The Immediate Erotic Stages 117 them into the whole, to see them not as detached from the whole but integrated in it.
In a drama, the main interest is naturally concentrated on what is called the hero of the piece; in relation to him, the other characters take on only subordinate and relative importance. But the more the inward reflection in the drama permeates with its power of distinguishing, the more the subordinate characters also take on a kind of relative absoluteness, if I dare put it that way. This is not a defect at all but is rather a merit, just as the view of the world that can see only the few out- standing individuals and their importance in world develop- ment, but does not become aware of the subordinates, cer- tainly ranks higher in one sense but is lower than that which includes the lesser in its equally great validity. The dramatist will succeed in this only to the degree that nothing incommen- surable is left over, nothing of the mood from which the drama emerges, that is, nothing of the mood qua mood, but everything is converted into the dramatic sacred coin:™ action and situation. To the degree that the dramatist is successful in this, to the same degree the total impact left by his work will be less a mood than a thought, an idea. The more the total im- pact of a drama is a mood, the more sure one can be that the poet himself has had a presentiment of it as mood and has suc- cessively allowed it to come into existence from that and has not apprehended it in the idea and allowed this to unfold dramatically. A drama of that kind suffers from an abnormal pre- ponderance of the lyrical. In a drama, this is a defect, but it is by no means a defect in an opera. The unity in an opera is pre- served by the dominant tone that sustains the whole.
What has been said here about the total dramatic effect holds also for the separate parts of a drama. If I were to characterize in a single word the effect of the drama insofar as this differs from the effect of any other kind of literature, 1 would say: Drama works through the contemporaneous. In drama, I see the mutually isolated elements together in the situation, in the unity of action. The more isolated the distinct elements are, the more profoundly the dramatic situation is permeated by reflection, the less the dramatic unity will be a mood and the 97 98 118 Either/Or, I more it will be a specific thought. But just as the totality of the opera cannot be permeated by reflection in a way found in drama proper, this is also the case with the musical situation, which admittedly is dramatic but nevertheless has its unity in the mood. The musical situation has the contemporaneous, as does every dramatic situation, but the effect of the forces is a consonance, a concord, a harmony, and the impact of the mu- sical situation is the unity produced by hearing together that which sounds together. The more the drama is permeated by reflection, the more the mood is transfigured into action. The more minor the action, the more predominant the lyrical ele- ment. In opera, this is altogether appropriate. Opera does not have so much character delineation and action as its immanent objective; it is not sufficiently reflective for that. On the other hand, unreflective, substantial passion finds its expression in opera. The musical situation is constituted by the unity of mood in the discrete plurality of voices [Stemmefleerhed]. This is precisely the distinctive characteristic of music—that it can maintain the plurality of voices in the unity of mood. Ordi- narily when we use the word “‘plurality,’’ we mean a unity that is the final result; in music such is not the case.
The dramatic interest requires swift progress, a stirring tempo, what could be called the law of the immanental accel- eration of a falling object. The more the drama is imbued with reflection, the more unremittingly it hastens on. If, however, the lyrical or the epic element is unilaterally dominant, this ex- presses itself in a kind of anesthetizing that allows the situation to fall asleep and makes the dramatic process and progress sluggish and toilsome. The opera by nature does not have this urgency; it is characterized by a kind of tarrying, a kind of self- extension in time and space. This action does not have the speed of the fall or its direction but moves more horizontally. The mood is not sublimated in character and action. Conse- quently, the action in an opera can be only immediate action.
