Tête de Bo
Those of you escaping the summer heat this afternoon may want to gather ’round for a performance of Don Giovanni (featuring recent convert to the shaved-noggin lifestyle Bo Skovhus) live from the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, beginning at 3:30 New York time.
Don Gionanni: Bo Skovhus
Leporello: Kyle Ketelsen
Masetto: David Bizic
Don Ottavio: Colin Balzer
Donna Anna: Marlis Petersen
Donna Elvira: Kristine Opolais
Zerlina: Kerstin Avemo
Commendatore: Anatoli Kotscherga
Chœur, English Voices
Chef de chœur, Tim Brown
Orchestre Freiburger Barockorchester
Direction musicale, Louis Langrée
Mise en scène, scénographie, Dmitri Tcherniakov
Costumes, Dmitri Tcherniakov et Elena Zaytseva
Lumières, Gleb Filshtinsky
La Casa della Cieca will welcome any realtime chatters among you!
This production was originally announced as a co-production with Mortier’s New York City Opera but is now headed for Teatro Real in Madrid. The Elvira, Kristine Opolais, debuts at the MET next season as Musetta.
For me the high point of Aix should be the new Gluck Alceste (produced by Christoph Loy who can be extremely variable) with the wonderful Veronique Gens in the title role and conducted by Ivor Bolton. Let’s hope Joseph Kaiser doesn’t screw it up as Admete, as he did last year’s Theodora at Salzburg.
Alceste – indeed a high point, quite remarkable, though copiously booed for the liberties the director, German Christoph Loy, took for its staging.
Veronique Gens, just regal in the crushing title-role, and young Joseph Kaiser full of juvenile ardor and in splendid vocal pitch, – beautiful voice, impeccable French diction, giving a very accomplished performance. The singers admirably served by Ivor Bolton’s direction.
So what’s this about only New Yorkers (or maybe ‘Mercans) booing things that are too modrun? That booing seemed louder than what I heard at the first Tosca last season, non?
I got to hear only the end, so I have no opinion on the production (except that I always enjoy Bo’s nipple). But it seemed in that bit that once again we had the phenomenon of no expense spared to have “original instruments” playing away in a scrupulously 18th-century style, while the singers wailed away as though they were singing Puccini. Or was that only at the end?
Throughout, IMHO, the singing was subordinated to the director’s concept and the ensuing acting, which often would prevent the best vocal production. I particularly felt sorry for the tenor when he had to sing Dalla Sua Pace while performing bare-chested sexual gymnastics over a supine Donna Anna.
Of all the great arias in this opera, Dalla is just one of the most difficult. I’ve only once seen and heard it done perfectly, in an old Met telecast, when Jerry Hadley stood stock still. The legato, the breath control, everything was tops. Best stand-and-deliver I ever saw.
I think this production could have used, at least at these great peaks, more of that!
Thanks for filling me in. What you describe does sound most unfortunate. Poor Don O.!
I think it was an interesting concept, but one that for one reason or another could not be sustained. At first it was hard to take the whole Don Giovanni as an outsider, maybe clinically depressed and ready to give up on living, at the hands of an Anna that was predatory and evil to the chore.
Act 2 turned into a competition of who can look crazier and who has the ugliest my-eyes-are-bulging-out-and-my-forced-smile-froze-just-like-my-grand-mother-said-it-would face.
I think the boos for the director were not unmerited, although I think the concept (at least in a basic level) is interesting.
By the way, apparently this will be on the website for on-demand viewing for 7 days, if anyone missed it.
I tried to watch the beginning that I missed and it says it is not available, yet (Fr. ?). Not really sure because the Google translation of this vital phrase is atrocious.
Someone in the chat had asked whether the Bieito production was available on DVD and I said yes. For that person’s benefit:
The DVD is available from
Amazon.com! (and a portion of the sales supports this site, so keep that in mind.)
There are also excepts on youtube with a different cast:
Hope this helps
After having recurring buffering issues, and liking neither the production nor the conducting, I turned it off about halfway through act one. I have a feeling I didn’t miss much.
THIS sounds like an interesting production. Any of you see it tonight?
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/golden-ticket-british-theatres-dynamic-duo-bring-don-giovanni-to-glyndebourne-2016520.html
we will be able to judge by ourselves on July 23 when it is webcast free of charge on Medicy TV. I learned that thanks to someone who posted a link to the free Renee Fleming concert.
I am going later this month – reviews are very mixed, from the over-excited to the tepid and disappointed. Luca Pisaroni gets the kudos, and Kate Royal the bird.
That explains why Luca’s wife was raving about it beforehand!
