In the art world after "Me Too", Mozart's Don Giovanni presents a host of problems to those with the temerity to stage the 235 year-old opera. The chauvinist hero is an unrepenting rapist; his most formidable adversary, Donna Elvira, is attracted to the man who has seduced and abandoned her -- at the end of the opera, she confesses that she still loves him. There's a sexy aria endorsing wife-beating performed by Zerlina who seems to regard physical abuse as a mark of her husband's devotion. And human justice proves to be too frail to avenge the villain's misdeeds -- Don Giovanni perishes at the hands of an animated marble statue and a host of demons who haul him down to Hell; there's no jury of his peers to consign this Weinstein of the 18th century to legal perdition. And, in our secular age, we know too well that divine judgement is no judgement at all. There's no politically correct approach to this material and, so, the Minnesota Opera company elects to mollify potential critics by devising a "female-led" production -- the director, most of the stage designers and artisans, and the conductor of the orchestra are all women and, therefore, ostensibly bring their virtuously contemporary sensibilities to the show. (On the night that I attended, the female conductor was, apparently, indisposed and the orchestra was directed by a man, Mario Matta.) Apparently, these personnel insulate the show, at least, to some extent from accusations of blatant sexism and, in fact, may liberate the production in certain ways -- Zerlina's notorious aria endorsing wife-beating (or, at least, vigorous spanking) is played for laughs and is unashamedly erotic. The show features a number of women dressed in French maid costumes who rotate the big set by inserting stanchions into sockets and, then, hauling the thing so that it rotates like a carousel. These silent stage-hands, initially dressed a bit like porno-fantasy figures (one of the maids wears spike high-heels) function as a silent accusatory chorus and, as the show progresses, they abandon their French maid costumes and appear in severe black. At one point, the aggrieved Donna Anna, Don Giovanni's first victim in the opera, appears among them and terrifies the hero who, immediately takes to his heels in a craven way. At the end of the show, when Don Giovanni is dragged down to Hell, the austere female stage-hands are the supernumeraries that seize him and yank the hero into the fiery pit.
The opera's libretto, of course, contains both virulent sexism and its opposite, that is, a sense that the women oppressed by the seducer are empowered to destroy him as well. Don Giovanni's rape of Donna Anna, performed in dumb-show (with some bondage elements) during the overture is the assault that triggers the hero's downfall, rather laboriously demonstrated over the course of the next three hours. (It's unclear to what extent Donna Anna thinks Giovanni is her lover and play-acting the rape.) Donna Anna's father, the Command, killed in a sort of duel by Don Giovanni returns at the melodramatic climax of the opera as a stony emissary from the inferno, summoning the villain to Hell. Prior to that point, Don Giovanni has encountered one of his previous conquests, the articulate and formidable Elvira, a character who seems quite sufficiently aggressive to destroy the seducer on her own. (Her resolve, however, is complicated by the fact that she remains in love with Don Giovanni and, like Hamlet, her ability to act is "sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought.") Donna Anna and her feckless fiance, Ottavio, pursue Don Giovanni who also runs afoul of the husband of the bawdy peasant girl, Zerlina, another woman that the protagonist pursues, hoping to inflict upon her his arrogant and entitled droit d' seigneur. Giovanni's amorous escapades are taken for granted by the libretto and, although scandalous, probably not the reason for the protagonist's downfall. Rather, Giovanni connives to change places with his man-servant, Leporello, exchanging garments with him so that he can pursue a maid. (We never see this woman). Leporello in the guise of Don Giovanni encounters the noble Donna Elvira and comes within an eyelash of seducing her and this infraction, violating class distinctions important to the 18th century audience, is probably the offense for which the hero must go to hell -- at least, this is a Brechtian reading of the play's riotous second act. In fact, nemesis is looming in the form of the infamous "Stone Guest" and, true of the librettist's politically incorrect perspective, men must avenge themselves on other men for transgressions committed against their property --in this case, wives and daughters. (In theory, the women are powerless, but the opera stands, also, for the opposite proposition -- that is, that the women are also agents in their own right;, and have their own ability to thwart men at every juncture; like all great works, Don Giovanni is able to hold equal and opposite ideas in artistic balance.)
The opera's costumes are vaguely suggestive of Italian fashions at the turn of the last century. The set consists of that most frequently invoked of all theatrical cliches -- a stony staircase to nowhere with a door inset in its side for entrances and exits. Some vaguely Moorish arches transect the set and provide a curious Escher perspective on the action -- from some angles the arches seem to be both behind and in front of the stairway to the heaven, an odd violation of perspective that seems a physical impossibility but that is right there before your eyes. The lazy-Susan set, rotating by the hardworking female servants, occupies a proscenium also framed with Alhambra-style arches, some of which are suspended overhead and can be dropped onto the stage at intervals and for reasons that were obscure to me. There are a variety of rather comical hats. One of the director's conceits is that Don Giovanni has been wounded somehow and is bleeding out -- this is like the fate of the hero in Carol Reed's Odd Man Out, a protracted and endless demise that is only revealed at the end when Giovanni's coat is peeled off and we see that his belly is awash with blood. (This solves the problem of the spectacular denouement that is inconveniently religious for modern sensibilities -- there is no real heaven nor any hell and the protagonist's visions of a fiery fate are merely the delirium of a dying man. However, Mozart and Da Ponte's libretto is very precisely designed to contrast human with divine justice and, so, the conceit that someone somewhere fatally injured Giovanni and that he is bleeding to death and not being dragged to Hell by demons, damages the opera's entire structure: in the first half, we see all instruments of human justice thwarted by Giovanni who has the powers of a super-villain to elude an entire village of people seeking to revenge themselves on him -- he is quite literally beyond human vengeance; the show's second half demonstrates that if Don Giovanni is going to get his comeuppance, it will have to be at the hands of supernatural, even, divine forces.) The singers are very good, particularly the three female leads, all engaged here at the start of what will be distinguished careers in regional opera. Both Leporello and Don Giovanni were also well performed by Thomas Glass and Seth Carrico respectively. In some ways, the opera is an account of a close, if perverse, friendship, the bond that exists between the seducer and his "wing man" as it were -- an important aspect of the opera is the mirroring that exists between the nobleman and his manservant, made explicit toward the end of the show when the two men exchange places. It's important that both singers sound more or less alike and that their voices occupy the same register and this is artfully managed in this production. Of course, the opera is too long and ends up being tedious. Mozart's music is so imposing that you have to listen with all ears and your body engaged as well and the effect is that after about two hours, you are too exhausted to enjoy the show. Or, you can not listen closely and just engage with the plot, mostly comic and, actually, very funny for the first thirty minutes after the intermission (after 85 minutes of music in the first half) -- this might work for you, but the libretto is full of archaic sentiments that aren't really persuasive to modern audiences, and, on any basis (except musical excellence), the last two extended arias in the show (Donna Anna and Elvira's confession of love) are, more or less, completely superfluous -- by this time, Mozart's music has sort of lost its savor (you're too tired to listen with proper attentiveness) and, so, you spend those minutes watching the clock and wishing for the damn thing to end. The final sextet is sprightly, however, and quite funny -- the characters draw the wrong morals from the proceedings: Zerlina and her peasant husband are hungry and want to get something to eat (after the hero has been dragged howling to hell) and Leporello, quite reasonably, sings that he'll need to find a better boss. The sublime, spine-tingling, and thunderous music of the scene with the Stone Guest resolves into a major key and the slippery chromatics are banished and everyone sings the most trite refrain possibe: you reap what you sow -- and on this note Mozart's masterpiece ends.
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