Madamina - Commentary

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 seduced by Don Giovanni, might be a last remnant of the original 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 conveys 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 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."