If I was Luca Pisaroni’s wife I’d be raving about it every chance i get….
I searched Le Monde for a review, but was only able to get line or two from a back issue (June 3) because I’m not a subscriber.
The headline is: “Don Giovanni Spoils the Opening of the Aix Festival”
The pertinent comment: “The staging and direction by Dmitri Tcherniakov reduced the music of Mozart’s opera to second place.”
I feel the same, in part because I was trying so hard to interpret the director’s intentions, his overall “concept,” that the music wasn’t hitting me with anything like its usual force.
I came to agree with Lindoro that the concept itself was interesting, especially after D.T., interviewed during the intermission, said that he wanted to bring out the notion of the masks the characters put on and take off. I hadn’t intended to watch Act II, but stayed on with that notion in mind and began to “get” it, though through much pointless static.
If D.T had been able to carry through on his idea successfully, it would have greatly clarified a “revealing” link between all three of the Mozart/Da Ponte collaborations, where hiding, changing clothes, “costumes,” names, personalities– switching identities–are essential themes in plots that are built around role reversals and subversion of the social order. Conspiratorial, revolutionary. Those were the times.
But again, a basically good, maybe even brilliant idea, not thoroughly thought out or successfully conveyed. Result: confusion far greater than either Da Ponte or Mozart ever intended.
Was this again a matter of lack of sufficient time? Even in festival conditions?
For those wishing to read a review in English:
http://francetoday.com/articles/2010/07/02/live_from_aix_a_duel_for_don_giovanni.html
I think the critic is off base on some points, but disappointment seems to be the general reaction, with each individual picking up different missteps.
Yes, you are spot on with basically good, brilliant ideas not thoroughly thought out. Bo’s characterization was interesting to start out and then just done over and over again.
and, considering Don Ottavio had it bad for the Dalla, he was able to do justice vocally to BOTH arias, always a nice treat.
http://www.lemonde.fr/depeches/2010/07/02/aix-s-ouvre-sur-un-don-giovanni-regle-par-tcherniakov-facon-drame-familial_3246_88_42881557.html
You should be able to click on this.
…also
http://www.forumopera.com/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=1810&cntnt01origid=69&cntnt01detailtemplate=gabarit_detail_breves&cntnt01dateformat=%25d-%25m-%25Y&cntnt01lang=fr_FR&cntnt01returnid=54
Thank you, Manou my Treat, for such treats!
The gratifying thing is that all of us who watched ended up with the same opinions as the critics. It’s like getting an A from the professionals.
No, an A+!
He sure liked the orchestra!
“Cordes frémissantes, vents fruités et aériens: un ange passe dans la douce nuit provençale.”
I know one thing for sure will stick with me from this afternoon’s show — that ghostly mandolin behind the hallucinogenic Serenade. Mozart’s music was intact, but put to a completely innovative use.
After seeing DG on Arte I thought about some dialog in John Guare’s play ‘Lake Hollywood’. A character describes Spencer Tracy arriving at a motel cabin with his driver and two cases of 25-year-old scotch in tow. Tracy strips, plops himself in a galvinized tub and proceeds to polish off the scotch. The driver replaces an empty bottle every time he hears a piercing cry of ‘No, no, no…’ Eventually the driver asks ‘Can I buy you anything? I’m going out.’ Tracy responds ‘I need oblivion. You can’t buy oblivion.’
Skovhus’s ‘Deh vieni alla finestra’ becomes a drunken reverie portrayed with astonishing prowess. Like Tracy, Skovhus’s Don wants extinction.
Tcherniakov’s DG inhabits a world similar to Buneul’s ‘The Exterminating Angel.’
Everyone is in ‘the family’ either genetically, by marriage or wanting to marry in.
They live together – days pass – they cannot leave – they are in hell.
During the ‘feast’ the Don dines on whiskey – anhedonia.
Giovanni is deprived of villainy – the Commendatore’s death is a banal accident.
The women are consumed with him. His camel-hair coat is their fetish.
I’ve never seen a DG this extreme or toubling. It was wearing, tearing and yet ultimately exhilarating.
Skovhu’s performance is the stuff of greatness.
Tcherniakov’s production is a peer of the extraordinary efforts of Visconti (Rome),
Sthehler (Paris), Sellars (Pepsico) and Chereau (Salzburg). Bravo sir!
Sakes alive, Jack Jakes, that’s some heavy praise. I certainly agree with you that it was very disturbing, but it had too many contrivances for me to put it on so high a pedestal, but I thank you for a clear statement of a shrewd analysis.
Is it Camus’ Caligula in which the main character while being assasinated screams in desperation, “I’m still alive.”