The Vienna <I>Don Giovanni</I>

Aspects of Don Giovanni's compositional history are uncovered and the study provides for detailed evidence with which to evaluate Da Ponte's recollections. The essential truth of his account - that the revision of the opera in Vienna was an interactive process - seems to be fully borne out. A general theory of transmission is proposed, which clarifies the relationship between the fluid text produced by re-creation and the static text generated by replication.