Teddy's bare picnic
Don
Giovanni is probably the closest thing to total theatre in
the modern sense that was ever created in the very different confines
of 18th century music theatre. It is also one of the most often
performed operas and, like Shakespeare’s major plays, so
well known and studied that the score is more of a gospel than
a working text. This staging from 1991, one of four Mozart operas
produced by the late Göran Järvefelt (1947-1989) for
this company (only The Magic Flute was totally overseen
by him before his death) is also well known with plenty of revivals
so the set musical dictates of the score and the production present
a difficult task for anyone performing the drama within such confines.
With an opera in a revival like this there is a feeling that there
isn’t much to look forward to. As the great opera director
Walter Felsenstein put it “the performer is obliged to make
the concern of the character he is portraying so unconditionally
and consistently his own that to him and to the audience all basic
musical functions - rhythm, meter, harmony, tempo, dynamics –
do not appear to be prescribed by the score or the conductor but
seem to be determined by his, the character’s intentions
and sensations.”
Järvefelt’s production stays in the 18th
century. Two years before the French Revolution, Mozart and his
librettist Lorenzo da Ponte retold the Don Juan legend in a way
that was very challenging to the established social order. The
first act begins and ends with attempted rapes by Don Giovanni
not to mention his murdering a fellow aristocrat. The second act
is a continuing vista of his sex addiction, cruelty and his sacrilegious
behavior in the graveyard. Givovanni’s evil is reinforced
by the piety, righteousness and proper nobility of Don Ottavio.
Ottavio is dramatically a wus but he is a poster boy for the aristocracy,
representing everything they were lacking at the time.
Järvefelt’s production is his most successful
Mozart staging for Opera Australia in terms of making something
original and entertaining while doing justice to the greatness
of the original. The ‘edition’ performed keeps to
the original 1787 Prague performance so Donna Elvira’s "Mi
tradi", Ottavio's "Dalla sua pace" and that Zerlina/Leporello
duet that nobody ever does are omitted rather than included. But
included are the proper balances of recitatives including Elvira’s
comment after the ‘catalogue’ aria. Initially besotted
with Giovanni she is repulsed by Leporello’s account of
his master’s sex addiction. In it she reveals her love has
turned to hate and she vows revenge and although only a few seconds
long this brief passage explains her behaviour for the rest of
the act. Järvefelt’s direction as reproduced by Matthew
Barclay shows us Elvira’s turnabout and this is only one
of many points where the singers are working within the constraints
of the written score but making the music, as Felsenstein said
“unconditionally and consistently” their own.
The two singers who most take Mozart’s genius
and run with it are Kate Ladner as Donna Anna and Teddy Tahu Rhodes
as Giovanni. Still shaken by her near rape and father’s
murder by a masked intruder Anna and Ottavio meet Giovanni and
ask his help in finding the murderer. As Giovanni leaves them
he says to her “if I may be of service to you, I await you
in my house”. Normally it is a casual, although double-edged
remark. Here Tahu Rhodes delivers it as a lecherous whisper and
that sex crazed voice triggers a flashback in her and the ensuing
scene and aria (Or sai chi l’onore) is frightening. The
soaring phrases are broken by shorter, gasping ones, as though
Anna were sobbing as she recounts the details of the attack. Taking
Tahu Rhodes’s insinuating phrase as a cue Ladner delivers
the musical and dramatic aspects of this music. To my ears her
voice may be a size too small for the part but the vocal intelligence
she displayed is as rewarding as sheer vocal beauty.
Tahu Rhodes is probably the principal reason for
anyone seeing this production. A role like Giovanni played by
a singer like this is an international calling card. The suave
baritone is a prime example of the modern phenomenon of a barihunk,
tall, lean, outdoorsy good looks, magnificent legs and hard body.
In his black silk costume, knee high boots, oily black wig and
black rimmed eyes he makes a magnificently seductive Don. He obligingly
shows of the centrefold physique in the very first scene but even
when fully dressed (like Antonio Banderas in Zorro) he is still
magnetic. His acting is good, he moves about easily and, like
Ladner, lives through the music. Mozart’s Giovanni is manic,
madder than any soprano ever went in the Bellini/Donizetti era.
