Don Giovanni
We had the pleasure to see Kasper Holten’s production of Mozart’s
masterpiece Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House last night. As relatively unseasoned opera goers this one
felt long (more about this later), but did have some wonderfully performed
arias, especially in the second act.
Don Giovanni is a young arrogant womaniser. Despite the protests of those around him, he
fails to repent and eventually meets his match.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Giovanni or better still – see the opera!
The opera was composed by Mozart in 1787 in a golden age of
operatic music in Vienna. The Italian
libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who also wrote the words for Motart’s
other great operas of the age such as La nozze de Figaro (Marrage of Figaro)
and Così fan tutte .
Mozart’s
operas
Its worth reflecting on Mozart’s period of
operatic writing, which in the humble opinion of the writer, produced some of
the finest ensemble music ever written.
In 1781 Mozart composed the hugely successful Die Entführung aus dem Serail, although
legend has it that Emporer Joseph II thought it had “too many notes”. I guess this is why most countries got rid of
their monarchies.
Mozart spent the next five years working on
keyboard music. In 1787 Mozart returned
to opera and composed some of the most famous and performed works in the
genre. This includes Don Giovanni, The
Marriage of Figaro, Cosi fan tutte, and The Magic Flute.Each of these operas is
characterised by Mozart’s genre defining use of melodic layering, challenging
arias and orchestral flourishes. Mozart defined “Classical” music (i.e. 18th
century music written on sheets). He
wrote so much music that a famous catalogue of his music exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6chel_catalogue Proper
musicians (as opposed to clueless bloggers) will be able to name the
composition if you give them a number from the Köchel catalogue. Don Giovanni is number 527.
Mozart was writing the vocal parts for specific
performers and tailored the parts to the vocal ranges and abilities of the
prospective performers. In the cas of
Don Giovanni this lead to some highly challenging arias such as Il Mio Tesoro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4htTs-s5pxc and Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMemCQiA-lY (this one take a minute to get going).
Note in
both of these examples the vocal range employed, and the length of notes. But for me the genius of these pieces comes
from the layering of the strings ensemble, a vocal parts, and the tempo. It seems that Mozart liked to end his best
arias with an orchestral flourish and these two pieces both exhibit this. These flourishes are the orgasmic finale to
three minutes at the zenith of musical pleasure. My favourite moment of music in Don Giovanni
occurs from minute 5:00 onwards in Mi Tradi in the performance linked to above
or in here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttHuOrn13oA. The drama of this
section of music is why I love the opera.
The ROH
production
The opera house put on a great show as always. Unfortunately, this blogger is too clueless
and sits too far back to be able to name who was singing what. According to the cast sheet Leporello was
played by Alex Esposito, Donna Anna by Albina Shagimuratova and Don Giovanni
himself by Christopher Maltman.
The production made use of a rotating house, with
each scene being a different side of the house.
We weren’t especially enamoured by this, but to be fair the opera
doesn't call for an especially exciting set.
I think we have become accustomed to mindblowing sets in recent months
(Krol Roger and The City of Mahagonnay).
Not for
beginners
I hold my hands up:
I’m not a seasoned opera goer (but I thought it would be entertaining to
write a blog). We felt that this was a
long opera. The first act is 95 minutes and the second 85 – that’s a long time
sitting on a bench. As we weren’t
familiar with the libretto it was also quite hard to keep up with the drama,
and as such the first act felt long and slightly boring. Really sorry to say this, but it’s how I
felt.
My recommendation, if you are new to opera, is not
to start with Don Giovanni. Marriage of
Figaro or Magic Flute would be a fun introduction to Mozart’s operas.
For this opera we sat in Upper Slips Left, which is
cheap and handy for the bar and prosecco (not a lot of good for me now as I’ve
been banned from drinking at operas).
View and sound were fine, but I personally prefer lower slips close to
the stage to get the maximum volume from the orchestra pit. Irritatingly the bearded gentleman behind us,
thought it appropriate to play with his phone (not on silent) throughout the
first act and occasionally make loud observations about the opera. It is tradition in theatre to maintain
silence during the performance as the experience relies upon complete emersion. Such distractions are totally unacceptable and
I hope the bearded gentleman in upper slips left will behave with more decorum
next time, or better still, not go to the opera and take his comments to
Speakers Corner or a pub where they possibly belong.
