Taking liberties
I am trying to remain open-minded and optimistic about Opera Australia's new production of Don Giovanni, which opens here in July. The director is Elke Neidhardt. Elke, who on the one hand directed the critically acclaimed Adelaide Ring Cycle and was a welcome voice of brutal reason on Operatunity Oz; and who, on the other hand, was responsible for the Tannhäuser which made me want to throw large objects at the stage. Can I trust her with the closest thing I have to a favourite opera?
Because I think we can safely assume she won't leave well enough alone. Which in itself doesn't bother me; in principle I really don't mind directors who take liberties with my favourite libertine, provided they do it well, with intelligence and respect for the music and the opera as a whole. I didn't feel that Elke's Tannhäuser achieved this; reports suggest, however, that her Ring Cycle did. So we'll just have to wait and see what she has in store for the Don.
Opera Australia, bless them, are doing their best to prepare us for whatever feather-ruffling might await us. The website blurb makes mention of her "critical eye" and asks, a little ominously, "Will she find him a murdering rapist or a revolutionary?". It now also carries a warning — "Opera Australia advises that this production contains nudity." Ho-hum. Nothing very new about nudity in Don Giovanni. So for the moment I am not reaching for my smelling salts. I'm reserving judgement. But only just. I want a Don Giovanni which doesn't enrage me. I want it for the sake of Mozart, who wrote an extraordinary opera which deserves total respect. And I want it for my own sake, because it contains a cast I'd like to hear repeatedly, and I'd rather not be obliged to do so eyes closed.
If anything gives me pause, it is the quote from Elke Neidhardt herself displayed on the website. Of Giovanni, she says "He never sleeps, is fearless, irresistible to women and a threat to the status quo of society." Most of this is pretty self-evident, but the "threat to the status quo" part troubles me. I see her point, but I do worry that this view springs from the same school of thought which would have it that all the madwomen in 19th century literature are subversive proto-feminists. Surely if Don Giovanni were really concerned with recklessly challenging the status quo, with altering society and breaking convention, he would own his actions, indeed be outspokenly proud of them. Instead, he resolutely hides his face from Donna Anna, lies to Anna and Ottavio about his history with Donna Elvira, tries to frame Leporello for his own assault of Zerlina and serenades Elvira's maid in disguise. He doesn't so much challenge the status quo as manipulate it and operate ruthlessly within it. The danger of Giovanni is not that he is an obvious and unapologetic miscreant but rather that he conceals and facilitates his misdeeds under cover of conventional respectability. It is the "status quo of society" which gives him room to move; why would he want to overturn it?
If anybody challenges the status quo, I'd think it's Elvira. It is she who speaks out against him. She compromises her own social standing by admitting their encounters and his treatment of her. She interferes with his other relationships. And whereas Anna and Zerlina have responded to the revelation of Giovanni's advances with vocal proclamations of righteous anger and vows for vengeance, Elvira dares to confess conflicted feelings and, eventually, a yearning to gain actual love and tenderness from this womaniser.
I do see the threat he poses. Maybe not to the actual status quo, but to the imagined, desired status quo. To the state of society as its (supposedly) upstanding members believe it, or try to believe it, to be. Giovanni seduces and/or rapes the women, kills, beats and/or cuckolds the men; his behaviour is an affront to the façade of respectability and high morals. Still, just as I have difficulty believing that Mrs Rochester's deepest desire is to change the lot of women, I can't quite stomach Don Giovanni as an out-and-out revolutionary, as a socio-political statement or what have you. He is more egocentric, more self indulgent than that. So throw a dash of revolution in there, perhaps, but please leave my Don Giovanni (character and opera) basically intact. Everything that makes him so fascinating and exciting is already contained in the libretto and score as they've stood for centuries; add nothing and you'll find there's nothing lacking.