If we apply all this to the opera Don Giovanni, it will give us occasion to see it in its true classic validity. Don Giovanni is the hero in the opera; the main interest is concentrated upon him; not only that, but he also endows all the other characters The Immediate Erotic Stages 119 with interest. This must not, however, be taken in any exter- nal sense, for the very secret of this opera is that its hero is also the force in the other characters. Don Giovanni’s life is the life principle in them. His passion sets in motion the passion of the others. His passion resonates everywhere; it resonates in and supports the Commendatore’s earnestness, Elvira’s wrath, Anna’s hate, Ottavio’s pomposity, Zerlina’s anxiety, Mazet- to’s indignation, Leporello’s confusion. As the hero in the op- era, Don Giovanni is the denominator of the piece; as the hero gives the name to a piece, as is usually the case, but he is more—he is, if I may put it this way, the common denomi- nator. Compared with his life, the lives of all the others are only derived. If a dominant tone is required for an opera’s unity, it is easy to see that a more perfect subject for an opera than Don Juan is unthinkable. In relation to the forces in the play, the dominant tone can be a third force that sustains these. I cite The White Lady as an example of that kind of opera, but in relation to the opera, such a unity is an additional qualifica- tion of the lyrical. In Don Giovanni, the dominant tone is none other than the basic force in the opera itself; this is Don Gio- vanni, but then he, in turn—precisely because he is not char- acter but essential life—is absolutely musical. The other fig- ures in the opera are not characters, either, but essential passions, which are posited*! by Don Giovanni and to that ex- tent, in turn, become musical. In other words, just as Don Giovanni entwines everybody, so all of them entwine Don Giovanni; they are the external consequences that his life itself continually posits. It is this absolute centrality of Don Gio- vanni’s musical life in the opera that enables it to exercise an unequaled power of illusion, to carry one away into the life that is in the piece. Because of the ubiquity of the musical in this music, one can enjoy a single fragment of it and yet be car- ried away instantly; one arrives in the middle of the perform- ance and instantly one is in the heart of it, for this heart, which is Don Giovanni’s life, is everywhere.
It is a common experience that to strain two senses at the same time is not pleasant, and thus it is often disruptive to have to use the eyes a great deal at the same time as the ears are being 100 120 Either/Or, I used. Therefore, one is inclined to shut the eyes when listening to music. This is more or less true of all music, and in sensu emi- nentiori [in an eminent sense] of Don Giovanni. As soon as the eyes are involved, the impression is disrupted, for the dramatic unity that presents itself to the eye is altogether subordinate and deficient in comparison with the musical unity that is heard simultaneously. My own experience has convinced me of this. I have sat close to the front;92 | have moved back more and more; I have sought a remote corner in the theater in order to be able to hide myself completely in this music. The better I understood it or thought I understood it, the further I moved away from it—not out of coldness but out of love, for it wants to be understood at a distance. There has been something strangely enigmatic about this in my life. There have been times when I would have given everything for a ticket; now I do not even need to pay one rix-dollar for a ticket. I stand out- side in the corridor; I lean against the partition that shuts me off from the spectators’ seats. Then it affects me most power- fully; it is a world by itself, separated from me; I can see noth- ing but am close enough to hear and yet so infinitely far away. Since the main characters in an opera do not need to be so permeated by reflection that they become transparent as char- acters, it also follows from this, as was emphasized earlier, that the situation cannot be perfectly developed or full-blown but to a certain degree is sustained by a mood. The same is true of the action in an opera. Action in the strict sense of the word, action undertaken with a consciousness of the goal, cannot be expressed in music, but what one could call immediate action certainly can. Both are the case in Don Giovanni. The action is immediate action; on this point may I refer to my earlier dis- cussion of the sense in which Don Giovanni is a seducer. Because the action is immediate action, it is also entirely ap- propriate that irony is so prevalent in this piece, for irony is and remains the disciplinarian of the immediate life.?> To cite just one example, the Commendatore’s reappearance™ is enor- mously ironic, for Don Giovanni can surmount any obstruc- tion, but a ghost, as we all know, cannot be slain.” The situa- tion is sustained all the way through by the mood. On this The Immediate Erotic Stages 121 point, may I recall Don Giovanni's significance for the whole opera and for the commensurate existence of the other char- acters in relation to him.
I shall indicate what I mean by discussing a single situation in more detail. For that, I choose Elvira’s first aria.°° The or- chestra plays the overture; Elvira” enters. The passion raging in her breast must find release, and her song avails her. But, strictly speaking, this would be far too lyrical to be a situation; her aria then would be similar to the monologue in a drama. The only difference would be that the monologue comes clos- est to expressing the universal individually, the aria to express- ing the individual universally. But, to repeat, that would be too little for a situation. Therefore, the case is otherwise. In the background, we see Don Giovanni and Leporello in tense ex- pectation that the woman they have already seen at the win- dow will come forward. Now, if this were a drama, the situ- ation would not be composed of Elvira standing in the foreground and Don Giovanni in the background but would be composed of the unexpected encounter. The interest would center in the way Don Giovanni would escape from it. In the opera, the encounter also has its significance, but a very minor one. The encounter is to be seen; the musical situation is to be heard. The unity in the situation is the concordance in which Elvira and Don Giovanni sound simultaneously. Thus it is quite proper for Don Giovanni to keep himself in the back- ground as much as possible, for he should be unseen, not only by Elvira but also by the spectator.
