(no subject)
May. 2nd, 2014 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI saw the second two thirds of Don Giovanni Wednesday at Philadelphia Opera. Shows what I get for writing three posts here about the Noah movie- New Jersey was hit with a massive rain storm that flooded a number of roads, and my typical hour and a half drive into Philly turned into two and a half hours. I missed the overture and the first few scenes, but was in my seat the scene before the Catalog aria, so for the most part I'm not too upset.
Philadelphia Opera's production was enjoyable, if extremely broad. Anything bawdy was played up to the highest level possible. Afterward, I had the following exchange with my friend:
Nate: "I hadn't realized how rapetastic Don Giovanni would be. I kind of thought it would be more ambiguous whether he seduced the women or raped them, but no, he just was going around raping everyone."
Ferret: "Nope, Don Giovanni is always about rape. Even when it's more "ambiguous" about consent than this production, it's still completely rape. Don Giovanni is a terrible person."
Nate: "Yeah! I was surprised by that. I hadn't realized there wouldn't be any defense of Don Giovanni. The text really doesn't try to offer any mitigations or explanations, except that one aria where he sings about loving women universally."
Ferret: "And even there, you have Leporello chiming in to contradict him."
Nate also pointed out that there's a good deal of Rocky Horror in Don Giovanni, or I should say vice versa. The idea of sexual libertinism as entertainment summed up by a Puritanical ricorso is very much the same, and of course there are also literal statues coming to life in Rocky Horror.
The curious effect of playing Don Giovanni broadly and bawdily and yet making the Don himself unmistakably demonic is that it really puts the rest of the cast up for grabs shipwise. There's just so much talk about sex and bodies and intimacy in the air that it raises all sorts of tempting thoughts. I found myself interested at various moments in Donna Elvira/Don Ottavio, Leporello/Donna Anna, Leporello/Masetto, as well as some canon pairings like Donna Anna/Don Ottavio.
Also, I love that Don Giovanni tells Leporello "I'm about to add a dozen names to your list." I love that the list is a shared kink of theirs. This was not a G/S shippy production, at all- if anything Leporello trudged around with an undisguised loathing of his master most of the time, except when it his own selfishness overcame it- but there is always at the center of their relationship their shared fascination with the list.
Philadelphia Opera's production was enjoyable, if extremely broad. Anything bawdy was played up to the highest level possible. Afterward, I had the following exchange with my friend:
Nate: "I hadn't realized how rapetastic Don Giovanni would be. I kind of thought it would be more ambiguous whether he seduced the women or raped them, but no, he just was going around raping everyone."
Ferret: "Nope, Don Giovanni is always about rape. Even when it's more "ambiguous" about consent than this production, it's still completely rape. Don Giovanni is a terrible person."
Nate: "Yeah! I was surprised by that. I hadn't realized there wouldn't be any defense of Don Giovanni. The text really doesn't try to offer any mitigations or explanations, except that one aria where he sings about loving women universally."
Ferret: "And even there, you have Leporello chiming in to contradict him."
Nate also pointed out that there's a good deal of Rocky Horror in Don Giovanni, or I should say vice versa. The idea of sexual libertinism as entertainment summed up by a Puritanical ricorso is very much the same, and of course there are also literal statues coming to life in Rocky Horror.
The curious effect of playing Don Giovanni broadly and bawdily and yet making the Don himself unmistakably demonic is that it really puts the rest of the cast up for grabs shipwise. There's just so much talk about sex and bodies and intimacy in the air that it raises all sorts of tempting thoughts. I found myself interested at various moments in Donna Elvira/Don Ottavio, Leporello/Donna Anna, Leporello/Masetto, as well as some canon pairings like Donna Anna/Don Ottavio.
Also, I love that Don Giovanni tells Leporello "I'm about to add a dozen names to your list." I love that the list is a shared kink of theirs. This was not a G/S shippy production, at all- if anything Leporello trudged around with an undisguised loathing of his master most of the time, except when it his own selfishness overcame it- but there is always at the center of their relationship their shared fascination with the list.