditch of life.
The musical Don Juan is altogether victorious and there- fore, of course, is also in complete possession of every means that can lead to this victory, or, more correctly, he is in such complete possession of the means that it seems as if he did not need to use them—that is, he does not use them as means. As soon as he becomes a reflective individual, it is apparent that there is something called means. If the poet now gives them to him but along with them makes the opposition and the ob- struction so alarming that the victory becomes doubtful, Don Juan then falls under the rubric of the interesting, and in this respect many interpretations of Don Juan are imaginable, until one reaches what we previously called intensive seduction. If the poet denies him the means, the interpretation falls under the rubric of the comic.
A consummate interpretation that has drawn him under the rubric of the interesting, I have not seen; it holds true, how- ever, of most versions of Don Juan that they approach the comic. This is easily explained by their attachment to Moliére, in whose interpretation the comic is dormant, and it is to Hei- berg’s credit that he was clearly aware of this and therefore not only calls his play a marionette show but in so many other ways has the comic shine forth. As soon as a passion, in being depicted, is denied the means to its satisfaction, either a tragic or a comic turn will be produced. A tragic turn cannot very well be produced when the idea is perceived to be wholly un- justified, and therefore the comic is so close at hand. If I por- tray an individual with a passion for gambling and then give him five rix-dollars to gamble away, the turn would be comic. This does not entirely apply to Moliére’s Don Juan, but still there is a similarity. If 1 have Don Juan be financially embar- rassed, plagued by creditors, he promptly loses the ideality he has in the opera, and the effect becomes comic. The famous comic scene in Moliére,”” which as a comic scene is very good and is also very appropriate in his comedy, should, of course, 89 110 Either/Or, I never be included in the opera, where it has a totally disturbing effect.
That Moliére’s version aims at the comic is apparent not only in the comic scene just mentioned, which, if it were com- pletely isolated, would prove nothing, but in the whole de- sign, which bears the imprint of it. Sganarelle’s first and last lines, the beginning and the end of the whole play, more than adequately testify to this. Sganarelle begins with a eulogy ona pinch of snuff, from which one sees, among other things, that he must not be so very busy in this Don Juan’s service; he ends by complaining that he is the only one who has been wronged. If one considers that Moliére also has the statue come and fetch Don Juan and that he, although Sganarelle also has been a wit- ness to this dreadful thing, puts these words into his mouth as if he were saying that the statue, since, incidentally, it devoted itself to practicing justice on earth and punishing vice, also ought to have been ready to pay Sganarelle the wages due him for long and faithful service to Don Juan, which his master, be- cause of his sudden departure, did not find himself in a posi- tion to do—if one considers this, one will sense the comic in Moliére’s Don Juan.’® (Heiberg’s version, which has the great advantage over Moliére’s of being more correct, has also in many ways produced a comic effect by putting a random kind of learning into Sganarelle’s mouth, which makes us see in him a prattling charlatan who after attempting many things ends up as Don Juan’s servant.) The hero in the piece, Don Juan, is anything but a hero; he is a hapless fellow who prob- ably failed his examinations and now has chosen another ca- reer. Indeed, we learn that he is a son of a very distinguished man who, with a conception of his forefather’s great name, moreover is trying to inspire him to virtue and immortal deeds,” but this is so unlikely in view of all his other behavior that one is inclined to think the whole thing a lie that Don Juan himself has invented. His conduct is not very chivalrous: we do not see him with sword in hand carving a path through life’s difficulties; now he gives this one a clout on the ear, now the next one—indeed, he as much as comes to blows with one girl’s fiancé.®° So if Moliére’s Don Juan really is a knight, the The Immediate Erotic Stages 111 poet is very adept at making us forget it and strives therefore to have us see a rowdy, a common rake, who is not afraid to use his fists. Anyone who has had a chance to observe what we call a rake also knows that this class of men has a great prefer- ence for the sea. He will therefore also find it entirely appro- priate that Don Juan has caught sight of a couple of skirts and immediately sets after them in a boat from Kallebostrand,®! a Sunday adventure at sea, including the capsizing of the boat. Don Juan and Sganarelle are almost dispatched and at last are saved by Pedro and the tall Lucas,®* who at first were betting on whether it actually was human beings out there or a stone, a bet that costs Lucas one mark, eight shillings, which is al- most too much for Lucas and Don Juan. If one finds this en- tirely appropriate, the impression is shaken for a moment when we learn that Don Juan is also the fellow who has se- duced Elvira, murdered the Commander, etc., something one finds extremely unreasonable and that in turn must be ex- plained as a lie in order to bring about harmony. If Sganarelle is supposed to give us a notion of the passion raging in Don . Juan, then his expression is such a travesty that it is impossible to keep from laughing—for example, when Sganarelle tells Gusman that Don Juan, in order to obtain the one he wants, “would gladly marry her dog or cat—yes, even worse, marry you, too.’’®? Or when he makes the remark that his master is a disbeliever not only in love but also in medicine.™ Now, if Moliére’s interpretation of Don Juan, regarded as a comic version, were correct, I would not discuss it any fur- ther, since in this investigation I am dealing only with the ideal interpretation and the significance of music for it. I could then be satisfied with pointing out the noteworthy fact that only in music has Don Juan been interpreted ideally in the ideality he has in the Middle Age’s traditional conception. The lack of an ideal interpretation in the medium of language could then pro- vide an indirect proof for the legitimacy of my thesis. But here I can do more, precisely because Moliére is not correct, and what prevents him from being so is that he has retained some- thing of the ideal in Don Juan along the lines attributable to traditional conception. As I point out, it will again be apparent 91 92 112 Either/Or, I that this can be expressed essentially only by music, and thus once again I come back to my original thesis.