Elvira’s aria begins. I do not know how to describe her pas- sion other than as love’s hate, a mixed but nevertheless sono- rous, resonant passion. She is inwardly agitated; she has found release. She becomes faint for a moment in the way every pas- sionate outburst makes one weak—there is a pause in the mu- sic. But her inner agitation sufficiently indicates that her pas- sion still has not found adequate outlet; the diaphragm of wrath must be shaken even more powerfully. But what can evoke this tremor, what provocation? It can be only one thing: Don Giovanni’s mockery. Therefore Mozart has utilized the pause—would that I were a Greek, for then I would say he 101 102 122 Either/Or, I used it quite divinely—to hurl in Giovanni’s mockery. Now her passion flames up more powerfully, explodes even more violently within her, and bursts forth in sound. This is re- peated once again; then her inner being trembles, then her wrath and pain burst forth like a stream of lava in the familiar run with which the aria ends.
Here one sees what I mean when I say that Don Giovanni resonates in Elvira, that it is something more than a phrase. The spectator should not see Don Giovanni, should not see him together with Elvira in the unity of the situation; he should hear him in Elvira, through Elvira, for it is indeed Don Giovanni who is singing, but he sings in such a way that the more developed the spectator’s ear, the more it seems to him as if it came from Elvira herself. Indignation, just like love, creates its object. She is obsessed with Don Giovanni. This pause and Don Giovanni’s voice make the situation dramatic, but the unity in Elvira’s passion in which Don Giovanni reso- nates, while her passion is nevertheless posited by Don Gio- vanni, makes the situation musical.* Viewed as a musical situation, the situation is matchless. But if Don Giovanni is a character and Elvira equally so, the situation is a failure; it is wrong to have Elvira pouring out her heart” in the foreground and Don Giovanni mocking in the * In my opinion, Elvira’s aria and the situation ought to be interpreted as follows. Don Giovanni’s unparalleled irony ought not to be kept outside El- vira’s substantial passion but should be concealed in it. They must be heard together. *Just as the speculative eye sees things together, so the speculative ear hears things together. I will take an example from the purely physical world. When a person standing on a high point gazes out over a flat region and sees several roads running parallel to one another, he will, ifhe lacks intuition, see only the roads, and the fields between them will seem to disappear, or he will see only the fields, and the roads will disappear; however, he who has an intuitive eye will see them together, will see the whole section as striped. So also with the ear. What I have said here applies, of course, to the musical sit- uation; the dramatic situation has the added element that the spectator knows that it is Don Giovanni who is standing in the background and Elvira in the foreground. Now, if I assume that the spectator is aware of their earlier rela- tionship (something the spectator cannot know at first), the situation gains much, but one will also perceive that if the accent should fall here, then it would be wrong to keep them apart so long.
The Immediate Erotic Stages 123 background. Then it is required that I hear them together, yet without provision of the means for it, and although both of them are characters, they could not possibly harmonize that way. If they are characters, then the encounter is the situation.
It was pointed out above that in opera the dramatic haste, the acceleration of the preliminary run, is not required as in drama, that here the situation may be enlarged upon a little. But at the same time this must not deteriorate into a continu- ous standstill. To give an example of the true middle course, I can underline the situation I just discussed, not as if it were the only one in Don Giovanni or the very best—on the contrary, they are all like this and all perfect—but because the reader has this one most clearly in mind. And yet I tread on dubious ground here, for I confess that there are two arias that must be left out; however perfect they are in themselves, they never- theless have a disruptive and delaying effect. I would just as soon keep this a secret, but it cannot be helped—the truth must come out. If they are removed, all the rest is just as perfect. The one is Ottavio’s, the other, Anna’s; both of them are more concert numbers than dramatic music, inasmuch as Ottavio and Anna on the whole have roles much too minor to dare to halt the movement. Remove them, and the rest of the opera has perfect musical-dramatic pace, perfect as no other is.
It would be well worth the trouble to go through each par- ticular situation one by one, not to escort it with exclamation marks, but to show its significance, its validity as a musical sit- uation. But this lies outside the boundary of the present little inquiry. Here it was especially important to emphasize Don Giovanni’s centrality in the whole opera. Something similar recurs with respect to the particular situations.
