Tom Service on the Don Giovanni manuscript

To see the real Mona Lisa, you have to go to the Louvre. To see a "real" opera by Mozart, all you have to do is pop along to your local opera house. The culture of classical music is about repeatable experiences, not singular objects. And yet it does have treasures as magical and enduring as anything by Da Vinci. In 1855, for instance, the celebrated soprano Pauline Viardot bought Mozart's manuscript of Don Giovanni, the original source of what was then considered the composer's greatest ­opera. She turned the manuscript into a sacred relic: it was bound in eight ­volumes, and Viardot commissioned an ornate casket to house it. Known as "the shrine", this brass-embossed box held pride of place in her salon, until she bequeathed it to the Paris Conservatoire. Now, thanks to the Packard Humanities Institute in California, and German publishers Bärenreiter, we can all worship at Viardot's shrine. They have produced a magnificent facsimile edition of the score, along with copies of all ­Mozart's mature operas (yours for ¤250). Looking at the actual notes Mozart wrote is a profound experience, one that goes much deeper than simply paying homage to the composer's handwriting. It is a common misconception that Mozart composed music easily and naturally. The intensity of his handwriting in Don Giovanni suggests something very ­different. You can feel the speed with which the 31-year-old is writing – in every scratch of his quill, in the flourish of every note-head, in the graceful swoop of his slurs and phrasemarks. It is as if he is trying furiously to notate the un-notatable: not just the notes and rhythms for singers and players, but the expressive heart of the drama. And he captures it, too, in places like the Commendatore scene, just before the end of the opera. Don Giovanni is sent to hell amid a demonic swirl of semiquavers that spill over the margins of the manuscript paper, as if they have a life of their own. Listening to the ­music and following the notes, I felt a direct connection with the young ­composer, as he prepared for the opera's first ­performance in Prague in 1787. Having this book on my shelf is the classical-music equivalent of owning a Da Vinci – at a fraction of the price.