About this Piece

The plot adapted by Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte was already centuries old in 1786; its elements - a ghostly statue and an unrepentant libertine - were even older. The opera is animated by the dramatic tension between comedy and tragedy: where they are opposed, where they overlap, and where it is impossible to distinguish between them. Mozart makes full use of this tension in the overture, which, in a departure from the standard practice of the day, plays a dramatic function. Opening D-minor chords immediately set the tone, and, indeed, will announce the appearance of the vengeful statue in the opera's finale. Thus, even as the ominous beginning gives way to a more conventional sonata form, the listener's consciousness has already been formed, and the subsequent vivacious themes acquire added depth and texture.

- Susan Key is a musicologist and frequent contributor to Los Angeles Philharmonic programs.