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| Disagree (spoilers) | |
| Posted by: StanS 05:38 pm EDT 05/29/23 | |
| In reply to: Ivo's excellent adventure - DON GIOVANNI at the Met - singleticket 06:23 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
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| (This post contains spoilers about the production) While there are definitely things to like about this production, overall I would say I was disappointed from the staging point of view. We've gotten used to modern dress stagings of costume dramas and I can accept them in general. The main problem for me is that it often clashes with the musical style. But apart from that, there were too many instances in this staging where the music asked for some action and none was provided. A good example is the fight between Giovanni and the Commendatore in the opening scene. It's supposed to be a sword fight but you can't have a sword fight with the Don in a suit, so he just pulls out a gun and shoots him. Ok, fine, but what about the music Mozart wrote that clearly describes a sword fight (with slashes of scales etc). They just stand there staring at each other during this until Giovanni finally pulls out the gun. (Also Giovanni wasn't wearing a mask so it made no sense that Anna doesn't recognize him as her attacker later. ) Another example is La ci darem (the Giovanni/Zerlina seduction). Mozart plans this out beautifully to express a gradual seduction. First a whole verse just for the Don, then a whole verse for Zerlina, then one phrase for the Don, one for Zerlina, then they are musically interrupting each other and finally sing together. I have seen very imaginative stagings of this. But in this staging, the Don is right on top of her from the very beginning, leaving no room for the crescendo of seduction. There are many other examples of this lack of imagination and failure to let the music inspire the action. Also I felt the set, which was a set of drab buildings that never changes until the end, instilled an overall depressed atmosphere. Part of the greatness of Don Giovanni is the mix and tension between the comic and serious. This production to me overemphasized the serious. I will say that the ending, with the walls closing in on Giovanni and the images of hell-fire. was most effective. Musically I thought the production was mostly a success. The singing was mostly very good except for the Elvira, whose voice was inadequate (and Mi tradi was terrible, all chopped up with no legato line). Stutzmann's conducting was effective most of the time but I was sitting at the back of the Grand Tier and from there the orchestra sound was disappointing. When the "statue" (in this case ghost) enters in the finale, the sound of that gigantic chord was so pip-squeaky that I looked over to see if anyone was playing. It got better at the end in the hell-fire sequence and the softer lyrical passages were beautifully played. But I've generally thought that the Met isn't really suited for Mozart unless you have incredible seats. The intimacy required gets swallowed up. |
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| re: Disagree (spoilers) | |
| Last Edit: singleticket 08:58 pm EDT 05/29/23 | |
| Posted by: singleticket 08:43 pm EDT 05/29/23 | |
| In reply to: Disagree (spoilers) - StanS 05:38 pm EDT 05/29/23 | |
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| The Met is a huge house and though I haven't seen Don Giovanni in a more intimate house (I missed my chance to see the Berkshire Opera's production last summer) I did recently see a Mannes School of Music production of Magic Flute in a smallish auditorium and the opera felt very much at home in that scale. But to respond to some of the things above, both Don Ottavio and Masetto are packing guns in Da Ponte's libretto (pistols and a musket). So the substitution of drawn guns for swordplay isn't that far of a distance from one era to another. The villagers drawing guns instead of peasant weapons is another matter, I liked it and thought it was effective. The Giovanni/Zerlina seduction in this production began with the recitative which as others have said is one of the novelties of this production, the way the recitative and arias almost dovetail each other without pause. What I saw was a seduction scene that began with the recitative and was in full swing when La ci darem la mano began. Many reviewers have written about the absence of masks. I felt as you did in the initial scene with Donna Anna. Why wouldn't she recognize her rapist? Yet Federica Lombardi's revelation-aria of her rapist's identity didn't suffer from that bit of staging, the absence of a mask on her attacker. If anything it opened up the performance to a kind of deeper recognition of horror. Van Hove did use some traditional short-hand staging for the mistaken identity scenes (like Leporello pivoting from having his face seen full on). I didn't miss a more strenuous effort to make those masked and mistaken identity scenes work because I never have seen them work. I suppose if I had seen the opera for the first time without reading a synopsis it might have been a bit more confusing but it's always seemed contrived to me in any staging I've seen. (See David Salazar's excellent discussion of the opera's Second Act in his review attached below.) The set did move throughout the opera before the banquet scene and it was done rather elegantly in how imperceptible it was. I thought that was remarkably well done by the production team so that when the banquet scene occurred and the set spun into a kind of dead end vortex it carried an uncanny dread and emphasis. |
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| Link | David Salazar's review |
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| re: Disagree (spoilers) | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 11:44 pm EDT 05/29/23 | |
| In reply to: re: Disagree (spoilers) - singleticket 08:43 pm EDT 05/29/23 | |
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| But to respond to some of the things above, both Don Ottavio and Masetto are packing guns in Da Ponte's libretto (pistols and a musket). So the substitution of drawn guns for swordplay isn't that far of a distance from one era to another. But to Stan's apt point, the MUSIC is not gunfight music. It's more active and sweeping, like a sword duel would be. The music is suggesting certain kinds of action that a gunfight doesn't readily fulfill. |
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| re: Disagree (spoilers) | |
| Last Edit: StanS 10:09 am EDT 05/30/23 | |
| Posted by: StanS 09:57 am EDT 05/30/23 | |
| In reply to: re: Disagree (spoilers) - Chromolume 11:44 pm EDT 05/29/23 | |
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| Exactly. And if you're not going to have a sword fight, do SOME action during that music. They were just standing there staring at each other which made nonsense of the music. Another point is that it wasn't a gun "fight", the Commendatore was unarmed and the Don just pulls out a gun and shoots him. This to me violates a certain quality of the Don's character. As bad as he is in most ways, there is a certain code that he doesn't cross. But I guess this was by design. Van Hove wanted to make him totally unredeemable which to me makes him less interesting. As for the seduction scene, it is no novelty to have the recitative precede and segue into the duet. That's the way it's always done. There are still ways to stage it so that the musical plan of the duet itself is reflected in the action. This production failed to do that. |
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| re: Disagree (spoilers) | |
| Posted by: singleticket 01:27 pm EDT 05/30/23 | |
| In reply to: re: Disagree (spoilers) - StanS 09:57 am EDT 05/30/23 | |
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| Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. For me, an opera production is the sum of its parts and this production is not only successful on all levels but serves the opera honestly. I would love to see it again. | |
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