The Prague Conservatory score is identified as the primary exemplar for the Viennese dissemination of Don Giovanni, which is shown to incorporate two quite distinct versions, represented by the performing materials in Vienna and the early Lausch commercial copy in Florence. This study presents new evidence about the Vienna form of the opera, based on the examination of late eighteenth-century manuscript copies. The dilemma faced by musicians and scholars ever since has been whether to preserve the opera in these two 'authentic' forms, or whether to fashion a hybrid text incorporating the best of both. In response, Mozart made changes, producing a Vienna 'version' of the opera, cutting two of the original arias but inserting three newly-composed pieces. Everyone, according to the well-known account by Da Ponte, thought something was wrong with it.

In the year following its 1787 Prague première, Don Giovanni was performed in Vienna. A general theory of transmission is proposed, which clarifies the relationship between the fluid text produced by re-creation and the static text generated by replication.

The essential truth of his account - that the revision of the operain Vienna was an interactive process - seems to be fully borne out. Aspects of Don Giovanni's compositional history are uncovered and the study provides for detailed evidence with which to evaluate Da Ponte's recollections.

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