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In Reply to: RE: WSJ: 'Don Giovanni' Papered Over by Gehry posted by Poles Apart on May 31, 2012 at 18:55:14
My wife's review - my comments [in brackets]:Last Saturday evening the LA Philharmonic presented a partially staged version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in its entirety—a full three and a half hours of splendid music, and for us, somewhat making up for the fact that we felt a bit baited and switched upon by their previous night’s concert where, instead of the originally planned Tchaikovsky violin concerto and works by Sibelius, they presented a mini concert consisting simply of Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate and the Posthorn Serenade. Granted the Friday night performance was exquisite, with virtuosic and radiant singing by Kiera Duffy, and vibrant, polished, and finely nuanced conducting and playing by Dudamel and the orchestra. But I had to wonder why we weren’t given half a refund since we were only given half a concert! And shouldn’t we have been offered the option of returning the tickets with a full refund since the program had been completely changed? If you buy a loaf of rye bread, you don’t expect to get a half loaf of sour dough. Furthermore, in our case, a return option would have also saved us a night of hotel expense since we traveled 500 miles to see these concerts!
But to return to the featured event of the weekend, I will first say that this was something I had been looking forward to for a long time. Not only is Don Giovanni my favorite opera (and whether this has anything to do with my being in the front row of a performance in NYC around age 7 or 8 and fearing, as the Commendatore slowly descended a long staircase at the side of the stage near our seats, that the ghost was coming after me, I cannot be sure), but I was also eager to see the Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic, as well as Disney Hall, for the first time. And probably since this is what I would want to see, I somehow anticipated they would create bright, colorful, energetic, and dramatic staging and visual effects—perhaps with some creative use of lighting. But I couldn’t have been more wrong!
My reaction to the whole experience was about as conflicted as it could be. Musically the production was superb. Dudamel, who clearly understands Mozart and was, impressively, conducting from memory, again delivered a top-notch performance with energy, polish, precision, and nuance; and the singers, particularly Mariusz Kwiecien as Don Giovanni, were certainly up at the same high quality level. [In fact, this was the best orchestral contribution to a performance of Don Giovanni I've ever experienced - some of Dudamel's tempos were like a bat out of hell, and the orchestra was able to maintain astonishingly clear articulation!] And I would also like to note the wonderfully sensitive and spirited playing of harpsichordist Caren Levine. But visually the production was all wrong, and seriously got in the way (perhaps this was why so many seats were empty after intermission). [By my estimation, fully one-quarter of the audience left during intermission.] So instead of being continually absorbed, I found myself too frequently being pulled out of the experience and thinking, ‘Why are they doing that?’
With enough time I could probably list a hundred things about this staging ‘concept’ that I found distracting, puzzling, or annoying, but I will mention just a few. First, some general aspects:
About as far as possible from evoking Spain or the 17th century, the colorless set consisted of several white masses that looked like a cross between icebergs and crumpled up pieces of paper (and incidentally behind the orchestra were some black ones), along with 3 large white boxes for featured characters to stand, sit, or lie on that were moved around by helpers at various times. A friend [actually Brian's wife, Shirley] suggested that the iceberg/crumpled papers might symbolize Don Giovanni’s list of women—as good a theory as any. But why? [BTW - I notice that the WSJ mentioned this possible interpretation too - I wonder if their reviewer was sitting near us the following morning as we discussed the performance and production.]
Equally far from Spain or the 17th century were the white Star Trek type outfits for the men, including the box-movers (although unlike the singers, they did not get to have a design on the front of their costumes). This simply made no sense—I cannot even think of any vague reference they might have been going for. And even if you were to accept the sci-fi theme, you would find an inconsistency because the women were not dressed in Star Trek outfits, but were clad in gowns with a vague nod to the traditional, although incidentally, I found red blotches on Donna Anna’s skirt after the first scene a bit forced. [Not to mention, the ghost of the Commendatore in this production looked for all the world like a cross between a member of the Borg Collective on Star Trek TNG and the Creature from the Black Lagoon!]
Then, one of the most exasperating things was the weirdly incessant slow-motion movement about the stage, particularly when you consider that the opera is full of such strong energy and movement. Again, this simply made no sense. And for a while Leporello’s staggering, almost drunken-like gait commanded my attention in contrast to the general zombie-like creeping of the rest of the characters until I decided they were perhaps trying to show that he is a puppet, and thereafter I managed to ignore it. (I could of course be wrong in my interpretation, but I’m not even concerned with knowing exactly what they had in mind anyway because it just came off as a pretentious distraction.)
And a few more of the many oddities:
You would be hard-pressed to notice that a fight occurs between Don Giovanni and the Commendatore (no weapons, or even suggestion of weapons), and Don Giovanni's killing of the Commendatore amounted to a weak, almost imperceptible gesture as if he were simply waving him off. Pretty low on the dramatic scale.
The wedding celebration ‘dance’ consisted of Zerlina slinking around the other frozen statue-like characters with exotic, sultry gestures. Out of time, place, and character to be sure.
Oh, and what was the Commendatore doing on stage at the end of the first act anyway? And why at one point was Don Giovanni seated on one of the boxes in what looked like a yoga pose, with palms up and fingers and thumbs touching?
You get the idea!
Those responsible for this staging may be famous names, but to me it reeked of pretension and desperation to do something ‘clever’, and to me, fell flat. But the music is the main thing, and for that, Dudamel and all of the other musicians certainly did not disappoint!
Edits: 06/02/12Follow Ups:
Overall I rate the weekend at Disney Hall highly. It's not often I can spend 3 days in the company of two music PhD's (Chris and Madeline), talking music and related subjects.
The Dude seems to be evolving quickly. I heard a broadcast of him and the LAPO doing a Mozart symphony not two years ago, and it was clear the idiom was new to him at that time. He's much more comfortable now, and although his conducting downplayed the high drama of "Don Giovanni", he did build to a rousing first act finale, and the second act was better still. I paid no attention to the staging most of the time, since it was so laughable. Singing was mostly excellent and the orchestra fabulous, at least from where I was sitting.
Money well spent.
Thanks, Brian - we enjoyed your (and Shirley's) company too!
I don't know if readers on this forum are aware, but Brian is an absolute font of knowledge about Walt Disney, Disneyland, Disney movies, etc. His mother worked for the company when he was growing up, and he has some real "insider" information!
Sorry you folks had a disappointing weekend. I can't imagine going to your favorite opera and having the excellent music demeaned by the visuals.
I hope you enjoyed some other aspects of your weekend.
I'm not an opera fan yet, but I'm slowly working on it.
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