On Don Giovanni (everything but the singing, that is)

(See also: On Don Giovanni (the good stuff))

My earlier post probably sounds a bit more broadly dismissive than I actually feel about Opera Australia's new Don Giovanni. I mean, there's no way that this production will be to everyone's taste, but that, dare I say it, is arguably a positive thing. All of Mozart's mature operas are exceptional but Don Giovanni transcends even that level of brilliance; it's a fascinating, unsettling and totally wonderful creation, and I'm all for measures which prevent anyone from settling into an idea that it's just jolly, comfortable Mozart with pretty costumes and prettier arias.

Elke Neidhardt's production is (slightly) challenging and for that I'm thankful. There are aspects of it which I think are seriously clever and I can't deny that she does a wonderful line in politically incorrect humour (my favourite kind). What troubles me is that the flashes of inspiration are just that — flashes. In between, the coherence and edginess of the vision seems, to my untrained eye, to fall away.

The production begins and ends powerfully. From the overture — which is twinned to a rapidly flashing countdown clock/light show — through the murder and Donna Elvira's entrance, right up until the appearance of Masetto and Zerlina — all that, I basically like. I can't say I love it, but then, lovability isn't the point. And the audacity of the concept is occasionally let down by anticlimactic staging; I'm thinking particularly of the slaying of the Commendatore. For heaven's sake, he pulls an old man out of his wheelchair, stabs him and then merrily wheels himself about in said wheelchair — it could stand to look even more shocking, I think, than it does. All in all, however, it's a pretty strong, occasionally genuinely unsettling (the casual implication that the Don likes really little girls, for instance) beginning.

Innovation returns in the tail end of the piece, when life on earth for Giovanni is really beginning to unravel. I'd say from Donna Elvira's "Mi tradi" to the very end. If you can accept the absence of a physical statue and its supernatural animation; and the replacement of these with a hallucinatory drug habit, then the staging of the dinner part is impressive. Giovanni by now is completely disgusting, dripping revolting looking soup all over his hugely unattractive tracksuit. (I hate tracksuits.) Leporello is manic. The voice comes from above, below, at unnatural volume (Jud Arthur + reverb). Death comes in the form of blindingly bright light — so bright I'd be willing to bet it elicits a letter of two of complaint from staid subscribers in the stalls. (If you saw OA's Alcina, it's brighter than that production's final scene. By quite a lot.) Leporello is left unconscious or possibly dead. The other five run in, aghast. Their sextet is cut.

A suitably disturbing conclusion. I agree with Club Troppo's James Farrell, though, that advance notice of the sextet's absence might have helped its impact. The printed synopsis is (or seems) deliberately ambiguous about its inclusion, possibly with good reason. As it is, those who know the opera aren't sure if it's coming or not and there's an uneasy hesitation before the applause begins properly.

But the middle troubles me, because it doesn't maintain the twisted intensity of the rest. In fact, much of it looks, scary sets and drug references notwithstanding, a lot like any conventional Don Giovanni. Women still fall to the floor every time emotions run a litle high. Masetto and Zerlina's peasant entourage still divides itself neatly by gender. And a Don Giovanni who is supposedly a forcefully physical, sex-obsessed and wired playboy, still seduces Zerlina by singing about her hand from the other side of the stage. To be frank, staging clichés like these bother me even in über-conventional productions; here, they're a real shame, because there was potential for so much more, for grittier, more believably modern action and interaction.

Can't say I'm fond of the sets; jagged, neo-neo-Gothic is fine in principle but in this instance I felt they faded into the background before long. Although on a practical note, the angle of the walls and the mirrors in the dinner scene do make this production unusually easy to appreciate from an obstructed view seat, so my thanks for that. Jennie Tate's costumes, though, are offbeat and appealing. Donna Elvira has the best wardrobe, hands down: endless frills and ruffles, bright, gaudy colours and fabulously silly shoes. It underlines the contrast between fraught Elvira and restrained Anna, who (after an initial appearance in her nightie) is dressed in elegant mourning throughout.

There are other miscellaneous intriguing(ish) ideas. When Giovanni is confronted at the masque — and expresses his indifference to the charges against him — members of the chorus hold up black and white placards displaying a selection of titles of works about Don Juan. Other operas, novels, plays, etc., perhaps a suggestion that while, as his victims claim, the world will know of his deeds, he'll be glorified rather than utterly reviled. And although it's a blackly contemporary setting, most of the weapons — the Commendatore's sword, Masetto's guns — are antiques, which struck the dormant literary scholar in me as a symbol for the futility of outdated notions of morality against this constantly self-updating bad boy. I could be way off.

Ultimately, though, the loss of momentum and innovative vision in the body of this production have left me underwhelmed. That it is a brutal, rather ugly Don Giovanni is not necessarily problematic; but when it becomes brutal, ugly and uninteresting, that's a deal-breaker for me.