Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/219

 DON JUAN DONNE 211 duced in 1818 his first opera, Enrico di Bor- gogna. Several other works followed, and in 1822 his Zoraide di Granata, produced in Kome, procured him his discharge from the army. His works now succeeded each other with great rapidity, and in 1827 he accepted an engagement with the director of the thea- tres at Naples, to write four operas a year, two serious and two buffo, for four years. In 1830, when his Anna Bolena was produced at Milan, he had written 31 operas, nearly all of which were moderately successful. At this time Bel- lini appeared, and Donizetti, who had hitherto been a professed imitator of Rossini, modi- fied his style by borrowing somewhat of the pathos of his young contemporary. He went to Paris in 1835 to compete with him, but without success, his Marino Faliero being eclipsed by Bellini's Puritani. He returned to Naples, and in six weeks composed his Lu- cia di Lammermoor, the success of which con- soled him for his disappointment. In 1840 he returned to Paris, and brought out Les mar- tyrs, La favorita, and La Jille du regiment. The reputation acquired by these and other works procured him the appointment of pro- fessor of counterpoint at the royal college of music in Naples, and of chapelmaster and com- poser to the court of Vienna. His last operas were Don Sebastien (produced at Paris in 1843, which he wrote out in two months, re- marking at the close of his labors, " Don Se- bastien will be the death of me ") and Cata- rina Cornaro, produced at Naples in 1844. Soon afterward a mental affection, the result of early habits of dissipation and of excessive application, compelled him to abstain from work, and for the last few years of his life he was the inmate of a lunatic asylum. In addi- tion to the works specified, he composed Lu- crezia Borgia (Milan, 1833), Linda di Cha- mounix (Vienna, 1842), Don Pasquale (Paris, 1843), and Maria di Rohan (Vienna, 1843). He produced more than 60 operas, most of which, in consequence of the haste and careless- ness with which he wrote, have sunk into ob- scurity. In the fulness and variety of his melo- dies, and in his appreciation of dramatic fit- ness in single or concerted scenes, he stands almost unrivalled, and some of his works will probably long retain their hold upon popular favor. His facility was such that he was known to write out the score of an opera in two days. _ BOBT JUAN, a mythical personage, a type of licentiousness and dissipation, accomplished and wicked, represented with all the graces which win woman's heart, and all the snares which beguile woman's virtue. According to tradition, the patrician family Tenorio of Seville was the first to produce a Don Juan sufficiently remarkable to become the repre- sentative man of the order. His life is placed by some legends in the 14th century under the reign of Pedro the Cruel, and by others in the 16th century in the era of Charles V. He is represented to have been in the act of abduct- ing a daughter of the governor of Seville when caught by her father ; a duel ensued, in which the governor was slain. A statue having been erected to the deceased in the family vault in the convent of San Francisco, Don Juan enters the vault and invites the statue to join him in his revels. The stony guest appears at the banquet to the great amazement of Don Juan, and terminates the festivity by consigning his entertainer to the infernal regions. The story was first dramatized at the beginning of the 17th century by the Spanish poet Gabriel Tellez, commonly called Tirso de Molina, un- der the title of El burlador de Sevilla, 6 el conrnvado de piedra. This drama, soon after its publication, was adapted for the Italian stage, and thence found its way to Paris, where it became the basis of several French adaptations, of which Moliere's Don Juan, ou le festin de pierre, and Thomas Corneille's production, modelled after Moliere's play, are the most celebrated. In England a play writ- ten by Shadwell, called "The Libertine," and treating the same subject, was performed in 1676. The subject was not produced on the Spanish stage in its present form till the early part of the 18th century, when it was re- written by Antonio de Zamora. This version of Zamora furnished the groundwork of the modern treatment of the theme. Goldoni pub- lished his Giovanni Tenorio about the middle of the 18th century. Gluck followed with a ballet in 1761, Vincenzo Righini with an opera, and Lorenzo da Ponte with the text to Mozart's opera in 1787, which appeared in the same year. This is the masterpiece of this great composer, and at the same time the most remarkable production to which the legend of Don Juan has given rise. Apart from the opera and the drama, the Don Juan literature has found in the present century a new field in the sphere of romance and poetry in Spain and France ; while in England the name of Don Juan was adopted by Byron as a congenial title for his famous poem. The two characters of Faust and Don Juan are blended in one and the same personage in a German drama by Grabbe, while a great num- ber of plays, novels, and translations from the Spanish on Don Juan abound among German books of the present day. DONNE, John, an English poet, born in Lon- don in 1573, died there, March 31, 1631. He was of a Roman Catholic family, studied at Oxford and Cambridge, and was designed for the law, but relinquished it in his 19th year for theology. He abandoned the Roman Catholic church for the Anglican, and travelled for three years in Spain and Italy. On his return to England in 1597 he was appointed secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, keeper of the great seal, which post he held five years ; but having se- cretly married Anne, daughter of Sir George More, and niece of Lady Egerton, he was dis- missed from his situation and for a time im- prisoned in the tower. He accompanied Sir