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From Twitter 11-11-2010
Friday, November 12th, 2010 02:01 amTweets copied by twittinesis.com
Friday, November 12th, 2010
[opera] Don Giovanni, ENO, 11.11.10
Friday, November 12th, 2010 10:58 amThe ENO's latest production of Mozart's Don Giovanni suffers a little from cluttered and incoherent staging (what was it supposed to be?) and the desire to have constant movement, scenery and cast, on stage: from where we were sitting, over to the right of the balcony, it also suffered from lopsidedness, and there were quite a few times where we couldn't see the singers. And please please will someone proffrede the surtitles and put back all the missing words?
It is, despite all this, delightful: Don Giovanni is one of my top three operas, and this new translation (though occasionally clunky and often quite free) is great fun.
Iain Paterson plays Don G as the sleazebag he is: there is little charm to him, and it makes sense that the only way he gets to add another woman to the catalogue is by force. Brindley Sherratt's Leporello was the star of the show for me: the Catalogue Aria (with spreadsheets and Powerpoint) was hilarious, though the Don's conquests were reduced from "and in Spain, one thousand and three" to "March and April, one hundred and two: then there's you". Good performances all round, especially John Malloy as Masetto.
There were a couple of points where the staging and / or translation modified the original quite markedly: the cavatina that Don Giovanni sings, in disguise, to Elvira has become a solitary performance mourning a lost love. And I definitely got the sense in this production, more than in some others, that he's not just a libertine but damaged and dangerously disconnected: dying of boredom.
Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ms_cataclysm for chauffeuse duties, without which -- due to late start and overrun -- we'd have been on the late-late train.
To be broadcast live 27th November 6:15pm Radio 3
ENO Production Page -- though see feedback below ...
It is, despite all this, delightful: Don Giovanni is one of my top three operas, and this new translation (though occasionally clunky and often quite free) is great fun.
Iain Paterson plays Don G as the sleazebag he is: there is little charm to him, and it makes sense that the only way he gets to add another woman to the catalogue is by force. Brindley Sherratt's Leporello was the star of the show for me: the Catalogue Aria (with spreadsheets and Powerpoint) was hilarious, though the Don's conquests were reduced from "and in Spain, one thousand and three" to "March and April, one hundred and two: then there's you". Good performances all round, especially John Malloy as Masetto.
There were a couple of points where the staging and / or translation modified the original quite markedly: the cavatina that Don Giovanni sings, in disguise, to Elvira has become a solitary performance mourning a lost love. And I definitely got the sense in this production, more than in some others, that he's not just a libertine but damaged and dangerously disconnected: dying of boredom.
Many thanks to
ms_cataclysm for chauffeuse duties, without which -- due to late start and overrun -- we'd have been on the late-late train.To be broadcast live 27th November 6:15pm Radio 3
ENO Production Page -- though see feedback below ...
Dear ENO,
is it fair, on your About the Production page, to give us an excerpt from a different production for the catalogue aria (Pretty Lady)? I think not ...
Love, me
