‘Every Carnival Has Its End’

“With blondes, he praises their gentleness; with brunettes, their faithfulness…. The large ones he calls majestic, the little ones charming.” So Don Giovanni’s manservant, Leporello, tells the jilted Donna Elvira. Then the knife twist: “But his greatest passion is the young virgin.”  The exchange neatly captures the ambivalence and amorality of Mozart’s seducer. Don Giovanni, […]