Don Giovanni--A Success!

In addition to Anna Bolena, this fall the Washington National Opera performed Don Giovanni, one of Mozart's most famous operas. In it, the notorious philanderer Don Giovanni unsuccessfully tries to rape a prominent noble lady, Donna Anna. When her father, the Commendatore, comes to her defense, the masked Don Giovanni kills him and escapes. Donna Anna and her fiancé swear vengeance and seek to learn the identity of her father's killer. Meanwhile, Donna Elvira, one of Don Giovanni's conquests, has arrived to win him back. Unfortunately for her, Don Giovanni's servant Leperello shows her the book cataloging the thousands of other conquests. She is horrified and breaks up Don Giovanni's current attempts to seduce Zerlina, a peasant girl, on her wedding day; she informs Zerlina of his misdeeds, and she returns to her groom, Masetto. Donna Anna, Don Ottavio, and Elvira team up to bring Don Giovanni to justice. Don Giovanni throws a party and unwittingly invites the trio, who have disguised themselves as masqueraders. He tries to rape Zerlina during the party and his identity as Donna Anna's attacker and the Commendatore's murderer is revealed to the party-going crowds. He escapes the angry mob, but while hiding out, finds that a statue of the Commendatore has been erected in the cemetery. Leperello is terrified, as the statue appears to be sentient. Don Giovanni mockingly invites  the statue to dinner. To his surprise, the statue arrives for the meal and demands that Don Giovanni repent. He refuses to, and the statue drags him to hell. The rest of the characters are astonished, and try to shake off their horror as they announce their plans: Donna Anna will postpone her wedding to grieve properly for her father, Donna Elvira will enter a convent, Leperello is off to find a new employer, and the peasant couple will return home to start their married lives together. 

Leperello showing Donna Elvira the book in "Madamina, il catalogo è questo"

Source: kennedycenter.tumblr.com, photo by Scott Suchman for the Washington National Opera (2012)

Before I saw this opera a few weeks ago, I had only heard a few arias, and wasn't particularly impressed with what I knew of the plot ("aaand then the statue draaags him to hell!" I would say in a mocking tone). This production made a convert out of me, and Don Giovanni is now probably one of my favorite four operas (the others being Cosi fan tutte, Don Pasquale, and Les Indes galantes). What was so great about it? Everything. I was able to attend musicologist Saul Lilienstein's lecture, in which he talked about the undulation between the tragic and the comedic, as well as the opera's reception and legacy. The opera, he pointed out, goes back and forth between humor and tragedy; a prime example being the opening scenes. The overture does not completely finish; it snaps into Leperello's humorous "Notte e giorno fatticar," in which he complains about having to work so hard for a difficult master, then to Anna's attempts to attack and reveal Don Giovanni (not a duet, but rather a trio--Leperello sings in the background), and then onto the Commendatore's fatal duel. The music finally ends temporarily, on a sad note, with the Commendatore's death.  However, it's a return to comedy with Leperello, who is crouching in the corner, who asks, "Who is dead--you or the old guy?" Such a mix of tragedy and comedy are essential for keeping the opera buoyant. Don Giovanni, is a terrible person--he tries to assault two women, and he kills a father trying to protect his daughter. Yet after the opera came out, Lilienstein explained, he was seen as an adventurous hero who made his own destiny instead of having it dictated to by monarchs and other aristocrats. Even Don Giovanni's refusal to submit to the Commendatore statue is a sign of him defending his own liberty. Such viewpoints are unlikely to be popular just going off of the synopsis, but unless the characters are compelling, nobody is going to want to sit through two plus hours of Giovanni violating various criminal codes. In this production, they portray his as being an adventurous, swashbuckling rogue; the director in the bulletin says he dressed Donna Elvira in leather and boots to show she's attracted to Don Giovanni because of this shared sense of adventure).

Don Giovanni unwittingly dancing with Donna Elvira during his party

Source: kennedycenter.tumblr.com, photo by Scott Suchman for the Washington National Opera (2012)

Another highly interesting feature of this production was that Don Giovanni is actually in love with Donna Elvira. Throughout the opera, he is shown as being torn between his feelings for her and his fear of commitment and love of conquest and adventure. For example, Donna Elvira shows up in town with infant and nursemaids in tow (based on the supertitles, it appears that Don Giovanni married in her in a fake ceremony, probably presided over by Leperello dressed as a priest [a tactic they try to use on Zerlina]), and Don Giovanni finds himself reaching out at various times to hold his child yet retreats quickly. During the showdown at the party, Donna Elvira advances towards him with a gun; he is able to escape by swooping her into an embrace. And in the final scene when she tries to make him repent before the statue does, he hesitates as if convinced by her, but then overeagerly dismisses her.

On a final note, my two favorite things about the production were the costumes and the other characters' personalities. The actors were dressed in 1930s attire that had nods to Spanish Renaissance clothing (think tall headdresses paired with shirtwaist dresses, Donna Elvira's leather corset with a long leather trench and sunglasses, etc). The 1930s theme was used to represent the liberty that Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler enjoyed to oppress others; the director noted in the bulletin that as a nobleman, Don Giovanni used his freedom to abuse and hurt common peasants like Zerlina and Masetto. As for the characters: when I'd seen clips of other productions, Donna Elvira always came off as an annoying shrew whose flat character development almost makes you feel sympathetic for Don Giovanni when he pushes her away. This production, however, was much different. Donna Elvira is portrayed as adventurous, lively noblewoman, who tries to playfully wear Don Giovanni down, crossing the stage behind him with their baby as he unsuccessfully attempts to woo other women. Donna Anna progresses very quickly from being just a socialite to assuming her father's grand military bearing in her quest to bring his killer to justice. Her fiancé, Don Ottavio, is a diminutive man who clings to her coattails, initially cringing as she demands he vow vengeance with her. By the end of the opera, however, he has manned up and shouldered her burden.

