This musical work, while touted as "P. D. Q. Bach

P. D. Q. Bach

P. D. Q. Bach is a fictitious composer invented by musical satirist "Professor" Peter Schickele. In a gag that Schickele has developed over a five-decade-long career, he performs "discovered" works of this forgotten member of the Bach family...

's Half-Act Opera: The Stoned Guest," is actually the work of Peter Schickele

Peter Schickele

Johann Peter Schickele is an American composer, musical educator, and parodist. He is best known for his comedy music albums featuring his music that he presents as music written by the fictional composer P. D. Q...

. The title is a play on the subtitle of Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

by Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, "The Stone Guest", as well as the opera The Stone Guest

The Stone Guest (Dargomyzhsky)

The Stone Guest is an opera in three acts by Alexander Dargomyzhsky. The libretto was taken almost verbatim from Alexander Pushkin's like-named play in blank verse , with slight changes in wording and the interpolation of two songs indicated in the play...

by Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomïzhsky

Alexander Dargomyzhsky

Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky was a 19th century Russian composer. He bridged the gap in Russian opera composition between Mikhail Glinka and the later generation of The Five and Tchaikovsky....

. The work is a parody of classical opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, although some critic

Critic

A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

s consider it to be the equal of many classical works in technical ability. The opera appears on the 1970 album of the same name

The Stoned Guest (album)

The Stoned Guest is "the premiere recording of the Half-Act Opera by P. D. Q. Bach", the pseudonym used by Peter Schickele for parodic works...

.

The loose story combines elements of Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

with elements of Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

by Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...

. Some character names, such as "Don Octave" and "Donna Ribalda" play on the Mozart opera, referring to Don Ottavio and Donna Elvira respectively, while the castanet-clicking "Carmen Ghia" plays on the title character of Bizet's opera (and puns on the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia

Volkswagen Karmann Ghia

The Volkswagen Karmann Ghia is a 2+2 coupe and convertible marketed from 1955 to 1974 by Volkswagen – combining the chassis and mechanicals of the Type 1 , styling by Luigi Segre of the Italian carrozzeria Ghia, and hand-built bodywork by German coach-builder Karmann.The Karmann Ghia was...

). The "Commendatoreador" plays on both operas at once, being a combination of "Il Commendatore" and the toreador Escamillo. The orchestral accompaniment for Donna Ribalda's opening aria, "Let's face it—I'm lost", bears more than a passing resemblance to the "Rex tremendae majestatis" from Mozart's Requiem

Requiem (Mozart)

The Requiem Mass in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed in Vienna in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer's death. A completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate the...

.

At one point in the opera, the rival diva

Diva

A diva is a celebrated female singer. The term is used to describe a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera, and, by extension, in theatre, cinema and popular music. The meaning of diva is closely related to that of "prima donna"....

s Carmen Ghia and Donna Ribalda have a contest to see who can hold a note the longest. The ending parodies many classical operas, Don Giovanni in particular, by apparently ending in tragedy, then having a completely unmotivated happy ending.