Librettist: Frederico de Freitas
Libretto based on D. João e a Máscara by António Patrício
Musical scene in two acts
Date: 1960
Language: Portuguese
Duration: 24 minutes
Large-scale
The Creature: soprano
The Narrator: tenor
Don João: baritone
Female chorus
António Patrício’s play Dom João e a Máscara (1924) is based on Tirso de Molina’s famous tale of Don Juan, the Trickster of Seville. In this symbolist reinterpretation, Dom João is confronted with the constant presence of Death, whom he loves and seeks. In the author’s own words, from the introduction to the first edition:
The sense of death is the instinct of living made conscious: without it, there is no inner life. One lives without dying; one dies without dying: at bottom it is the same. It comes late, when it comes, for nothing is rarer than truly living. My fable begins at that moment, when D. João and Death meet for the first time. In the first act, after an autumn masquerade, Death, for D. João, is a tragic maja, Goyaesque; he breathes her in at every moment as the omnipresent Beloved, the unique Beatrice of Antero; in the final scene, as for the Poor Man of Assisi, she is Sister Death. Thus I attempted to fix, reducing anecdote to a minimum, what is essential in his destiny.¹
Orchestra
Score: Biblioteca da Universidade de Aveiro
A musical scene in two acts based on António Patrício’s play D. João e a Máscara, revisiting the Don Juan myth. Within the vast output of Frederico de Freitas, the dramatic genre occupies a particularly significant place. The composer wrote operettas, revues, ballets, and operas, as well as incidental music for various theatrical productions. Opera, however, represents only a small portion of his catalogue, having been cultivated at different and widely spaced moments throughout his career. D. João e as Sombras belongs to the final period of the composer’s life and follows Luz-Dor (Light-Pain), premiered in 1924, A Igreja do mar (The Church of the Sea), a radio opera premiered in concert version in 1960, and O Eremita (The Hermit), composed in 1959 and never performed. Freitas returned to the work several years after its composition, planning to add two new acts in 1978, a project he ultimately did not complete.²
The opera was premiered on 13 November 1971 at the Teatro Tivoli (Lisbon), with the Orquestra Sinfónica da Emissora Nacional conducted by the composer himself—as was his usual practice—alongside the female choir Harmonia and soloists Elsa Saque, Fernando Serafim, and Álvaro Malta. Testimony by Álvaro Malta, collected in the volume dedicated to Frederico de Freitas published on the occasion of the commemorative exhibition at the Museu Nacional da Música, recalls the enthusiasm with which the bass performed the work and the conception of the Don Juan character.³
At the premiere concert of D. João e as Sombras, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and the overture to Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner were also performed. A recording of the premiere, captured by Emissora Nacional.⁴
Date: 1971
Venue: Teatro Tivoli, Lisbon
Musical direction: Frederico de Freitas
Cast: Elsa Saque, Fernando Serafim, Álvaro Malta, Orquestra Sinfónica da Emissora Nacional and Grupo Vocal Feminino Harmonia
