Don Giovanni

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 .

The opera is known as an opera buffa, which means it is supposed to be comedy.  I din't find it very funny, although most other people in the theatre did, or at least were pretending that they did.

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. 18^th 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. 

Other Observations

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.