Don Giovanni.

[starlady]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Don Giovanni. Dir. Gabriele Lavia, produced by the San Francisco Opera.

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.

Comments

[via_ostiense]

Ugh, just saw it (well, saw half of it, was so underwhelmed that I didn't stick around for the second half) and ugh, ugh, I did not like this interpretation at all. It turns out that when you make Giovanni just a lecher, downplay the rapey aspects of his sexual encounters, and make the women act compliant (not in a coerced way, but in an enthusiastic way, I'm looking at you, Donna Anna), that kills all the dramatic tension in the show. It turns into an opera about one horny man pursued by pathetic women who don't realize that they're just fucktoys, and removes the element of vengeance for one's own self (Anna pursues him for killing her father, not for also attempting to violate her). It also left me with a foul taste in my mouth, because Donna Anna's aria later on made her look like a rape apologist's idea of a woman, that is, someone who lies and pretends it was rape in order to get out of trouble. Crazy bitches, getting innocent men in trouble!

I got the impression that the director empathized way too much with Don Giovanni, both from his direction and that creepy director's note.

On a side note, I would love to see a production where Elvira owns her anger and chases Leporello around the stage during the Catalogue Aria, so that he has to fend off her blows while listing Giovanni's exploits. Her anger is fierce in the preceding aria ("I will cut out his heart!"), and seeing her crumple into a chair during the Catalogue rather than being pushed to greater heights of anger was annoying.

[starlady]

One of the reasons I like Elvira is because (and this is definitely not an unproblematic portrayal) she does have much more complex feelings towards Giovanni, as opposed to Donna Anna or even Zerlita, who in this production were definitely way more one-note.

It turns out that when you make Giovanni just a lecher, downplay the rapey aspects of his sexual encounters, and make the women act compliant (not in a coerced way, but in an enthusiastic way, I'm looking at you, Donna Anna), that kills all the dramatic tension in the show.

I can't disagree with your assessment, thinking back on it, and I think you've hit on a major feature of this production that I didn't consciously put together when I saw it, or when I wrote this post. You're right about the dramatic tension, and Giovanni's fate, and that's why the director didn't have the singer punch it up--for him, Giovanni's fate isn't a summary judgment on his crimes, the only fitting punishment, it's just some random supernatural hoo-hah or something.

[via_ostiense]

One of the reasons I like Elvira is because (and this is definitely not an unproblematic portrayal) she does have much more complex feelings towards Giovanni

And she has glorious music (but that is true of all the characters in this show)! I like her a lot, too, because her story (manipulation but no physical force involved in her encounter with Giovanni) and her love for Giovanni shows that he can be genuinely charming and seductive. He's more interesting as a charming yet sinister person, one whom you can't help but be attracted to even though you know you should know better, someone who can use force or manipulative charm, than as a plain old lecher or a cardboard villain who never appeals to anyone.