Customer Reviews

Imagining Don Giovanni: A Novel

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Using an actual meeting between Casanova and Mozart in October of 1787 Anthony Rudel has imagined a creative, witty and enthralling story of that day and time. The then 62-year-old Casanova and 31-year-old Mozart, so it is believed, met in a Prague coffeehouse to discuss a groundbreaking new opera based on the life of Don Juan, Don Giovanni.

Add to this pair the poet and opera's librettist, Leonardo Da Ponte, another iron willed individual. At the last minute, just as the royally decreed date for the opera's opening performance nears, Mozart and La Ponte disagree - in spades. Work on the opera stops until Casanova arrives with countless stories and eyebrow-raising ideas. As if this cast of characters were not exciting enough - enter the Marquis de Sade.

Rudel's tale takes readers on a tour of Prague, one of the 18th century's most entrancing cities. We visit its elegant society balls, its country inns, and are privy to the thoughts Mozart's wife, Constanze, who seems smitten with the zealous and somewhat overpowering Casanova.

A blend of fact and fiction has worked extremely well in countless novels. With "Imagining Don Giovanni" it is a memorable accomplishment.

I love opera, I love Mozart, I love Prague and I'm intrigued by Casanova, so I really loved this book. It centers around the premier of Mozart's opera, Don Giovanni in Prague in 1787.

The author tells us that Don Giovanni was inspired by none other than Casanova, himself, who set up a meeting with Mozart in a Prague coffeehouse in an attempt to "sell" the great composer on the idea of basing an opera around the figure of Don Juan. That part is factual...I think. That and the characters, dates and delays in staging the opera. The rest of this marvelous book centers around imagined happenings, all contrived to urge Mozart to produce and bring Don Giovanni to fruition.

There are three main characters in this book: Mozart, of course, Casanova, and Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's long suffering librettist. All three main characters are wonderfully drawn, but just as wonderfully drawn are the "minor" characters, who really aren't so minor at all.

One of the best of these "minor" characters is Mozart's wife, Constanze, or "Stanzi," as Mozart called her. Stanzi had a few secrets of her own to prod Mozart to work and she often had use them.

Josefa Dusek, the singer, and her husband make appearances in the novel when they host the elaborate parties Mozart loved to attend. The party the night before the opera's premier is especially memorable. Opera lovers will recognize the garden scene in Act Four of The Marriage of Figaro, but this only adds to the whimsy of the book rather than detracting from it. This party night is a night of high tension as well as fun, for Mozart has yet to finish the opera's Overture and more than one character is more than a little anxious.

Even the Marquis de Sade manages to make an appearance, of sorts, in this book. Locked away in Paris, he answers a letter from Casanova and gives his own advice on living a life totally without limits. You can imagine what that advice might consist of. If anything in this book can be construed as being "over the top," it is this, but then Mozart was a genius who was, much of the time, "over the top," himself. I think it is completely within the character of the book to include de Sade and I enjoyed it.

Although Mozart does take center stage in this novel, as he should, he gets stiff competition from Casanova. In his sixties at the time, Casanova may have slowed down a bit, but he is still quite thoroughly a rake. Beautiful women seem to abound in Prague and Casanova seems to make it his quest to know them all, or most of them at least, and to let others know the details of his conquests.

I'm an eastern European and I've spent many happy days and nights in Prague. I loved Rudel's detail of Prague city life as well as his detail of the premier, itself. The details are, in large part, what make this book so charming.

The best thing about this book, however, is the wonderful and loving portrait it paints of Mozart, himself. Rudel has managed to capture Mozart in all his genius and all his whimsy. We see him as he no doubt was...an extraordinary composer, the likes of which the world will never see again, and a man who took tremendous joy in the simple pleasure of life.

This is a gorgeous and fun book, but I don't think it's right for everyone, or even the majority of readers. I do think one has to be a fan of Mozart or of opera to obtain the maximum enjoyment from "Imagining Don Giovanni." If you're an opera fan, like I am, I would certainly recommend this book. While it might not stay with you forever, it will certainly entertain you for a few hours and make your life more pleasant. And, it just might leave you wanting more of Mozart.

I write historical novels, and this novel is everything I look for in a novel when I read one--and everything I aspire to when I write one! It's purely entertaining; historical fiction at its finest. Mozart is characterized as a wonderful blend of naivete and the immortal genius he was; a multi-dimensional character just delightful to read about, especially if you're a fan of Mozart's and have read other biographies of him. I had read that Casanova actually did assist Mozart & DaPonte in the creation of Don Giovanni, and other historical details were very well researched. To me, the best historical novels contain factual information so that the reader can learn a bit about the time period, even if most of the plot is fictionalized. If this were made into a movie, it would blow Amadeus right out of the water!
Now Anthony Rudel has another talent to add to his list--novelist. If this is a debut, it was outstanding. Extraordinary work, Mr. Rudel! Keep them coming! (How about a Beethoven bio now???)

Aside from the fact that I now have to go buy a recording of Don Giovanni, this is a terrific book. Mozart and his librettist are under the gun to get their production going and seek advice from the then-premier womanizer in the history of the world, Casanova. After all, who better to advise on staging and dramatizing the nuances and perils of seduction? But the best aspect of the book, for me, were the atmosphere and details in the settings -- the genteel yet dramatic interplay between the characters and the dynamics that move the story forward. It's all rendered with a touching affection and respect for the characters and their times. Lovely.

It's hard to write a review and make a novel appealing without revealing too much about the facts. Instead, let me emphasize how the author takes us back in time, across the ocean, and then brings us into the stratified air of one of the greatest musical minds of the ages.
I read this book late at night, and I found myself wholly immersed in the descriptions and dialogue of a very special age. Rudel must have done tremendous research to get the feel of his characters and his settings. I was very impressed with this work, and I hope to read more from this author.

This imagined chronicle of Mozart's life in Prague leading up to the debut of Don Giovanni is a pleasure. I'm not enough of a historian to know about the accuracy of some of the book's details, but the writing is breezy and engaging, as is the story. It's a relaxing, incredibly affectionate look at Mozart's relationships with his wife, librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, and -- in an interesting twist -- Casanova, who assists both with the staging of the opera and with romantic intrigues that weave through the plot. It's also an engaging tour of the social practices and mores of the time. And it's a lot of fun. Of course, I had to go out and buy the opera afterwards, so beware of getting lured into the entire subject. My only wish is that there had been a discography to suggest great recordings.

This clever book is historical fiction at its best. It takes interesting characters of an era and brings them together in a "What if?" scenario. I found a lot of information about writing operas, Mozart, Cassanova and the era in general slipping in as I was engrossed in enjoying a delightful story.