Zerlina Falls in
Love
(Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, La
ci darem la mano)
Rodney Gilfry and
Liliana Nikiteanu as Don Giovanni and Zerlina
What does Zerlina know? The beautiful
duet she sings with her seducer tells
she is in love. And meanwhile, Don Giovanni
has made it halfway through the opera
that leads to his damnation – “No!” he’ll say
to the Commendatore. And we ask
whose aria is this then, his or hers?
Does fraud or fervor map out what we witness?
Or is Zerlina wrong to fall in love?
The music will not say so. It says only
that now – right now – this moment
when Don Giovanni and Zerlina lift
as if for the first time in love may lift
our loving hearts as well, however many
lies the hero thinks that he is telling.
John Isbell
If you have any thoughts about this
poem, John Isbell would like
to hear them
