già la brunch è preparata
Oh, but this looks dire.
Not the fellow wallowing amidst the counterpane, obviously — he’s rather dishy if you like that type — but rather what he’s advertising. It’s a reworking of Don Giovanni called (La Cieca only wishes she were making this up) “The Gay Don,” to be previewed on July 4 at the London Pride festival in Trafalgar Square.
If MusicOMH can be trusted, the gaydaptation is “set in a 1980s club and with most of the Don’s conquests as men rather than women.”
…Zerlina becomes Zac a young James Dean type, Masetto becomes Marina the vampish fiancée of Zac who gets stood up, Don Ottavio is Olga the beautiful and imposing Russian immigrant who is besotted with Alan ( Donna Anna)…
Oh, you can write the rest for yourselves. La Cieca is going to sign off now as she imagines with a shudder the staging of “Là ci darem la mano.”
Yeah the gay Swan Lake has died away completely, as far as I know. Good riddance. Perhaps this kind of thing has to happen once, as a kind of innoculation against it ever happening again.
Surely the Met will come to its senses and send on Elizabeth Whitehouse and that Michaels-Moore chap in place of those absurd Finns.
I’m not sure about the Gay Swan Lake being completely dead yet. I saw it in London only a couple of seasons back. Mildly amusing. Perhaps the success of Billy Elliot will make it drag out its sorry existence way beyond its best-by date, like some balletic equivalent of madame Gruberova.
This reminds me of last year’s Donna Giovanna – aweful:
http://www.davidlevimusic.com/bio.html
i defo know where i will NOT be going on saturday!
“some balletic equivalent of madame Gruberova.”
Wouldn’t that have been Karin von Aroldingen?
I always thought Matthew Bourne had a very elegant answer to the gender question. He was asked ‘Why did you use men in the corps de ballet? They’re supposed to be women’ and he smiled and said ‘They’re supposed to be swans’.
The Gay Don doesn’t look too encouraging. Although Ranjit Bolt’s a good and respectable writer, so all hope isn’t lost.
La ci darem la testa.
I think this would be a lot more interesting if the ladies were played by men, as ladies. I would love to hear what some good sopranistas could do with the roles…Jaroussky as Donna Anna? why not?
Cencic as Elvira.