This great composer seems to be pushing the boundaries of music
of the time. Da Ponte’s libretto mixes comedy and drama
and formal and colloquial language. Giovanni refers to his house
as ‘casa’ or ‘casinetto, the former a house,
the latter slang for brothel. He invites Anna to his ‘casa’
but, with his back to his latest victim Zerlina, his shark eyes
stare straight out to the audience as he invites her to his ‘casinetto’.
Tahu Rhodes’s instrument (No! I mean his voice) is dark
hued but well suited to this dark character. The original Giovanni
was only 22 year old and Mozart may have tailored the music to
suit a voice not able to tackle much ornamental singing. Tahu
Rhodes has a beautiful mezza voce for the mandolin serenade and
interpolates a few lighter ‘appoggiatura’ into the
vocal line, obviously the youthful and lighter tone from his recent
earlier days is still there for lighter voiced roles.
Mozart
and da Ponte made the important decision to show Giovanni first
and foremost as an aggressive brute. This is powerfully reinforced
in Järvefelt’s production where in the opening scene
where, angered by Anna's defiance, the masked Giovanni fells her
with a thrust from his powerful crotch and then dispatches the
older and weaker Commendatore with a thrust from his sword, followed
by another more sadistic than the first. The cruel way he taunts
Anna, deliberately revealing his identity as her attacker and
re-traumatizing her is another of the many unlikeable but important
touches throughout the performance. Järvefelt also hinted
that Giovanni’s mania may be the insanity of tertiary syphilis.
In the last scene Giovanni’s recklessness has gone over
the edge. He dines off the Commendatore’s coffin, bullies
Leporello, manhandles and drenches Elvira with wine then descends
to Hell laughing as if it were the latest joyride. Tahu Rhodes
takes them all in his stride and is easily the best singer to
have taken the part in this production in its sixteen year history.
As Leporello, John Pringle is like a long-lived
Italian baritone with dozens of vocal tricks to boost the part
and, where necessary, cover any vocal shortcomings. The top of
his voice sounds weak and on the whole may not respond to any
undue pressure but it is a well schooled and responsive voice.
Like Landner it is what he does with it that is as good as how
it may sound. Tiffany Speight has a very beautiful and even voice
and uses it well. She has a lovely forward projection with an
beatiful open tone on words like 'vorrei' in "La ci darem".As
Elvira Fiona Janes has the glossiest of all the female voices
but the upper reaches of the part are a little approximate. She
may be a crossover soprano as her career is peppered with mezzo
parts like Rosina, Dorabella, Sesto and Siebel so maybe the upper
reaches won’t glint like an exclusive soprano. She is handicapped
too by Mozart and da Ponte's making Elvira relapse back into Giovanni-worship
in the second act and having to be Leporello's stooge when he
switches clothes with Giovanni. Perhaps 'mi tradi' with its shift
from love to pity for Giovanni could have helped her out. The
appeals to God might have made her announcement to enter a convent
less of laugh inducing surprise too. I know Ottavio is a thankless
part (he always seems as though he strode in from an oratorio)
but his decency is offended at every turn and he is resolute that
he will deal with things honorably. Jaewoo Kim could show a little
more of Ottavio's internal conflict as his decency is outraged
by Giovanni's indecency time after time. In the "Or sai chi
l’onore" scene with Elivira, he picks up some of the
Ladner's intensity, he responds and reacts to her narration and
does so again in the later scene when he and Anna meet Elvira.
Vocally he sounds though like Korea’s answer to Peter Schreier.
His breath control is wonderful and he spins out long phrases
in “Il mio tesoro” like John McCormack. Judd Arthur's
is virile looking and sounding and could have put up an Errol
Flynn/Basil Rathbone Robin Hood sword fight if he wanted but dutifully
died in the few bars allotted for slaughtering the Commendatore.
His 'stauesque' walk in the final scene is ominous.
The orchestra under Imre Palló did not go
for the extremes to be heard in the many recordings of this opera.
From the very opening of the overture the tone was more moderate
than mercurial. Palló plays the harpsichord himself which
might suggest that he is feeling their importance along with the
singers and which may account for them having as much success
in the storytelling as the orchestral contribution. The orchestral
tone was modern rather period style so the strings had plenty
of weight. The theatre holds about 1,800 and to fill such a big
space the balances of voice and orchestra were very good indeed.
Michael Magnusson
To read more of Michael Mangusson's theatre reviews,
check out his blog at
On Stage (and walls) Melbourne.
