Seville. Late night. Full moon.

We are standing outside the Vineria San Telmo, in the quieter area of the Barrio Santa Cruz, where we have just finished our main course of today’s multi-location dinner. The food here has the alluring scent of Europe’s many flavors. This is their menu cover, by the way.

We started our night with appetizers at another tapas bar, along with an aperitif followed by more appetizers. Then, we decided to continue with desserts someplace near the always crowded Calle Mateos Gago. We walked slowly to admire the romantic nighttime beauty of the calles and plazas at Santa Cruz – the heart and soul of medieval Seville.

This part of the city is overflowing with countless tales and legends that captivated people’s imagination for centuries. Want to get the feel of a local legend? Just turn the corner and listen carefully to the whispers of the past while  watching the mystical dance of shadows … Especially on a night like this, under the magical glow of a full moon.

We turned onto the Plaza de los Refinadores where a tall, dark figure stood in the middle of the square, on a pedestal surrounded by flowering trees that filled the air with their intoxicating smell.

This is the legendary Don Juan, whose tales precede Casanova’s adventures by centuries (is it possible that Casanova might have been inspired by him? Who knows?). These tales are known all throughout the world and have inspired legions of writers, artists and composers for ages. Whatever the plot twists and characters in those plays, dramas, and operas are, everybody agrees that it is all about Don Juan and that everything happened in and around the Old Town of Seville.

We heard some of these whispers that same night, while standing in the shadow of Don Juan’s statue, illuminated by the full moon and now we would like to share some of those stories with you.

Tirso de Molina – a Spanish monk and poet in the earlier part of the 16th century, wrote a play called The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, where Don Juan made his first appearance. The Don killed the Comendador and seduced his daughter, but escaped any legal repercussions. Some time later, Don Juan went to the monastery where the Statue of Comendador was erected on top of his tomb and both the monks and the Statue took their revenge. Ascetic story, no lead female characters. The Don was punished for murder, not seduction. The story immediately became infamous and was told all throughout Europe.

Later, in the middle of the 16th century, Moliere introduced our hero to Paris in his play Dom Juan or The Feast with the Statue. The twist for the French audience, was to add the story of Donna Elvira, Don Juan’s new wife. She was very frustrated to learn about the peasant girl Charlotte and another – Mathurine, who Don Juan tried to persuade to marry him, as well. The Statue of Comendador, not happy with Don Juan’s behaviors, played a crucial role as well. Shown here is the Title Page for Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre – the censored version. (From the posthumous works of Molière, 1682.)

It is a rumor that Donna Elvira was born and spent her childhood a few steps from the statue of Don Juan. Now this place is known as the Plaza de Donna Elvira. It was redesigned and rebuild at the beginning of the 20th century for the Ibero–American Exhibition, and definitely looked different hundreds of years ago, (more donjuanian, perhaps).

The Plaza de Donna Elvira keeps another well-known secret. This is exactly the place where Figaro climbed up a ladder to Rosina’s balcony, in Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville. And right here on the plaza is the perfect bar to ponder about Figaro and Rosina – El Ricon de Figaro, of course. But this is another story that also includes Mozart’s famous opera: The Marriage of Figaro. Salute!

Mozart – a master of Operas and the foremost expert in complicated relationships – could not, of course, have missed Don Juan’s legend. He wrote an opera called Don Giovanni a century after Moliere. In the libretto, Don Juan (Don Giovanni) abandoned Donna Elvira for a village girl named Zerlina and Donna Anna, daughter of the Comendador, who again was killed by Don Juan. The Statue of Comendador is here, in the opera, waiting for its finale. The opera Don Giovanni, despite some concerns about the public’s reaction to the plot, surprisingly became a big hit in Vienna. Here is the playbill for Vienna’s premiere of Don Giovanni (From wikiwand.com/en/Don_Giovanni).

At the beginning of the 20th century, a folklore story collection, including Don Juan’s legend, was translated into English by Brigadier General Henry A. Reed. The general dedicated his book, called the Spanish Legends and Traditions, to his “… Spanish wife, to whom he is greatly indebted for the happy solution of many a knotty linguistic problem…” (and not only linguistic, I heard).

According to the General, in this “Original” Legend, Don Juan abducted his dream, Donna Ines, from a convent. The Statue of Comendador, as always, came to life at the end.

The back wall of the Donna Ines convent had a door that faces the Plaza Santa Marta, a small, charming, hidden square, where Don Juan was waiting for Donna Ines that night. From the Plaza Santa Marta by way of the short narrow alley, you can run to the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes with the famous Seville Cathedral, La Giralda, the Archdiocese and endless lines of horse carriages – very convenient for escapees then as it is for tourists nowadays.

We returned to the Plaza Santa Marta the next morning, at daylight. We felt that the Plaza tried to talk to us – about its legendary past, about Don Juan and about the Statue of Comendador, but there was no longer a full moon to cast its shadows and the whispers were too quiet.

We still have no idea – Where in Seville is the Statue of Comendador?