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Don Giovanni
May. 27th, 2005 01:38 pmDon Giovanni last night was INSANE. It truly defies explanation. (Don Giovanni is one of the three operas here at the Spoleto Festival - half of the Westminster people are in one, the one I'm in, Die Vogel, and the other half is in two, but with less stage time - Don Giovanni and Respighi's La bella dormente.)
Since I'm a member of the festival, I got to go to the dress rehearsal last night - luckily, since all six shows are already sold out.
First of all, the entire auditorium was reconstructed. Seats were torn up and reinstated in different places, and there is nothing like a stage. The entire center of the room, and one wall, is taken up by a wooden floor that ripples and rolls like hills...except it's wooden. There are trees sticking up out of various hillocks, and there's a lake in the middle of the floor, right next to the orchestra - since there's no pit, they just sit in a little bunch on one side of the stage. The cast runs all around - over the balcony, up the stairs between seats, Leporello starts off sitting in the violin section. The dress was simple, but essentially period (Donna Elvira's bosoms defied both gravity and adjectives.) The cast was all young, and all HOT, HOT, HOT, including the chorus. And the director was aiming to turn everyone on the entire time - everyone spent the whole time seducing everyone else. The main re-thinking of the show was that both Zerlina and Donna Elvira were obviously just as involved with seducing Don Giovanni as vice versa. (Donna Anna was not.) And the director basically re-wrote the opera. He cut and sliced and diced and rearranged. The important arias were all still there, but in drastically different order. And it worked beautifully - it flowed incredibly well, with no downtime or bits of dragging energy. The leads sang gorgeously, acted well, and did I mention they were hot? Oh, my goodness. Everytime one of the male leads sang, I said to myself, "You're the hottest." And then another would sing, and I'd say, "No, you're the hottest." Did I mention Don Giovanni stripped down to his skivvies and lolled around in the onstage lake?
It was highly enjoyable, and very sexy. I think this is going to be the event of the festival this year.
The Die Vogel premiere is tonight - wish that we all break a leg!
Since I'm a member of the festival, I got to go to the dress rehearsal last night - luckily, since all six shows are already sold out.
First of all, the entire auditorium was reconstructed. Seats were torn up and reinstated in different places, and there is nothing like a stage. The entire center of the room, and one wall, is taken up by a wooden floor that ripples and rolls like hills...except it's wooden. There are trees sticking up out of various hillocks, and there's a lake in the middle of the floor, right next to the orchestra - since there's no pit, they just sit in a little bunch on one side of the stage. The cast runs all around - over the balcony, up the stairs between seats, Leporello starts off sitting in the violin section. The dress was simple, but essentially period (Donna Elvira's bosoms defied both gravity and adjectives.) The cast was all young, and all HOT, HOT, HOT, including the chorus. And the director was aiming to turn everyone on the entire time - everyone spent the whole time seducing everyone else. The main re-thinking of the show was that both Zerlina and Donna Elvira were obviously just as involved with seducing Don Giovanni as vice versa. (Donna Anna was not.) And the director basically re-wrote the opera. He cut and sliced and diced and rearranged. The important arias were all still there, but in drastically different order. And it worked beautifully - it flowed incredibly well, with no downtime or bits of dragging energy. The leads sang gorgeously, acted well, and did I mention they were hot? Oh, my goodness. Everytime one of the male leads sang, I said to myself, "You're the hottest." And then another would sing, and I'd say, "No, you're the hottest." Did I mention Don Giovanni stripped down to his skivvies and lolled around in the onstage lake?
It was highly enjoyable, and very sexy. I think this is going to be the event of the festival this year.
The Die Vogel premiere is tonight - wish that we all break a leg!