Right away in the first act of Moliére’s Don Juan, Sganarelle has a very long speech in which he attempts to give us a notion of his master’s unbounded passion and the multiplicity of his adventures. This speech parallels precisely the servant’s sec- ond aria in the opera. The speech produces only a comic effect, nothing more, and here again Heiberg’s version has the advan- tage in that the comic is less heterogeneous than in Moliére. This [speech], however, is an attempt to prompt in us an inti- mation of his power, but it is ineffective; only music can achieve this unity, because simultaneously with a description of Don Juan’s conduct, at the same time as the list is unrolled for us, it makes us hear the power of the seduction.
In Moliére, the statue comes in the last act to fetch Don Juan. Even though the poet, by means of an advance warning, at- tempted to provide a motive for the statue’s stepping forth, this stone nevertheless is always a stumbling block from a dra- matic point of view. If Don Juan is ideally interpreted as power, as passion, then heaven itself must intervene. If not, it is always dubious to use such strong means. Indeed, the Com- mander did not need to inconvenience himself, since it is far more practicable for Mr. Paaske® to have Don Juan put into the debtor’s prison. This would be entirely in the spirit of modern comedy, which does not need such great powers in order to crush, simply because the moving powers themselves are not very grandiose. It would be quite modern to have Don Juan come to know the commonplace bounds of actuality. In the opera, it is entirely appropriate to have the Commendatore come again, but, after all, his conduct has ideal truth. The mu- sic immediately makes the Commendatore more than a partic- ular individual; his voice is enlarged to the voice of a spirit. Therefore, just as Don Juan in the opera is interpreted with es- thetic earnestness, so also is the Commendatore. In Moliére, he comes with an ethical solemnity and heaviness that make him almost ludicrous; in the opera, he comes with esthetic lightness and metaphysical truth. No power in the play, no power on earth, has been able to constrain Don Juan; only a spirit, an apparition, is able to do that. Understood correctly, The Immediate Erotic Stages 113 this in turn will illuminate the interpretation of Don Juan. A spirit, an apparition, is reproduction;® this is the secret im- plicit in the coming again. But Don Juan is capable of every- thing, can withstand everything, except the reproduction of life, precisely because he is immediate, sensate life, of which spirit is the negation.
Thus, Sganarelle, as interpreted by Moliére, becomes unex- plainable, a person with an extremely confused character. Once again, the disruptive element here is that Moliére has preserved something of the traditional. Since Don Juan on the whole is a power, this is also manifest in his relation to Lepo- rello. The latter feels drawn to him, overwhelmed by him, is assimilated by him, and becomes merely an organ for his mas- ter’s will. It is precisely this vague, opaque sympathy that makes Leporello a musical person, and it is entirely appropri- ate that he is not capable of detaching himself from Don Juan. It is another matter with Sganarelle. In Moliére, Don Juan is a particular individual, and consequently Sganarelle enters into a relation with him as an individual. Now, if Sganarelle feels indissolubly linked to him, it is no more than a reasonable es- thetic demand to insist on information about how this can be explained. It does not help that Moliére has him declare that he cannot detach himself from him, for the reader or spectator sees no reasonable basis for it, and whether there is a reasona- ble basis is precisely the issue here. Leporello’s inconstancy is well motivated in the opera, because in his relation to Don Juan he is closer to being an individual consciousness, and therefore the Don Juanian life is reflected differently in him, al- though he still is not really able to penetrate it. In Moliére, Sganarelle is also sometimes worse, sometimes better, than Don Juan, but it becomes incomprehensible that he does not leave him, since he does not even receive his wages. If anyone imagines a unity in Sganarelle comparable to the sympathetic musical vagueness Leporello has in the opera, there is no alter- native except to admit that this is biased foolishness. Here again is an example of how the musical must be featured in or- der that Don Juan can be interpreted in his true ideality. The defect in Moliére is not that he has interpreted him comically but that he has not been correct.
