Don Giovanni.
Nov. 7th, 2011 09:55Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Don Giovanni. Dir. Gabriele Lavia, produced by the San Francisco Opera.
Thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
troisroyaumes, my roommate N and I got to see this production of Don Giovanni at the SFO recently, and all in all we enjoyed it quite a lot. Thanks, Tari!
My one prior exposure to DG was through my college "Great Conversation" program ("the Great Con," we called it, meaning the pun), in which we watched a recording of a La Scala performance, and I have to admit, my experience of that production definitely structured my expectations for this show, with the SFO production coming off not quite as well. To word, in my mind Don Giovanni the man is a ruthless, titanic, Byronic figure (we've all read Byron's "Manfred," yes?), and Lucas Meacham in the title role just didn't bring that outsized grandiosity to the role. He was good, don't get me wrong, but particularly in the final scene, I was expecting, and didn't get, far more passion and…grandeur? Sublimity, in its purest Romantic sense?
Anyway, there's more to DG than Giovanni the man, and I was pleased to see that my two favorite characters, Donna Elvira (Serena Farnocchia) and Leporello (Marco Vinco), were more than well done by: both of them, but particularly Leporello, more or less stole the show, which is only fitting as without Leporello the opera would be more or less unendurable, given that it's a constant parade of dub- and non-con situations. On that note, the peasant couple of Zerlina and Masetto were excellently played as well, and the aristocratic non-entities Donna Anna and Don Ottavio were also well-served.
N had never been to the opera before, and all in all I think DG is a pretty good introductory opera, in that it straddles the line between comedy and tragedy but, unlike just about every other tragic opera I can think of, doesn't have a woman in the "character who dies" role: Donna Anna's father and Giovanni himself, in other words. SFO always has interesting production design, and this show didn't disappoint in that respect, though I have to confess that I found the main theme ("reflection") rather obscure in terms of its connections to the plot. From the director's note:
Yeah, whatever dude; whatever you thought, it didn't really work. The masculinist language in there obviously isn't a coincidence, either, though it says something that both N and I walked out of the opera house convinced that the opera's OTP is in fact Giovanni/Leporello. If it were a Yuletide fandom, that's what we'd request.
Thanks to
troisroyaumes, my roommate N and I got to see this production of Don Giovanni at the SFO recently, and all in all we enjoyed it quite a lot. Thanks, Tari! My one prior exposure to DG was through my college "Great Conversation" program ("the Great Con," we called it, meaning the pun), in which we watched a recording of a La Scala performance, and I have to admit, my experience of that production definitely structured my expectations for this show, with the SFO production coming off not quite as well. To word, in my mind Don Giovanni the man is a ruthless, titanic, Byronic figure (we've all read Byron's "Manfred," yes?), and Lucas Meacham in the title role just didn't bring that outsized grandiosity to the role. He was good, don't get me wrong, but particularly in the final scene, I was expecting, and didn't get, far more passion and…grandeur? Sublimity, in its purest Romantic sense?
Anyway, there's more to DG than Giovanni the man, and I was pleased to see that my two favorite characters, Donna Elvira (Serena Farnocchia) and Leporello (Marco Vinco), were more than well done by: both of them, but particularly Leporello, more or less stole the show, which is only fitting as without Leporello the opera would be more or less unendurable, given that it's a constant parade of dub- and non-con situations. On that note, the peasant couple of Zerlina and Masetto were excellently played as well, and the aristocratic non-entities Donna Anna and Don Ottavio were also well-served.
N had never been to the opera before, and all in all I think DG is a pretty good introductory opera, in that it straddles the line between comedy and tragedy but, unlike just about every other tragic opera I can think of, doesn't have a woman in the "character who dies" role: Donna Anna's father and Giovanni himself, in other words. SFO always has interesting production design, and this show didn't disappoint in that respect, though I have to confess that I found the main theme ("reflection") rather obscure in terms of its connections to the plot. From the director's note:
Man, in order to tell the story of his origin--his "essence"--uses myth. Myth tells the story of man's existence. Don Giovanni is a myth in which, as in a hall of mirrors, the essence of man is reflected: his desperate thirst for knowledge, freedom, and absolute solitude. This idea of reflection was the inspiration for our scenic design.
Yeah, whatever dude; whatever you thought, it didn't really work. The masculinist language in there obviously isn't a coincidence, either, though it says something that both N and I walked out of the opera house convinced that the opera's OTP is in fact Giovanni/Leporello. If it were a Yuletide fandom, that's what we'd request.