In short, this was a lively, entertaining, lush production, and I look forward to seeing more of the performers' work again.

Happy Halloween!

{images 1 ,2,3,4 all from We Heart It}

We hope your Halloween is delightfully spooky!

-Rococo and Caffeine

Anna Bolena at the Washington National Opera

 I recently attended the Washington National Opera’s production of Anna Bolena at the Kennedy Center. This bel canto opera is a part of Donizetti’s Tudor trilogy—the others being Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux. Anna Bolena portrays the last days of Anne Boleyn. In particular, Donizetti shows Enrico (King Henry) falling in love with Giovanna (Jane Seymour), who is consumed with guilt over betraying Anna but desires a queen's fame and honor. Enrico and his courtier Sir Hervey successfully plot to catch Anna in a "compromising" position with her former lover, Percy; this machination allows Enrico to put Anna on trial for adultery and treason. Anna temporarily slips into insanity [Donizetti has a thing for mad scenes], thinking she is back at her countryside childhood home. However, Anna learns that Enrico has just married Giovanna, and the opera concludes with her condemning them and putting her head on the executioner's block. 

The night I saw the performance, WNO hosted a free lecture given by Saul Lilienstein beforehand. I learned that while there were MANY operas written during the bel canto period, most of them have not been performed much, if at all, since that time. Maria Callas was able to bring Anna Bolena back into popularity when she urged La Scala to put on a production in 1957 and starred in the titular role. Additionally, Lilienstein taught us a bit about Donizetti’s oeuvre. He wrote over seventy operas, and many of the earlier ones were written with particular singers in mind; as a result, those operas were more or less showcase pieces for those singers. We got to listen to clips of the music that illustrated this point--the orchestration for the music is fairly simple, while the singers' parts are the most complicated. Donizetti and many other Italian composers were different from their Northern counterparts. Lilienstein said that while composers like Beethoven and Brahms saw each work as its own masterpiece, Donizetti et al. treated their profession more like a business. They would recycle elements from their operas when taste or popularity dictated so. In particular, I noticed a few moments from Anna's mad scene that sounded like portions from the mad scene in Lucia di Lammermoor. Though interestingly enough, Donizetti altered Sir Henry Bishop's "Home, Sweet Home" for part of the mad scene. 

As for the artistic direction, I found it to be a bit of a mixed bag. The director, Stephen Lawless, in his program notes, writes that the stage was designed to look like the stage of the Globe Theatre--not only a nod to the general time period, but also to emphasize the court's scrutiny of Anna. Throughout the production, courtiers and ladies-in-waiting observed and eavesdropped on the action from the galleries. The paneled walls moved throughout the production to show the pressure on Anna, but also to allow others to easily swarm in on her. I also liked the staging of a deer hunt--the courtiers donned antlered deer skull masks as they rotated through the galleries. Also interesting was the alignment of Anna's plight with Enrico's transformation from "man wearing Renaissance Festival attire while feasting on turkey legs" to the glittering Holbein version depicted in history books. 

Things I wasn't too keen on: First, the director decided to have Elizabeth I be present during the opera. This character wasn't originally written in, but Lawless thought that as the rest of the Trilogy takes place during her reign, having her character in this one would perhaps explain her choice not to marry. While it was an interesting idea, I thought the character was rather distracting--her appearances just seemed unnecessary (such as playing in the throne room, only to be terrified upon discovering the sword used for Anna's execution) and contrived (to emphasize the breakdown of Enrico and Anna's marriage, Elizabeth literally becomes the center of a tug of war between Anna and Enrico). Also, her dress was bright, shining gold brocade--extremely distracting when most of the adults were wearing more muted colors. Secondly, during the overture, captions explaining the Henry the VIII marriage drama were projected onto a red curtain, and actors pantomimed his succession of wives. While it was sort of humorous, and sort of foreshadowed Giovanna's desire for "fama," it didn't seem to set the right tone for this story.

(For photographs of the set and costumes, click here. These pictures, taken by photographer Karen Almond, are from the Dallas Opera's performances a few years ago. According to the Washington National Opera's website, the Dallas Opera "owns" this production.)

Finally, Sondra Radvanovsky starred as Anna Bolena, and she was amazing. Her voice is crisp, clear, and perfect for coloratura--I was extremely impressed by her vocal control. Sonia Ganassi was a very nuanced Giovanna, and the duet she sings with Anna ("Sul suo capo aggravi un Dio"), in which she confesses she is the king's lover and Anna forgives her, was outstanding. Another character who really stood out for me was Sir Hervey. Aaron Blake played this courtier as sleazily as one can while wearing what looked like a red jumpsuit with an inflated codpiece. 

The music, other than the overture and the Anna/Giovanna duet, wasn't particularly memorable, though I suppose that probably had to do with the tendency of that time period to tailor operas as backdrops for particular singers. The production on the whole, however, was enjoyable. And I really appreciate that the Kennedy Center has fun with the operas. They've been selling themed drinks pre-show and during intermission; for Anna Bolena, it was lavender Pimm's Cup.

A composite of scenes from the WNO production: 

I love the overture:

"Sul suo capo":

This clip is of the legendary Joan Sutherland and Judith Forst in the Canadian Opera Company's 1984 production