Stefano Poda had his audience largely where he wanted them until the very end, when the stone guest didn’t appear.
Without the statue of the Commendatore coming in at the climax of Mozart’s Don Giovanni to confront the libertine and demand his repentance, Poda’s innovative production for the Palm Beach Opera, which opened Friday, came up short. Instead of a statue knocking down the door of a room, the Commendatore stood in a tux in an aisle in the auditorium while Giovanni panicked, shirtless, behind a scrim.
Poda was trying to say that the Commendatore is Giovanni’s conscience, but it doesn’t come across without a concrete gesture (perhaps the stone guest could have appeared looking exactly like Giovanni instead of the Commendatore), and the audience, judging by its very chilly reception for Poda on his curtain call, hated it.
And that’s unfortunate, because this is a production like no other the West Palm Beach company has mounted, and just for its unconventionality, it deserves to be seen. Poda has stripped Don Giovanni of every piece of conventional scenery, reducing the stage to a single room with a series of doorways, one of them much taller than the others.
Every character wears a costume from 18th-century Venetian Carnival, which means lots of black, long cloaks, tricorn hats and half-masks, and for most of the opera the chorus and other supernumeraries – including a Lady in White (Cecilia Dougherty) – walk at a glacial pace through the background, with the Lady occasionally doing interpretive dance behind one of the scrims, as she did during the overture. Lighting plays a critical role, with deep yellows, oranges and blues suffusing the various scenes, and a bright white strip that illuminates the scattered pages of Giovanni’s little black book.
The result is a feeling of decay, doom and oppressiveness in a world turned upside down by an unrestrained id. It’s not an interpretation to everyone’s taste, but it’s a logical choice, and worth considering.
The other effect of Poda’s concept is to bring focus to the singers, and here Palm Beach Opera was fortunate in its opening-night cast. The Albanian baritone Gezim Myshketa made an excellent Don Giovanni, acting the part with gusto but not ham. His strong, clear voice was most engaging in his beautiful reading of the Act II aria, Deh vieni alla finestra, which he sang with real emotion, earning the biggest applause of the night.
Pamela Armstrong was compelling as the distraught Donna Anna, with a large voice that was able in her final aria, Non mi dir, bell’idol mio, to convey the poignant emotional disarray of her character. Julianna Di Giacomo was somewhat less persuasive as Elvira, but her voice was powerful and round, and she conveyed true excitement in Act I’s Ah, fuggi il traditor and Act II’s Mi tradí quell’alma ingrata, for which the tricky melodic line posed her no difficulties.
Perhaps most engaging of the female voices was that of Amanda Squitieri as Zerlina. Unusually for the singers usually playing this character, Squitieri has a mature, rich voice that was shown to good advantage in Batti, batti, o bel Masetto, and she was a good actress who made a believable gullible peasant on the one hand, and a master of her man in her own domain on the other.
Denis Sedov as Leporello acted and sang well, though his thick, deep voice could have been used more lightly in the somewhat pokey Catalog Aria in Act I. Vale Rideout was a fine Don Ottavio, with a nice, creamy tenor that held up well and was hearfelt where it needed to be, in Dalla sua pace and Il mio tesoro.
Bradley Smoak, a good actor with an attractive, decent singing voice, was an engaging, sympathetic Masetto. Peter Volpe, as the Commendatore, has a strong bronze voice that was quite effective at the end of Act II, though an offstage mic for his first statements from the statue were overwhelmed – as were Mozart’s trombones – by too much reverb.
The chorus work was undistinguished, but it was just about impossible for the women to sing well together in Act I, because instead of a band of contadinas, the women had to sing with their backs to the audience while completely covered in cloaks and hats, and standing at odd angles to each other.
Bruno Aprea conducted the proceedings masterfully, and the orchestra was usually quite good. Some of the tempos were slower than this conductor uses with his hard-charging style, and that too had something to do with the overall mood of funereal procession.
This most unusual Don Giovanni was perhaps more of a failure than a success because of its denouement, but it was a risk that was well worth taking. After all, had Poda figured out a way to keep the statue in, its first-night audience would now be congratulating itself on its bravery in theatergoing, instead of explaining why they left during the Commendatore scene.
Don Giovanni: Through Monday at the Kravis Center, West Palm Beach. Tickets: $23-$175; call 561-833-7888 (PB Opera) or the Kravis Center (832-7469), or visit www.pbopera.org or www.kravis.org.
This version may have been stylized, but was not satisfying. It reminded me in part of Greek tragedy (static speechifying) and, in part, of concert versions of opera ie. people standing around singing. A man next to me said “if this was my introduction to opera, i wouldn’t come back!!”
I was privileged to see Caesare Sieppi many years ago in a production at the Met. I also saw a unique interpretation of DG on Television with twin basses playing the Don and his servant. Both were far better than this version.
The women of the chorus never sang with their backs to the audience. They turned to the audience and sang after standing onstage with their backs to the audience until it was time to sing. As a “reviewer”, or should I say “critic” (because you tend to be critical most of the time) how can anyone glean any knowledge from you if you are inaccurate?
We walked out in disgust at intermission, so managed not to see the missing stone guest. But I was there long enough to notice the complete disregard for the libretto stage directions in Act I (wine, food, on stage orchestra, minuets, table.)
Worse, the staging had a Bergman-like gloom that had was not connected to the charm of both the music and the original plot. The singers appeared to hate performing in it — based on their overall stiffness, and general inability to move in their costumes. Their distaste, however, could not compare to the distasteful experience of watching an egotistical ‘Interpretation of Don Giovanni’ when buying tickets and sitting down thinking we’d see at least an attempt to reproduce the masterpiece itself.
It seems that the whole stagging went too far… from stage design to interpreters’ directions… I guess nothing like the original masterpiece.
It seems that constumes made life miserable to several of the performers. Some of the light effects were great, while others appeared very odd (like the “endless lighning”). Talking about effects, the smoke smell (candles and incense) was probably too strong in the first act, but it is not just a matter of opinion that smoke effect of the last scene made a horrible noise… Acting directions we probably way too unconventional, but they probably went also too far when having singers position in such odd places. I guess the lack of the statue was the least of the problems (I actually think thought it was a reasonably clever “modern” touch).
When so many chances are taken, and so many additional challenges are created, (and all your costume and stage is somewhere in Valencia), it is almost impossible to excell.
“This most unusual Don Giovanni was perhaps more of a failure than a success”, but it was probably “a risk that was well worth taking”. Let’s hope next time results are better.
You really have to work at it, to make don giovanni boring–but they managed well. This is one of the worst interpretations i’ve seen–and the folks i was with, totally agreed…..from costuming to scenery to movement and stage presence, thumbs down..
Obviously, ur review is correct about this performance. “Dr.” Prill is a paid chourus member- the quotation marks around ‘Dr.’ is that he has had no certifications/license to practice dentistry for more than 20+ years. He uses the ‘Dr.’ to intimidate others in his postings.