I just finished writing a new two-character play: “The Rake’s Visit: A One-Act Capriccio on a Theme from Don Giovanni.” It is a revisionist take on Mozart’s opera, his wife Constanze, and especially the notorious adventurer Giacomo Casanova. You can download the entire play by clicking here.

Here’s a synopsis:

Prague, 1787: It is the night before the scheduled world premiere of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. The aging roué Giacomo Casanova has read the libretto by his libertine friend Lorenzo Da Ponte—and he hates it. He goes to Mozart’s lodgings hoping to rewrite it, only to find that Mozart wants nothing to do with him. But Mozart’s wife, Constanze, is intrigued by the legendary rake, and the two of them pass the night in the “alchemical brandy” of storytelling.

This exchange between Constanze and Giocamo takes place early in the play …

GIACOMO.
(thumbing through the libretto)
Would you help me … to fix this dreadful libretto?
Or just a little bit of it, at least?
Maybe just an aria or two?
If you don’t mind very much?
I’d hate to have squandered both my time and yours
with nothing to show for it.

CONSTANZE.
What’s wrong with it?

GIACOMO.
Well, obviously it’s an abomination.
I knew it would be vile, but hadn’t expected—this,
not even from Lorenzo,
who is shameless as only a priest may be
(and, oh, I can assure you,
he was even worse before he was defrocked).
What he has done here with the Don Juan legend …
well, he has cast to the winds
the abundant moral lessons of Tirso and Molière
out of sheer infatuation with this scoundrel.
Giovanni is the lying looking-glass
that shows Lorenzo as he loves to see himself—
a rake of irresistible allure;
his very villainy flatters men’s dreams of debauchery,
of what they might do were their desires untethered
from decency or respect for womankind.
Oh, of course, in the end Giovanni does get swallowed up by hell and all—
the traditional perfunctory comeuppance
to lend an obligatory veneer of redeeming moral value.
But believe me, if you knew Lorenzo as I do—
well, he considers an eternity of hellfire
a paltry price to pay for a lifetime of glutting his earthly appetites
and ruining the lives of myriad ladies.

CONSTANZE.
Aren’t you a fine one to talk about ruining ladies’ lives?

GIACOMO.
My dear Frau Mozart,
of the thousands of women
who have conquered my heart and eyes and loins,
I challenge you to find one—
even one—
whose life I have ruined,
or one still living
with whom I do not remain on the most cordial terms
even after many years.
I am not a deceiver,
nor have I ever been deceived;
I have never been unfaithful,
nor have I ever been betrayed;
I have lived a happy life,
and I have generously shared my happiness.
Friendship is my categorical imperative—
I treat every woman I meet as an end in herself
and for herself,
not as a means toward an end.
For you see, the pleasures of flesh upon flesh are brief
and all the sweeter for it,
while friendship—
ah, friendship!—
is eternal—
but only when it really lasts!

—Wim