Recitative and Aria for Soprano: “In quali eccessi … Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata” (K. 540c)
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Recitativo strumentato and aria “In quali eccessi … Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata” (K. 540c) is a late Viennese scena for soprano and orchestra, written in 1788 and transmitted as an addition connected with Don Giovanni’s Vienna version. In B♭ major, it distills Donna Elvira’s characteristic conflict—outrage, hurt, and compassion—into a compact but theatrically concentrated number.
Background and Context
In Vienna in 1788, the 32-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was revisiting Don Giovanni, K. 527 for its Viennese premiere (7 May 1788). The accompanied recitative and aria “In quali eccessi … Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata” belongs to that Viennese context and is widely identified as a newly written replacement/inserted scena for Donna Elvira, composed for the soprano Caterina Cavalieri.[1][2] The piece is catalogued separately as K. 540c and linked in modern reference catalogues to the “second version” of Don Giovanni.[3]
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What Survives
What survives is an accompanied recitative (recitativo strumentato) followed directly by an aria, both for soprano and orchestra, notated as a self-contained scena in B♭ major.[3] Dramatically, the text sets Elvira’s indignation (“In quali eccessi…”) against the aching moral recoil of the aria (“Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata”): Mozart’s setting sharpens this duality by moving from declamatory, tense rhetoric in the recitative to a more extended lyrical argument in the aria, where vocal line and orchestral commentary can fully participate in Elvira’s self-contradiction.
Scholarly Context
Although frequently performed and recorded as “the Vienna aria” for Donna Elvira, K. 540c sits slightly apart from the main Prague text of Don Giovanni and therefore travels in editions and catalogues with a degree of bibliographic separation.[1][3] Heard alongside Mozart’s other late-Vienna operatic writing, it shows his continued interest—despite financial and professional pressures in 1788—in giving secondary characters an intensified psychological profile, achieved through the scena’s tight alternation of speech-like urgency and sustained melodic introspection.
[1] Wikipedia — Don Giovanni: Vienna premiere date and notes on added numbers including “Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata” (K. 540c) for Caterina Cavalieri.
[2] French Wikipedia — Caterina Cavalieri: identifies K. 540c as written for the 1788 Vienna revival of Don Giovanni.
[3] International Mozarteum Foundation (Köchel Catalogue Online) — work entry for KV 540c/a: key (B♭ major) and relation to the “second version” of Don Giovanni.