I would like to explain somewhat more explicitly the just- mentioned centrality of Don Giovanni in the opera by consid- ering the other characters in the piece in their relation to him. Just as in the solar system the dark bodies that receive their light from the central sun are always only half-luminous, that is, luminous on the side turned to the sun, so it is also with the characters in this piece. Only that part of life, the side that is turned toward Don Giovanni, is illuminated; otherwise they 103 124 Either/Or, I are obscure and opaque. This must not be taken in the narrow sense, as if each of these characters were some abstract passion, as if Anna, for example, were hate, Zerlina, irresponsibility. Such insipidity does not belong here at all. The passion in the individual is concrete, but concrete in itself, not concrete in the personality, or, to express myself more specifically, the rest of the personality is devoured by this passion. Now this is abso- lutely right, because it is an opera we are discussing. This ob- scurity, this partly sympathetic, partly antipathetic secret af- finity with Don Giovanni makes them all musical and makes the whole opera harmonize in Don Giovanni. The only char- acter in the piece who seems to constitute an exception is, of course, the Commendatore, but therefore it is also so sagely designed that he to some degree lies outside the piece or limits it. The more the Commendatore would be drawn to the fore- ground, the more the opera would cease to be absolutely mu- sical. Therefore, he is continually kept in the background and as nebulous as possible. The Commendatore is the vigorous antecedent clause and the outspoken consequent clause, be- tween which lies Don Giovanni’s intermediate clause, but the rich content of this intermediate clause is the substance of the opera. The Commendatore appears only two times. The first time it is night; it is in the background of the theater; we cannot see him, but we hear him fall before Don Giovanni’s ra- pier. Already at the very outset his earnestness, which is made all the more manifest by Don Giovanni's caricaturing mock- ery, something Mozart has superbly expressed in music—al- ready at the very outset his earnestness is too profound to be human; before he dies, he is spirit. The second time he appears as spirit, and the thundering voice of heaven sounds in his ear- nest, solemn voice. But just as he himself is transfigured, so his voice is transfigured into something more than a human voice; he no longer speaks, he passes judgment.
Obviously the most important character in the piece, next to Don Giovanni, is Leporello. His relation to his master is in- telligible precisely through the music, unintelligible without it. If Don Giovanni is a reflective personality, then Leporello becomes almost an even greater knave than Giovanni is, and it The Immediate Erotic Stages 125 becomes unintelligible that Don Giovanni can exercise so much power over him, and the only remaining motive is that he can pay him more than all the others, a motive that even Moliére does not seem to have wanted to use, since he allows Don Juan to be in financial straits. But if we hold fast to Don Giovanni as immediate life, then it is easy to understand that he can exercise a decisive influence on Leporello, that he assim- ilates him so that he can almost become an organ for Don Gio- vanni. In a certain sense, Leporello is closer to being a personal consciousness than Don Giovanni. In order to become that, however, he himself would have to clarify his relation to Don Giovanni; but he cannot do that, he cannot break the spell. Here again it holds true that as soon as Leporello has speaking lines he must become transparent to us. Furthermore, in Le- porello’s relation to Don Giovanni there is something erotic, there is a power with which he enthralls Leporello even against his will. But in this ambiguity he is musical, and Don Gio- vanni constantly resonates in him—something of which I shall later give an example to show that this is more than a phrase.
With the exception of the Commendatore, all the characters stand in a kind of erotic relation to Don Giovanni. He cannot exercise any power over the Commendatore, who is con- sciousness; the others are in his power. Elvira loves him, and thereby she is in his power; Anna hates him, and thereby she is in his power; Zerlina fears him, and thereby she is in his power. Ottavio and Mazetto go along for the sake of kinship, for the ties of blood are tender.
Looking back for a moment over what has been developed here, the reader will perhaps perceive how here again the re- lation of the idea of Don Juan to the musical has been devel- oped from many sides, how this relation is constitutive of the whole opera, how this is repeated in its several parts.
I could very well stop here, but for the sake of greater com- pleteness I shall elucidate this relation by going through a few specific parts. The choice will not be arbitrary. I choose for this the overture, which certainly best gives the dominant tone of the opera in a compact concentration; I choose next the most epic and the most lyrical part in the piece in order to 104 I 105 126 Either/Or, I show how even in the outer limits the perfection of the opera is preserved, the musical-dramatic is sustained, how it is Don Giovanni who musically carries the opera.
