Power and Seduction

This volume opens a new series by the Don Juan Archiv Wien: Don Juan Studies, dedicated to the topic of Don Juan as a fascinating cultural subject of literature and theatre from the early 17th century up to the present day. Da Ponte’s and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Prague 1787) was performed in New York for the first time in 1826, twenty-one years after Da Ponte emigrated to the United States. In that same year in New York Da Ponte published Tre drammi, namely Don Giovanni, Figaro (Vienna 1786) and Axur (Vienna 1788), whose libretti explore the themes of power and seduction in different and subtle ways. This book investigates the dissemination and cultural transfer of these three operas, and especially the way in which Don Giovanni was received in North America, with particular attention to the specific social and cultural conditions Da Ponte encountered in the New World.