94 114 Either/Or, I Moliére’s Don Juan is also a seducer, but the piece gives us only a poor idea of it. That Elvira in Moliére’s play is Don Juan’s wife is without a doubt very appropriately designed with a view to the comic effect. It is immediately apparent that one is dealing with an ordinary person who uses promises of marriage to deceive a girl. Elvira thereby loses all the ideal stance she has in the opera, where she counters with no weapon other than that of offended womanhood, whereas here we imagine her with her marriage documents, and Don Juan loses the seductive ambiguity of being a young man and an experienced husband—that is, experienced in all ventures outside marriage. How he deceived Elvira, by what means he lured her out of the convent, all this we presumably are to learn from a few of Sganarelle’s lines, but since the seduction scene that occurs in the play does not give us an occasion to admire Don Juan’s art, confidence in those reports is naturally weakened. Insofar as Moliére’s Don Juan is comic, this was in- deed unnecessary; but since he himself still wants to have us understand that his Don Juan actually is the hero Don Juan, who has infatuated Elvira and murdered the Commander, the mistake in Moliére is readily apparent. Then, however, one is also made to reflect on whether this really was not due to the impossibility of portraying Don Juan as a seducer without the aid of music, unless, as noted above, one enters the psychological, which, again, cannot readily acquire dramatic interest. Furthermore, in Moliére, one does not hear him as he infat- uates the two young girls, Mathurine and Charlotte; the infa- tuation occurs offstage. Since here in turn Moliére has us con- jecture that Don Juan has given them promises of marriage, one again has only mediocre thoughts about his talent. To de- ceive a girl with a promise of marriage is a very inferior art, and because someone is small enough to do that, it certainly does not follow that he is great enough to be called Don Juan. The only scene that seems to be intended to depict Don Juan for us in his seductive, yet scarcely tempting, activity is the scene with Charlotte.*®’ But to tell a young peasant girl that she is beautiful, that she has sparkling eyes, to ask her to turn around so that one can look at her shape,®* does not betray anything extraordinary in Don Juan but betrays a lecherous The Immediate Erotic Stages 115 fellow who looks at a young girl the way a trader looks at a horse. Admittedly the scene does have a comic effect, and if it was supposed to have only that, I would not discuss it here. But since this, his notorious venture, has no relation to the many affairs he must have had, this scene in turn contributes directly or indirectly to showing the imperfection of the com- edy. Moliére seems to have wanted to make something more of him, seems to have wanted to maintain the ideal in him, but he lacks the medium, and thus everything that actually occurs is rather insignificant. On the whole, it may be said that in Moliére’s Don Juan we come to know only historically that he is a seducer; it is not made visible dramatically. The scene in which he shows himself most active is the scene with Char- lotte and Mathurine,®? where he leads both of them on with talk and continually makes each one think that she is the one he has promised to marry. But what draws our interest here is not his seductive art but a very ordinary theatrical intrigue.
In conclusion, I perhaps can illuminate what has been dis- cussed here with a comment frequently heard: that Moliére’s Don Juan is more moral than Mozart’s Don Giovanni. But pre- cisely this, properly understood, is high praise of the opera. In the opera, not only is there talk about a seducer, but Don Juan is a seducer, and it cannot be denied that in every detail the mu- sic often can be seductive enough. But so it ought to be, and this is precisely its greatness. Therefore, to say that the opera is immoral is fatuous and comes only from people who do not understand how to interpret a totality but are trapped by de- tails. The definitive aim of the opera is highly moral, and the impression it leaves is altogether beneficent, because every- thing is large-scale, everything has genuine, unadorned pa- thos, the passion of desire no less than the passion of earnest- ness, the passion of enjoyment no less than the passion of anger.
3. The Inner Musical Construction of the Opera Although the heading of this section must be regarded as al- ready adequately enlightening, I nevertheless shall take the precaution of noting that it naturally is not my intention at all 95 96 116 Either/Or, I to make an esthetic assessment of the piece Don Giovanni or to trace the dramatic structure of the text. One must always be careful about taking something apart in this way, especially if it is a classic production. I repeat again here what I have already frequently emphasized in the foregoing discussion—that Don Juan can be expressed only musically; this I myself have learned essentially through the music, and for this reason I ought to take care in every way lest it seem that the music lends a hand in an extraneous manner. If the matter is treated in that way, then for my part the music in this opera may be admired as much as one wishes—its absolute meaning has not been grasped. However talented Hotho’s exposition is other- wise, he has not kept himself free of this kind of false abstrac- tion, and therefore it cannot be regarded as satisfactory. His style, his exposition, and his reproduction are lively and stir- ring; his categories are indefinite and nebulous; his interpreta- tion of Don Giovanni is not permeated by one thought but is disintegrated into many. For him Don Giovanni is a seducer. But even this category is indefinite, and yet it must be specified in what sense he is that, as I have tried to do. Many things that are true in themselves are said about this seducer; but since general conceptions are permitted to be much too prevalent here, such a seducer readily becomes so reflective that he ceases to be absolutely musical. He goes through the piece scene by scene; his account is refreshingly leavened by his individuality, in a few places perhaps a bit too much. When this happens, there frequently follow sympathetic outpourings on how beautifully and richly and profusely Mozart has expressed all this. But this lyrical rapture over Mozart’s music is not enough, and however well it suits the man, and however beautifully he knows how to express himself, Mozart’s Don Giovanni is not acknowledged in its absolute validity by this interpretation. This acknowledgment is what I am striving for, because this acknowledgment is identical with the proper insight into what constitutes the subject of this investigation. Therefore, my aim is to make the subject of consideration not the whole opera but the opera in its totality, not to discuss the individual parts separately but as far as possible to incorporate