The above probably reads as if I've already made my mind up to argue with Elke's interpretation. I haven't. I just want to be ready for all eventualities. So while I prepare myself for the possibility she'll wreak havoc with this masterpiece, I maintain the hope that, in her own quirky and subversive fashion, she'll do it justice. It's entirely possible she will. Until July, my fingers are crossed.
Because I think we can safely assume she won't leave well enough alone. Which in itself doesn't bother me; in principle I really don't mind directors who take liberties with my favourite libertine, provided they do it well, with intelligence and respect for the music and the opera as a whole. I didn't feel that Elke's Tannhäuser achieved this; reports suggest, however, that her Ring Cycle did. So we'll just have to wait and see what she has in store for the Don.
Opera Australia, bless them, are doing their best to prepare us for whatever feather-ruffling might await us. The website blurb makes mention of her "critical eye" and asks, a little ominously, "Will she find him a murdering rapist or a revolutionary?". It now also carries a warning — "Opera Australia advises that this production contains nudity." Ho-hum. Nothing very new about nudity in Don Giovanni. So for the moment I am not reaching for my smelling salts. I'm reserving judgement. But only just. I want a Don Giovanni which doesn't enrage me. I want it for the sake of Mozart, who wrote an extraordinary opera which deserves total respect. And I want it for my own sake, because it contains a cast I'd like to hear repeatedly, and I'd rather not be obliged to do so eyes closed.
If anything gives me pause, it is the quote from Elke Neidhardt herself displayed on the website. Of Giovanni, she says "He never sleeps, is fearless, irresistible to women and a threat to the status quo of society." Most of this is pretty self-evident, but the "threat to the status quo" part troubles me. I see her point, but I do worry that this view springs from the same school of thought which would have it that all the madwomen in 19th century literature are subversive proto-feminists. Surely if Don Giovanni were really concerned with recklessly challenging the status quo, with altering society and breaking convention, he would own his actions, indeed be outspokenly proud of them. Instead, he resolutely hides his face from Donna Anna, lies to Anna and Ottavio about his history with Donna Elvira, tries to frame Leporello for his own assault of Zerlina and serenades Elvira's maid in disguise. He doesn't so much challenge the status quo as manipulate it and operate ruthlessly within it. The danger of Giovanni is not that he is an obvious and unapologetic miscreant but rather that he conceals and facilitates his misdeeds under cover of conventional respectability. It is the "status quo of society" which gives him room to move; why would he want to overturn it?
If anybody challenges the status quo, I'd think it's Elvira. It is she who speaks out against him. She compromises her own social standing by admitting their encounters and his treatment of her. She interferes with his other relationships. And whereas Anna and Zerlina have responded to the revelation of Giovanni's advances with vocal proclamations of righteous anger and vows for vengeance, Elvira dares to confess conflicted feelings and, eventually, a yearning to gain actual love and tenderness from this womaniser.
I do see the threat he poses. Maybe not to the actual status quo, but to the imagined, desired status quo. To the state of society as its (supposedly) upstanding members believe it, or try to believe it, to be. Giovanni seduces and/or rapes the women, kills, beats and/or cuckolds the men; his behaviour is an affront to the façade of respectability and high morals. Still, just as I have difficulty believing that Mrs Rochester's deepest desire is to change the lot of women, I can't quite stomach Don Giovanni as an out-and-out revolutionary, as a socio-political statement or what have you. He is more egocentric, more self indulgent than that. So throw a dash of revolution in there, perhaps, but please leave my Don Giovanni (character and opera) basically intact. Everything that makes him so fascinating and exciting is already contained in the libretto and score as they've stood for centuries; add nothing and you'll find there's nothing lacking.
The above probably reads as if I've already made my mind up to argue with Elke's interpretation. I haven't. I just want to be ready for all eventualities. So while I prepare myself for the possibility she'll wreak havoc with this masterpiece, I maintain the hope that, in her own quirky and subversive fashion, she'll do it justice. It's entirely possible she will. Until July, my fingers are crossed.
Comments