This is not the place to explain the overall importance the overture has for the opera; here it can only be emphasized that opera’s requirement of an overture demonstrates sufficiently the predominance of the lyrical, and that the intended effect is to evoke a mood, something that drama cannot get involved with, since everything there must be transparent. Therefore, it is appropriate that the overture is composed last so that the artist himself can be really saturated with the music. Hence, the overture generally provides a profound glimpse into the composer and his psychical relation to his music. If he fails to catch in it that which is central, if he does not have a more pro- found rapport with the basic mood of the opera, then this will unmistakably betray itself in the overture; then it becomes an assemblage of the salient points interlaced with a loose associ- ation of ideas but not the totality that contains, as it really should, the most penetrating elucidation of the content of the music. An overture of that sort is usually also very arbitrary, that is, it can be as long or as short as desired, and the cohesive element, the continuity (since it is no more than an association of ideas), can be spun out as long as desired. Therefore the overture frequently is a dangerous temptation for minor com- posers; that is, they are easily prompted to plagiarize them- selves, steal from their own pockets, which can have a very disruptive effect. Although it is obvious that the overture should not have the same content as the opera, it of course should not contain something altogether different. Indeed, it should have the same content as the opera, but in another way; it should contain it in a central way, and with the full power of what is central it should grip the listener.
In this respect, the ever admired overture to Don Giovanni is and remains a perfect masterpiece, so if no other proof of the classic quality of Don Giovanni could be made, it would be suf- ficient to make this one point, the inconceivability that the one who had the center would not have the periphery also. This overture is no mingling together [Mellemhverandre™] of The Immediate Erotic Stages 127 themes; it is not a labyrinthian interlacing of associations of ideas; it is concise, defined, strongly structured, and, above all, impregnated with the essence of the whole opera. It is pow- erful like a god’s idea, turbulent like a world’s life, harrowing in its earnestness, palpitating in its desire, crushing in its ter- rible wrath, animating in its full-blooded joy; it is hollow- toned in its judgment, shrill in its lust; it is ponderous, cere- monious in its awe-inspiring dignity; it is stirring, flaring, dancing in its delight. And this it has not attained by sucking the blood of the opera; on the contrary, it is rather a prophecy in its relation to the opera. In the overture, the music unfurls its total range; with a few powerful wing beats it soars above itself, as it were, floats above the place where it will descend. It is a struggle, but a struggle in the higher atmosphere. To anyone hearing the overture after he has become more familiar with the opera, it may seem as if he had penetrated the hidden workshop where the forces he has learned to identify in the op- era move with a primitive power, where they wrestle with one another with all their might. The contest, however, is too un- even; before the battle one force is already the victor. It flees and escapes, but this flight is precisely its passion, its burning restlessness in its brief joy of life, the pounding pulse in its passionate ardor. It thereby sets the other force in motion and car- ries it along with itself. This, which at first seemed so unshak- ably firm that it was practically immovable, must now be off, and soon the movement is so swift that it seems like an actual conflict.
To develop this any further is not feasible; here the point is to listen to the music, for this is not a conflict of words but an elemental fury. I must only call attention to what was dis- cussed earlier, that the interest of the opera is Don Giovanni, not Don Giovanni and the Commendatore—this is already ap- parent in the overture. Mozart seems to have deliberately de- signed it in such a way that the deep voice that rings out in the beginning gradually becomes weaker and weaker, almost loses, as it were, its majestic bearing, must hurry to keep pace with the demonic speed that evades it and yet almost attains the power to disgrace it by sweeping it into a race in the brev- 107 128 Either/Or, I ity of the moment. This gradually creates the transition to the opera itself. Consequently, the finale must be regarded as closely related to the first part of the overture. In the finale, the earnestness comes to itself again, whereas in the rogress of the overture it seemed to be beside itself. Now there is no question of running a race with lust; earnestness returns and thereby has cut off every way of escape to a new race.
Therefore, although in one sense the overture is independ- ent, in another sense it is to be regarded as a running start to the opera. I have tried to point this out earlier by refreshing the reader’s recollection of the gradual weakening with which the one force approaches the beginning of the work. The same thing is manifest when one observes the other force—that is, it gradually increases; it begins in the overture, grows and in- creases. Particularly the beginning of it is admirably ex- pressed. We hear it so faintly, so cryptically suggested. We hear it, but it is over so swiftly that it seems as if we had heard something we had not heard. It requires an alert ear, an erotic ear, to notice the first time a hint is given in the overture of the light play of this desire that is so richly expressed later in all its lavish profusion. Since [am not a music expert, I cannot punc- tiliously designate this place; but I am writing, after all, only for lovers, and they presumably will understand me, some of them better than I understand myself. But I am content with my allotted share, with this enigmatic love affair, and al- though I otherwise thank the gods that I became a man and not a woman,'®! Mozart’s music has taught me that it is beautiful and refreshing and abundant to love as a woman loves.