Madamina, il catalogo è questo (also known as The Catalogue Aria) is an aria from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.
It is sung in scene 5 of the first act of the opera, by Leporello, to Donna Elvira. It consists of a description and count of his master's lovers but is sung (for the most part) to a light-hearted or laid-back tune. It is one of Mozart's most famous and popular arias.
The aria's two halves reverse the usual order of cavatina followed by cabaletta: in the first, a quick Allegro in 4/4, Leporello has a patter summarizing the number and occupations of Don Giovanni's lovers, while in the second, an Andante con moto in 3/4 (with a melody similar to that of the Larghetto of Mozart's earlier Quintet for Piano and Winds), he describes his approaches and preferences, while Donna Elvira presumably listens in horror.
A corresponding scene in which Don Giovanni's servant expounds the catalogue of his master's lovers was already present in several versions of Don Juan's story, in opera, theatre and Commedia dell'arte: probably the initiator was a version of Il convitato di pietra ("The Stone Guest") attributed to Andrea Cicognini. The most immediate forerunner (premiering in 1787, a few months before Mozart's Don Giovanni) was the opera Don Giovanni, o sia Il convitato di pietra composed by Giuseppe Gazzaniga to a libretto by Giovanni Bertati. In Gazzaniga's opera, the aria in which Don Giovanni's servant, Pasquariello, describes his master's catalogue of lovers to Donna Elvira begins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqeyElCHRM8
It is sung in scene 5 of the first act of the opera, by Leporello, to Donna Elvira. It consists of a description and count of his master's lovers but is sung (for the most part) to a light-hearted or laid-back tune. It is one of Mozart's most famous and popular arias.
The aria's two halves reverse the usual order of cavatina followed by cabaletta: in the first, a quick Allegro in 4/4, Leporello has a patter summarizing the number and occupations of Don Giovanni's lovers, while in the second, an Andante con moto in 3/4 (with a melody similar to that of the Larghetto of Mozart's earlier Quintet for Piano and Winds), he describes his approaches and preferences, while Donna Elvira presumably listens in horror.
A corresponding scene in which Don Giovanni's servant expounds the catalogue of his master's lovers was already present in several versions of Don Juan's story, in opera, theatre and Commedia dell'arte: probably the initiator was a version of Il convitato di pietra ("The Stone Guest") attributed to Andrea Cicognini. The most immediate forerunner (premiering in 1787, a few months before Mozart's Don Giovanni) was the opera Don Giovanni, o sia Il convitato di pietra composed by Giuseppe Gazzaniga to a libretto by Giovanni Bertati. In Gazzaniga's opera, the aria in which Don Giovanni's servant, Pasquariello, describes his master's catalogue of lovers to Donna Elvira begins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqeyElCHRM8