A Night at the Opera

I had a really good seat at the opera. 9 rows back, maybe 10 seats from the center. As for the opera itself… well… Like I said, it was Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which is really an excellent opera. However, the director took a kind of modern approach which just didn’t sit well with me. The costumes were kind of wonky late-20th century, and the sets were super abstract, mainly orange and black. Leperello was a bum and Don Giovanni was wearing sweats and constantly doing blow. Zerlina was portrayed as, well, a slut really, with none of the innocence that I’ve always thought was the crux of the character. The director made choices, but I just didn’t feel that they synergized with the music and libretto. The cast was pretty phenomenal, vocally, but I couldn’t help but feeling that they were inhibited by the staging. Musetto was pretty forgettable. Everyone’s movements and characterization was pretty blah, no snap, no sharpness in their decisions on stage. Perhaps they were tired; it was nearly the end of the run. And when I closed my eyes, I found it to be a highly enjoyable experience.

I was sitting next to Beta (sp?) from Milan, Italy, which was a lot of fun. She’s been to two different operas at La Scalla, which is pretty cool. Don Giovanni is her favorite opera and she really enjoyed it, so I guess it just depends on your taste.

I got a cab home. The shoes were a painfully unfortunate choice.

*Update: As I pondered this post today, folding laundry, something else occurred to me. The whole production was kind of dragged into a modern setting, but Don Giovanni still killed Il Commendatore with a sword in the opening scene. A sword? If they were changing everything else, why not change that? Why not kill him with a hypodermic syringe or something? Yeah, I just didn’t like it. I think I would have preferred a much more traditional approach to the material. Call me old-fashioned!